The DREAM Sabbatical, Great Sessions and A Close Call...

6 weeks to go! And it should be the best 6 weeks of the season. I love Autumn, the weather, fresh but sunny with a chill, Autumn red leaves and best of all wind and swell. Its time for hats and slippers, and I kind of like the fact we have distinguished seasons in the UK, even though it is frustrating that when the good conditions come the light fades. I am not sure Autumn has kicked in properly yet, we haven't had a proper low pressure in the South West yet bringing good swell with over a 11 or 12 second period. With a rather lame Summer for windsurfing, but nice weather I might add, there was more wakeboarding, spearfishing and Crossfit than windsurfing and surfing unfortunately.

So the big trip is coming...Boards published an interview with Stef and I here: Planning the Dream Sabbatical check it out! We still have lots to do, I haven't booked a car for Chile yet and there are things such as cancelling car insurance and phone contracts etc to do too, the more boring side but important if I am not earning any money!

Luckily, there has been more wind recently, and I have had a few sessions. A couple were at Whitsands, one really unexpected quite light wind and small wave session which was fun as we didn't expect much at all. Another was Gwithian last weekend with SW winds, slightly onshore but I really enjoyed it, (see pictures below), and the last at Bigbury which ended badly...

Here are the pictures from Gwithian, taken kindly by Paul Monnington -thank you! I was using Stef's 78l Goya here as I am currently waiting for my new Simmer 69l. It took a while to get used to the bigger board, but once I had I really enjoyed using it. I still prefer my 69l for riding and jumping but it makes it easier sometimes to use a bigger board, especially in mushy waves!

Bigbury is a funny place to sail, I would say it is the most frequently disappointing place I sail unfortunately, but we keep going back! The wind is often flukey, not helped by the big island, and the waves very soft, especially with little swell. But it can occasionally be awesome. Below are some pictures taken by Julia Slack on a really good day last Winter. These aren't me, I missed this day unfortunately but did have an amazing session at Pendower in Cornwall instead.

Anyway, Tuesday wasn't so awesome, it was cross shore wind with good potential for jumping, but it wasn't windy enough. It was fun for a while until the wind died. We were all down wind at Bantham so had a long sail back up. If you know Bigbury it has a river, which on this session was ripping out, but luckily on neaps. Most of the windsurfers made it in time before the wind completely turned off, but I didn't. I was in the middle still trying to get in. I spent quite a while trying to water start, up haul, paddle on my front and swim, but wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't too worried, I was fit and wasn't cold or tired, but I wasn't getting any nearer to the beach and I was about 500m off Bigbury, maybe more.

I decided not to go straight back into the river to head down wind to Bantham as that would be directly against the rip, instead trying to go more across to the island to Bigbury. After maybe half an hour, Stef swam out to me to help me swim in, but as he did a gust came and he told me to sail back in, which I did. I got back to the beach eventually, but then got pretty worried that I had left Stef swimming, who wasn't visible at all! While all this was happening, someone had called the Coastguard as there was a kiter in trouble too, his kite had gone down and he seemed to be ripping out the bay and round the corner. Stef swam all the way in eventually, he knew the risks and his abilities, but it didn't come without a lot of worry from me! I assume and hope the Coastguard found the kiter too. It was a stark reminder of how dangerous Bigbury can be, even in tiny conditions (which I guess probably didn't help as there was no swell to surf in on). It also reminded me how lucky we are to have a Coastguard and the importance of sailing with friends, its certainly something I will consider whilst sailing away from the UK. With hindsight and advice I now know to sail directly downwind into Bantham to get to land and then have to walk up and around the rocks and swim the river, rather than trying to travel the very tempting short looking distance to Bigbury!

Tribal Clash Crossfit Competition 2013

THE BIGGEST TEAM FITNESS EVENT IN EUROPE! (According to This is South Devon!) (see here) It was Tribal Clash 2013 on the beach, masterminded by 3 amazing guys, 2 of which were from Crossfit Plymouth. I can't begin to explain how amazing it was to be part of and what it felt like to be 1 of 100 four-man teams, there was such a good atmosphere and camaraderie. I have also never seen so many fit people in one place, it was amazing to watch. The atmosphere was amazing with drums, music, tepees and screaming supporters. The opening ceremony on Friday night had all 100 teams doing sychronised burpees to the drum beat on the sand in order to tempt 'Kratos' the God out to lift his mask, the one which the winning team would hold in awe-epic! Anyway, I'll let some pictures do the talking:

The breathtaking Arena at Blackpool Sands, South Devon:

Taiko Drum team providing the booming soundtrack and the opening ceremony. They had some stamina!

Our team, Plymouth House Mafia, keen for everything and very clean pre workouts!

Workout (WOD) 1, involving log flipping and log lifting. Unfortunately we weren't so quick on this and came 80th:

WOD 2, 20 gruelling minutes of sychronised log front squats rotating the team round a sea swim. This hurt! Alot! It was killer! Our team did amazingly though and came 17th, with 300 odd squats and 7 swim laps.

WOD 3, lots of 70kg tyre lifting, flipping, running and filling with sandbags, and lots of tyre deadlifts (130kg for the men):

WOD 4, an undisclosed length trail run in four mass heats, with the first km to count and the final placing to count. The first km was a run along the shingle beach, up and down the bank and in the water-absolute killer! The run was a hilly one, approximately 5-7km, who knows?! up and down and through a river! I came in the 20's in my heat, and our combined team result gave us 10th/100, awesome result, especially as our team member Rose had never run more than a mile!

WOD 5, lots of up and over the bars, medicine ball throw overs and burpees with a run into the sea between each one (and back up the shingle slope), with the remaining time getting as many reps of kettle bell swings. This one came together for our team, we led the whole way through and it was amazing to come out of our third and final sea dip to see no team on the horizon following us! 227 reps of kettle bell swings, which gave us 7th /100. We finished on a high!

WOD 5

Team start

Up and overs

Med ball overs

Burpee ladder

Sea dip

Kettle bells

Finishing on a high, absolutely stoked!

Supporting our Crossfit Plymouth buddies

So the top 20 teams got in to the final, and with our final two results (10th and 7th), we picked up our previous days 60 something to 32nd, so it wouldn't have taken too much more to get into the final! Still, we were stoked with our result and especially happy with our last finish, the team just clicked together. The final looked absolutely horrible. It started with a 10 tug of wars best of 3, which eliminated half the finalists. Then there was log relay running, lifting and running, wheelbarrow races, partner lifts, more log running and swimming and finally tyre dragging up the beach to find Crossfit Cheltnam the final victors, and well deserved! The atmosphere was incredible, some 600 people cheering them on with drumming and music, just incredible! Here is their final picture and the mask:

I am so glad to have discovered Crossfit and I think can proudly call myself a windsurfer, surfer and Crossfit athlete. It will certainly be something I continue with, helping me next year in my windsurf competitions and later when I return to compete more in it too. I have two more months here in Plymouth to continue training in all 3 sports, (hopefully with more wind and waves than the flat windless Summer we have had!) then I am off to Chile, I cannot wait!

I am too excited, I can't wait any longer!

BIG NEWS! ...for those of you I haven't told excitedly yet, I am taking a 14 month sabbatical! From November the 1st, I will be finishing work temporarily at my engineering firm Babcock International and taking a 14 month sabbatical with the aim of competing on the PWA World Wave Tour, British BWA Tour and any other events I come across, perhaps some surfing ones too. My first stop is Chile for 6 weeks, I'll be there for the PWA and really hope they confirm a girls event, I would love to compete there! I have been watching the live ticker in Tenerife and have been so jealous of the girls out there, I can't wait to join in! My next stop is hopefully West Australia, I have wanted to go there for years, then Maui. I will have probably run out of funds by then so a few months working and doing the BWA with a long stop in Ireland should set me up for the Canaries over Summer and a Europe road trip in September. As you can tell, I have planned a lot as I have been waiting for so long!

So back to the PWA Tenerife event, I wanted to share this clip of Philip Koster, as I think the stalled forward performed well is one of my favorite windsurf moves, and who better to perform it than the World number 1!:

Off to pack the van for surfing tomorrow, hopefully it will be good!

High pressure = no wind, so Bromance Games!

Hello! I am currently back in the UK in Plymouth and its 30 odd degrees! Summer has finally come! But, there is no wind, and there hasn't been any since I got back from Pozo 2 weeks ago. Its kind of frustrating when I train everyday abroad, get psyched for trying new moves, then run out of steam because I can't train for ages when I am back in the UK. I guess that's the UK Summer though and doing a sport which depends on the weather! I did have a nice glassy surf though...

So a little update from my last days in Pozo...the waves came! But so did an infected foot...urgh. An urchin spine that I had left for 3 days suddenly got pretty angry and swollen, so I had two days off the water as I couldn't put pressure on it, and some antibiotics from the hospital. I missed the biggest windiest day, but the guys were on 3.4 so I think it would have been too much for me anyway, a shame though, I was gutted just watching! I tried a couple more pushloops, but haven't landed one yet, and the last couple of days weren't too windy-just need a good jumping day in the UK! Me and Albert did score a fun session at Ojos de Garza though, some fun wave riding, and our last day we spent like normal tourists and went to the water park!

Bromance Games! As I have mentioned, I train at Crossfit Plymouth to keep me fit, strong and hopefully more immune to injury. The Bromance games was a Crossfit Plymouth run competition over last Saturday and Sunday, where you enter with your training buddy (girls with girls, guys with guys). A lot of people ask how you judge crossfit as they think its like circuits, so I'll post the workouts and explain. There were 3 workouts a day:

Day 1:

Workout Of the Day (WOD) 1 - 9 Min As Many Reps As Possible (AMRAP) Scored on number of reps

15 Partner Deadlifts 140kg guys/90kg girls

15 Partner Burpee Bar Jump Overs

30 Partner Wall Balls (throw ball over the pull up tower)

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WOD 2 - Chipper - 20 min Time Out. Scored on time to complete or number of reps if you don't complete it

300 Double Unders

40 Front Rack Alt Lunges 50/30

50 Toes 2 Bar

60 Back Squat 50/30

70 HSPU's

80 Burpees

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WOD 3 - Mystery WOD, which turned out to be Fran, a benchmark WOD, in pairs:

42 reps of each then 30 reps of each then 18 reps of each

Thrusters 30kg for girls

Pullups

12 minute timeout, any time remaining get a maximum ground to overhead weight which counts as your score. After all that, it was pretty hard as you can tell by my face! Ha ha!

Day 2:

WOD 4 - 7km Run, first past the post

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WOD 5 - 3 Rep Max Overhead Squat (from floor) 12 min time out, scored on the weight

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WOD 6 - Mystery WOD:

3 x 5 min (in pairs) 1 working/1 resting, so 1 minute on each exercise max effort, 3 rounds:

Thrusters 60/30kg

Power Snatch 60/30kg

Box Jump Overs 24/20"

Shoulder to overhead 60/30kg

One arm kb swings 24/16kg

1 point for 1st, 2 for 2nd etc. Lowest points win :) All 6 WOD's to count towards final score.

It was my first Crossfit competition, and I loved the atmosphere! The number of workouts we did in the weekend was more than I normally do in a week, so I was pretty tired afterwards, but I had a great time and loved pushing the boundaries of my fitness.