Imagine a beautiful valley loaded with gorgeous trees, a river that boosts slides and drops and hundreds of people lining the sides like in a colosseum, cheering and screaming- The Green Race! I was totally stoked to be at the 2012 Green Race held this past weekend on the Green River Narrows here in North Carolina. The excitement for this event began weeks ago with loads of people arriving into town and to prepare for what has been called by some- ‘the best show in sports’. I was staying at one of the local legends, Shane Benedicts and it seemed that everyday of the final week leading up to the race we had new people appearing. Katrina’s parents arrived on the Wednesday and we were treated to a pre race spa that made for one of the best days of relaxing:) This was followed by race day. Around 9am I was up and ready to hike in to the middle section of the river to watch the race. It was a real scramble as the hundreds of spectators made their way down to get front row seats for one of the rowdiest extreme kayak races around. I managed to get one of the hottest seats being placed at the lip of the 12foot Gorilla rapid! The atmosphere at the river was amazing, their was a very excited buzz flying around and you could feel the intenseness of the racers as they charged down the river. I watched at least 5 people go over Gorilla upside down, a few catch the eddy after the notch and many style their way into the slides that followed. Big ups to Adrienne Levkenect who took out the Womens race 8seconds ahead of Katrina Van Wijk, and NZ Louise Urwin in 3rd. Adrienne killed it and had a time just under 5minutes! But it was also soo awesome to watch Katrina and Lou as they flew down and definately showed up a lot of dudes! In the Mens our very own Kiwi Mike Dawson took the win with a new course record of 4minutes and 10seconds! Just ahead of American Dane Jackson and Issac Levingston in 3rd. I will admit it was a little bit hard being on the sideline, but I felt very inspired and walked away from it with some dreams to come back next year or again someday to get my redemption on the river and race myself! Ashville and the Green area was a pleasure to visit. Everybody was super friendly and the community was definately one of the coolest that I have experience. So much energy and buzz! Thanks so much to all of the people I met and those that took me paddling, hiking and showed me good times in the South East. Esp. thanks to the following- Shane, Pat, Stephen, Issac, Mark Miller, Bo, Emily Grimes, Jeanie, Betsy, Clay, Fusilli, Erin, Scotty, Rebecca, Adrienne, Sarah and Chris and Cob!
The best way to recover from injury is to relax and chillout on the beach, so that is exactly what I have been doing! I was really fortunate that my Mum was heading to a Midwifery conference in Hawaii last week and I managed to pick up a cheap return ticket to Honolulu. With beautiful days on the beach under the sun, snorkling and swimming I was totally stoked to be in such a positive environment with my Mother. It is always hard being on the road for so long and getting to see my Mum was a real privilege.
I have been running most days and movement in my shoulder is coming along really nicely. Thanks to my friend Roweena Speed who is a physio back in New Zealand I feel like the recovery of my shoulder is well on track and I feel really motivated to get it sorted. For now I am back staying at Shanes place in Hendersonville, ready to watch the showdown on the Green river this weekend!
Turns out my sister is a badass rockstar as well as snowboarder, kayaker and surfer! Check it out! Love the PBR hat and wild turkey!
Big Thanks to James Simpson for helping make this happen, I am super stoked!
It has now been 2weeks since I broke my scapular. My attitude towards being injured has changed a lot in this time, I am now carrying a much more positive outlook. I saw the Orthopaedic specialist again and he confirmed that my range of movement has already improved a lot and that I am well on the way to a speedy recovery. My good friend Roweena Speed who used to rip up on the water back in New Zealand has also been giving me feedback on what I can do for rehab as she is a physio. The brake is stable and at the top of the blade so should take around 6weeks to heal, this means I will be good to go on challenging white water by mid-November. So I decided to carry on with my time here in the South East, I will be able to help with race support and chillout with all of my friends that are here. It is actually a super sweet place to be even without kayaking as there are so many good people around and a lot of good places to go hiking. I have invested in a camera and am trying to put a bit of time into learning how to use it well so I can take pictures of all of my friends on the river. Big thanks to all the locals for taking me on hikes, it has been a super sweet week here(Esp. Mark Miller, Issac, Scotty and Stephen) and to Pat for letting me stay this week well Katrina has been away. I even got to see a bear on one of the hikes this week! I am now back into running this and left handed table tennis, I want to stay as fit as possible, that way I will be ready to charge when my brake is all healed. Mentally I am back in the game and determined to stay in good physical shape so that I can have the best come back. I have always believed that if you fall or get pushed down it is a good chance to stop and think and this can be very empowering. It is time to come back stronger and better than before. As many have said, ‘its not about how you fall that matters, what matters is how you get back up’.
iv class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> Everyone makes mistakes every now and then. Whether its forgetting things, dropping a glass or even misjudging a situation.
On Tuesday the 9th of September I was pretty pumped for my 6th lap of the green (2nd lap at 100%). There were a lot of people on the river this day, we had a super solid crew. I did a few walk backs on some of the top sections as I was feeling good. I had finally figured out pretty much all of the lines up the top and felt confident with them. I even nailed ‘go left’, although it still scared me a little bit. Then upon reaching the top of Gorilla I started to feel pretty nervous. Everyone was rallying off it and I figured I should probably join suit and do the same. Last time I ran it had been so sweet and the line had felt pretty good to go. So I started off the top drops which went okay, not great but okay. Then I suddenly got quite nervous and was just not sure of the line through the notch...I was trying to remember what I had done the previous time..but it was too late. I caught my paddle somewhere in the notch and power flipped. I only had my paddle with 1 hand and then by the time I got it back I was on the edge of ‘Gorilla’ drop. I nearly got up...but not quite. So down I went, swallowed and destroyed by the rapids and rocks that lay beneath. I fell onto pretty hard rock but it seemed I had so much adrenalin I did not feel much pain. Katrina was waiting in the eddy for me and as I floated in I came out through the hole in my spraydeck (It was maybe a little bit too big for me). I was pretty out of it and felt really ill. I thought I was going to faint or throw up but I managed to pull myself together. I was pulled up onto the side and fortunately there was a few people around to help me out. Big thanks to Adrienne Levknecht, Katrina Van Wijk, John Grace and the many others that were on the scene and helped me walk out of the gorge. I was taken to the hospital and checked over and when the xray results came back the Dr. Diagnosed a fracture on my scapular. I was pretty drugged up in the hospital so was feeling pretty positive and not too bad about the whole thing. But when I got home that night the realisation of what had happened hit me.
It takes a lot of force and a hard hit to break the scapular so my body was in quite a bit of shock. But for me, I know my body will heal. The fortunate thing about bone injuries is that they heal back to 100% in 6-8weeks. The harder part in my mind is the fact that I let this happen, I messed up and made the mistake which led to this accident. I should have got out of my boat and scouted the rapid again, taken it more seriously and been sure of my line. Any new river I have paddled this year I have given full respect to and always made sure I charge my lines, because I know you have to. What scares me is that I messed up the other day. Something in my brain was not working or making me stop and think about what I was doing, I was not sure of the line and I still went. Human error maybe but this is something I could have avoided. I know I could have because I owned that rapid just a couple of days earlier. It was not a question of could I do it or not, I had already done it well. Just mentally I was not strong and this reflected in my pathetic strokes and hesitation. My confidence in my ability is low right now and I feel super gutted. Kayaking class 4/5 requires confidence and I feel like I let myself down the other day.
In 4-6weeks I should be moving towards getting back in a boat on mellow water but it is going to take a lot of mental rehab to bring my mind back to believing that I can paddle. Like I said at the start, everyone makes mistakes at some point, but in class 4/5 mistakes can cost a lot more than a glass of spilt milk. I really want to focus on mental training in the next few weeks, I believe this is a weakness for me and now is the time for me to try to strengthen this.
Thanks to everyone for the support and messages, the positivity helps a lot. Especially thanks to Shane Benedict and Katrina Van Wijk. Katrina continues to be soo supportive and she also continues to charge hard out on the water. She is a beautiful paddler and has been putting everything into it, its inspiring for me and gives me motivation to heal fast so I can join her out on the water soon!
Photo credit: Gregg Knicker
I thought I would put up a video of the Green Race so that those of you that have not yet been too the Green can get an idea of what it is about, check it out:
After another good week hanging out in Fayetteville Katrina and I cruised down to North Carolina to come to rest in Hendersonville. We are staying here at Shane Benedicts house, and we are totally stoked to be here! Big Thanks to Shane for having us. When we first arrived we went straight to the Green River Narrows and busted out a lap, big thanks to Chris G and little ripper Hunt Jennings for showing us the smoothest lines! The river was flowing at 200% so was at a nice juicy level for my first descent. snuck the line at go left and did not run Gorilla as it was looking pretty rowdy! Chris, Hunt and Dave Fusilli killed the line on Gorilla! I The rest of the run was super fun though. The next day was my birthday so we celebrated with 2 more laps down the river at 200% and then hit the bars in Ashville with some of the local dudes including Mark Miller, Jon, Dave and many others- a sweet night out for sure! Cheers guys:)
Yesterday I had my first run down the Green at 100% and was lucky enough to paddle with Adrienne L, the local lady that kills it! I walked Gorilla as I wanted to give it a good scout before running it. A very intimidating rapid! Then today Katrina and I paddled down with a dude named Bow and I fired up all of the big 3 to complete a full run of the Green River Narrows! 'Go Left' was all good and I think I got really lucky with my line on Gorilla as I somehow styled it, stoked!
Anyway we are continuing to have a good time here at the Green.
Here are some photos of Gorilla and a good night out with our friends Dave and Erin. Tits Deep is Katrina and my newest project. It is basically focused on Laides who are charging in Extreme Sports. These chicks are considered Tits Deep.
We bring the most substantial amount of sexy, style, and ease into everything we do. We are trying to encourage women to go hard in extreme sports. If you support this movement it would be totally awesome if you could hit like on our facebook 'Tits Deep' page. We are not just aiming at recognising extreme kayakers but other extreme sports athletes too.
And so the Tits Deep Tour continues and we have come to rest in America's capital city- Washington DC! We are staying with an old slalom friend Ashlee and her partner Ashlee. Washinton DC seems like a nice city for its size. We went into the centre the other day and checked out some sites and caught up with some other slalom friends for lunch.
Yesterday we met up with Aaron Mann, Erin Clansey, Geoff Calhoun and a dude Nathan and did some laps on Washington DC's white-water playgroud- The Great Falls. The Great Falls are on the Potomoc river and lead down into a very scenic gorge and then finally to a cute little slalom training site. There are several channels on the Great Falls and we started with the Maryland side. This had one beautiful 20 or so footer which gave a super clean boof. Then some fun rapids followed. Next we hit the middle channel known as Grace, this was a fun little kicker drop. Then finally we ran the right channel- Virginia. This had lots of sweet lines on the top rapids and a super clean 20 footer to finish. This drop was called the 'spout'. I was super stoked to be routing off the drops and had so much fun playing with the lines. One of my runs down the centre line at the top of Virginia was a bit off and I had a good working in 'u hole'. I managed to work my way out of the hole but was pushed up against the wall- carnage!
We went back and spent the day running the Great Falls again today. The flow on our first visits was 3.1 and on the final day it bumped up to 3.2 which made for a noticable difference. More sweet lines were had and just another mint day kayaking with good people.
Churr
Photo Crdit: Erin Clansey
50cent coffee, cheap
beer, and lots of people with funny accents...A week here in Fayetteville has
been filled with a run and climb on the endless wall, some high water runs down
the New River Gorge and more laps on the Upper Gauley. I have now paddled the
Upper Gauley in a long green boat, creek boat, playboat and playboat with
handpaddles! There has been a sweet crew of boaters around so Katrina and I
have had the joy of paddling with Bryan, Erin, Dave, Clay, Emily and the crew
from Kentucky and the MKC/OWLies. This has meant that we have had loads of
different lines and been trying out the many little slot moves and side boofs.
So yesterday I was following a little close behind Katrina and I tripped on my
paddle and got pinned upside down...a little bit of a shitty situation right
above an undercut...fortunately I managed to escape with a little swim before I
was eaten by the rock.
Anyway another sweet
week came to an end.
Big thanks to Bryan,
Eileen and Matt for having us to stay.
We have now boosted
to Americas capital city- Washington DC to run the Great Falls and visit some
old slalom friends. We are staying in slalom central with Ashlee and Ashlee
And so the journey back to the United States of AMERICA begun! Louise Urwin, Katrina Van Wijk and I piled into Katrina's little Element and did 3hour driving shifts across the Canadian and American border and into the States. After driving through New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland to reach West Virginia! Along the way we stopped off to paddle the Upper Yaugh which is a dam fed grade 3/4 creek that has limited releases. We then came to set up camp in the town of Summervile, the host of the annual Gauley Festival. The Gauley Festival is one of the biggest kayak festivals in America and probably in the world. With loads of venues set up for the different businesse in the kayak industry we were able to checkout the latest gears on the market. The Gauley River is totally awesome! It has an Upper, middle and lower section and hosts many good rapids and features. It is basically a high volume creek with beautiful scenery as it rests in a nice valley with lots of green trees and vegetation. We ran the Upper section in playboats and creekboats on the Friday and Saturday's with the OWL crew that had also come to paddle the river. There were heaps of rapids that had multiple choices for lines which was great as you could make the run as hard or easy as you like.
On the Monday Katrina and I raced in the Gauley Festival race event which was held on the Upper Section of the Gauley River. Katrina took out the long boat Womens class in her Green Boat with a time of 57 mintures, while I took out the Womens class in the the Short boat division with a time of just over 1hour and 1minute.
Now Katrina and I are staying with Ielene, Bryan Jennings, Matt S and Bryan Kirks house in Fayetteville. It is really nice to have somewhere to hideout well the rain thunders down. We will be hoping it rains so we can jump on some creeks before getting back on the Gauley River on Friday!
Canada has been totally awesome!Loaded with maple syrup, poutine, moosetracks icecream, grizzly bears and beautiful people I have had a great first visit, I am sure it will not be my last.
To end my trip here I celebrated with a wine and cheese sleepover on Miami beach of the Ottawa river. Lou Urwin rallyed a sweet crew and we raged till dawn.
I am now ready to hit the road and head back to the United States of America with my good friend, Katrina Van Wijk! We have a sick roady planned and will be joined by Louise Urwin this weekend at the Gauley Festival in West Virginia. We will then head down to the South East to paddle the Green and rivers around.
So pumped for the next adventures! Back in my creekboat and on the road:)
Big Thank you to everyone here in Canada that made me feel so welcome. I had an absolute blast instructing on the Madawaska river and met some really nice people in the process. I feel like my kayak instruction has come along way as I have learnt a lot from all of my work colleagues.
Biggest Thanks must go out to Claudia, Dirk, Steffi and Katrina Van Wijk!!! They have taken me in and really looked after me, and of course showed me a great time on the river, at the Wilno and in their little paradice. Its been a privilege to stay with them here in this beautiful valley.
Note- People here don't understand my Kiwi very well, I mean to say:
Go Left not Go lift
My Girls not My gills
A needle not A nettle
Sweet as not Sweet ass
Kiss your deck not Kiss your dick
Pull your deck not pull your dick
After the final week of instruction at MKC we spent the week cleaning up and closing the resort. It has been an awesome experience for me working at MKC and I really appreciate the opportunity I had to work there alongside many good instructors.
Sunday night Katrina, Joel K, Seth and I headed into Ottawa and stayed the night enroute to the Raquette Race in the US state of New York!
A quick practice lap down the rowdy class four run prepared us for the exciting race that was held on the Monday. About a 7minute race run which included loads of slides and drops. With only 1 practice lap and being the only ladies Katrina and I decided to run the race together. It was super sweet! My lines in the race were not as smooth as my practice run but I was sooo stoked to be back on a creek! This creek kind of reminded me of the Wairoa in NZ, although it had bigger slides and more burl.
Got me pumped for the upcoming missions!
Now I am back on the Ottawa river for my final week here in Ontario before heading down to Pennsylvania for the Gauley Festival. Stoked to have my sister Izzy here this week!:)
Photo credit: Wiseacre gardens.
Me on Double Drop on one of the local runs in the Kaimai ranges, 1hour from home. Photo credit: Gregg Thomas
Some race results from my local river- the Kaituna:)
Me on my local run- the Kaituna! The last four NZ Summers I have lived within 5minutes walk of this. Photo credit: Shilo Gibson
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Just over a year ago I raced at the 2011 Canoe Slalom World Championships in Bratislava, Slovakia. I have been on the New Zealand Senior Canoe Slalom Team since 2008 competing on the International circuit. I really enjoyed my time in Canoe Slalom and met a lot of totally awesome people that I will never forget. After coming up just short of my goals I decided it was time for a change.
Here is a video from the canoe slalom worlds last year. It was after this race that I finished my slalom racing. It was time for a change and extreme kayaking was my first choice of direction.
So for the last year I have been pursuing another discipline of white water kayaking- known to most as extreme kayaking. I have taken every opportunity to get on steep creeks or more challenging terrain in order to push myself as much as possible. I have finally managed to find some footage from my last year of travelling, it includes shots from New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia and the United States of America!!! I put it together as my bid for the White-Water Grand Prix that will be held in Chile in December. I really hope to make a spot but there is a lot of very talented women in white water kayaking and I will be so stoked if I do. This year I have been fortunate to paddle alongside Nouria Newman, Martina Wegman, Toni George and Katrina Van Wijk. All of these chicks totally kick ass and go big. I love paddling with these chicks as they have so much fire and this drives me more. My video is not the best quality and I wish I had more good footage from this year. I need to get better at taking photos and footage. Big thanks to my Argentinian friend Fidel for putting the edit together for me.
In June I raced at the Teva Mountain Games in Colorado and placed 2nd Woman after Martina Wegman of the Netherlands.Photo credit: Shilo Gibson
The pictures below feature me on slides-
Left: Nosebraker on the South Silver, California. Photo credit: Shilo Gibson
Right: A beautiful slide on the Tiegdale in Norway. Photo Credit: Toni George
This year I was fortunate enough to jump on Upper Cherry Creek in the High Sierras of California. An amazing run that is full of beautiful drops and slides and fast sections of class 4/5.
I did this trip with my good friend Josh and some other friends from the Netherlands. It turned into a 5day epic when we lost Josh on the hike in!Photo Credit: Josh Neilson
All ended well and we paddled out on mega highs!Photo credit: Josh Neilson/Casper Van Kalmthout
Above- Me racing down the Wairoa! A local Kiwi Extreme Race:)
Me flying off another drop on the Tiegdale in Norway. Photo Credit: Nouria Newman
And so my journey continues. After finishing up some work in Canada I am back on the road with my good Canadian friend Katrina Van Wijk. We are planning to head down to the Green Race that will be held at the start of November. Following this we will be flying to South America to checkout the rivers of Chile and Argentina and do some waterfall boat riding:)
I am super stoked on life at the moment and enjoying the adventure. Thank you so much to all that have helped me out along the way and been so supportive. Special thanks to my friends who have been such a big part in my travels and to those that have had me crash on their floor. Bliss-Stick have been really supportive and so have Duemstuff Kayak gear- you guys rock!
The change from slalom to extreme has been awesome, I am really glad that I made the move. The lifestyle in extreme is much more my style and I am stoked on this. There are many people that I have kayaked with in the last year that have made me really appreciate creeking, far too many people to name. I feel it is all thanks to them that I have got to where I am with my paddling.
I look forward to getting back home to New Zealand in January, it will be nice to be back on home ground.
Life here in Ontario continues to be pretty chill. After a super sweet week hanging out on the Ottawa river, camping out in the OWL Rafting campsite I am now back in the outback of the Madawaska river! I have been instructing a large range of kayakers both young and old, beginner and intermediate. It is a really nice kayaking resort here and I am stoked to be working next to a range of awesome kayak instructors and legends!
I am going to continue instructing this week and will be taking part in the MKC triathlon on Wednesday, ready to take down the secret training kitchen staff:) I am also slowly starting to organize my end of year plans! It is looking like Canada...South East of the USA and then finally Chile!STOKED!
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