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.

Pushloops, tabletops, forwards...

Pozo is overcast this morning, but still windy! I am waiting for the waves to roll in, today and tomorrow should be good! I have had a few more successful sessions and I am happy I am trying lots of moves (but also crashing a lot!) A few days ago I got my forwards more consistent, just off chop until I learn to control them better. I really have to concentrate on the sideways movement here as it is really easy to go end over end in the strong wind and hurt yourself. I also plucked up the courage to try pushloops, on a 3.4! Everyone says do them when you are really overpowered, so I put my helmet on and went for it! I haven't landed one yet, my closest attempt I caught the mast on, but soon I hope! I am also trying to improve my table tops too but they look pretty lame right now, I am struggling to get the board really tweaked! All in all though, I am glad I have mastered the courage to try pushloops and I won't go home on Monday having not tried them! I hope I get one!

Backside:

Forwards:

Pushloop crashes:

This was a pushie attempt I crashed, then Skyboy comes and does one right over my head and shows me how it is done!

Table tops:

Thanks to Jose Pinas for this shot!

Top turn:

Pozo Izquierdo!

I'm in Pozo again! I think this is about the fourth year in a row that I have come here and funnily enough, I never quite get used to the sailing here! I always come with loads of goals which I think are completely realistic until I sail here again and realise how hard it is to control everything you do....uh...

We are staying at Albert Pijoan's house with Justyna Sniady, Ben Proffit, Amanda Beenen (who has now left) and some guys and girls I hadn't met before, so its a really fun house! We sail out from the beach rather than having to launch on the horrible slippery rocks which is great, no more bashed toes! I have been sailing twice a day on 3.4 and 3.7 with my 58l custom, but today I took Ben's Flywave 68 with a 4.2 and had a rather more relaxing wave riding session! The wind hasn't been completely mental yet but its coming and I have had a few days where I have been stacked on 3.4! Unfortunately we haven't had great waves for riding yet, last year we had head to logo by the end so I am hoping for that before we leave, but at least its been windy everyday!

I have been practising my riding and my forwards, but I am still a bit freaked out by Justyna's forward injury and find myself going off the smallest ramps! I'll get some guts eventually! My riding is improving but it depends massively on the size of the waves, how chopped up they are and how overpowered I am!

Here are some photos from stills from the gopro and the video camera:

Concentration face overpowered on 3.4 and 58l board-windy!!

Upwind leg home to a nice sandy beach!

Lonely Waves...

I caught a few waves last night at Mexico's after work, smallish and pretty offshore. There was only me, Stef and some surfers out. Thanks to Will Rogers for the pics after he unluckily snapped his mast after the first wave! Low light meant they were a little blurry unfortunately...

5th Place South Portugal Regional Surf Contest!

Wow-there is loads to write about! I guess I'll start with the beginning of our trip to Pig Dog Surf Camp (check out their website here, its pretty cool!) They are located just South of Sines in a non-touristy part of Portugal which has so many surf spots to offer which are generally pretty empty!

The day before we were due to fly with EasyJet we decided to put windsurf kit in-queue 4 hours of panic packing in minus degrees outside in the dark! We had to get 3 windsurf boards, rigs and 3 surf boards all in three 32kg bags. We gambled taking a 4.2 and 4.7 only. The surf looked pretty stormy and Westerly and when we arrived in Lisbon to get away from the wet UK, we had torrential rain. Our first surfs were big, stormy and onshore, but we surfed at the Harbour Wall which was not only a few degrees warmer water due to a power station cooling loop but also had an amazing rip out by the wall you could sit in and wait for the sets.

Unfortunately the wind did its thing for a few more days, enough to muck up the surf but not enough for an onshore windsurf. There was scattered rain and while Portugal was having landslides due to the unseasonal weather, England was covered in snow. We were told this was the worst two weeks weather Portugal had had in a long time! BUT, it brightened up eventually! A few more friends came for the long weekend and we had a sunny surf while the whole West coast was pumping! We did have to find a slightly smaller spot which would normally be the harbour wall in a usual NW swell, but this was still double overhead with the West swell!

We had more surfing at Apocalypse-a beach you do not want to see at low tide as all the spindly needle rocks stick up vertical and are hidden at high tide-I was completely oblivious the first time I went in!

After all the surfing, my shoulders burned! Then after a couple of false hopes taking the windsurf kit to the beach, we finally got an awesome down the line cross off starboard session. I haven't sailed cross off starboard tack for a few years now so I was a little rusty! We were all absolutely stoked :)

The last few days brought smaller cleaner surf conditions, with more sun and more glassy waves.

I was convinced by Jon and Andy at Pigdog to enter the South Portugal Regional Surf competition at the weekend with a couple of guys they trained there. It was my first surf competition so I didn't know what to expect! The first day had the classic wait for your heat all day as it got pushed back and then moved to the next day. I saw El Point through all tides, from pretty rubbish low tide to barrelly high tide and back. The funniest and worst thing was fighting about 40 groms in the warm up session before the contest-they were everywhere and got on every wave! I surfed against two other girls in the heat, having a great first wave but then stupidly thinking someone was waving me in on the beach during the heat, paddling in a bit, and wasting loads of time getting caught by a set. I got a few more little waves but nothing spectacular, and came in thinking I'd done rubbish. Jon said he was convinced I'd got through and I only lost out by 0.1 point! If only I'd done one more wiggle! I came 5th overall, not bad for my first comp and i certainly learnt a lot!