Category: outrigger

  • On my shoulders

    Meditating Jana.Quite some time ago, I wrote about my shoulders on my blog, and about the various scars/scar tissue that I’ve struggled with over the years.  My left shoulder, especially, gives me a lot of discomfort due to the old scars and the memories that it seems to hold in the muscle fibers.  Occasionally when I’m paddling I feel a bit of a pop and a loosening in the tissue at the front of my shoulder and realize that some old tension there has just released itself.  It both hurts and feels good to feel those changes.

    But what’s probably the most remarkable thing about my shoulders is that they are my most important weight-bearing joint.  I walk on and with my shoulders everyday when I use my crutches.  Over the years those shoulders have adapted in some remarkable ways to the tasks they bear.  Like today, I went rock climbing with John in the morning (sans prosthetic) and my shoulders carried most of the load of my body as I pulled and stretched on the wall.  And then when we went grocery shopping afterwards, I used my shoulders to bear all of my weight (via the crutches) so I could use my hands to push the grocery cart.  It probably looks awkward, but it works well for me because I’ve been doing this kind of thing for 27 years (or so).  The few times that I’ve injured my shoulders have been scary–I depend on them so much for moving and balancing.  If I had a long-term shoulder injury, my mobility would actually be more limited than with an injury to my foot or leg.  That frightens me.

    Sometimes I wonder if I should protect my body more rather than subjecting it to hard workouts with swimming and paddling and rock climbing, or whatever else the exercise du jour is.  Perhaps I should do something safe and gentle.  Perhaps I should avoid straining and stretching–just in case.  I don’t want to risk chronic injury or a lifetime of joint pain.  But then there’s this other part of me that fears that if I weren’t asking so much of my shoulders, that they wouldn’t grow strong enough for a lifetime of heavy lifting.

  • Catching Up

    Catching Up

    About four hours in to each of my long outrigger races, the shakes begin.  I’m cold, but bundling up for warmth does almost nothing to reduce the jitters.  It’s that point where my body says ‘no more.’  It wants me to stop.  And it takes everything to keep going…

    When I was traveling around Boston and visiting with friends that I hadn’t seen for a year, a few mentioned that I’d changed.  Getting a full-time job seems to have altered me at a metabolic level–I am not only thinking about work most of the time (and rather tied at the hip to my computer just in case something goes terribly awry), but I’m also far less to prone to just relaxing.  My major realization from the Exponent retreat was that I need to make sure to keep space in my life for the things that calm me.  Like friends and nephews and picture books and long walks and wading.  One symbol of the way I “let go” over the weekend was that when my Prezi for my talk didn’t materialize (due to being saved on the Internet and I didn’t have any ‘net access at the camp), I let it go and I didn’t beat myself up about it…

    But let me back up a bit, back to the shakes…  I don’t think I mentioned here that I accomplished the Catalina crossing once again. We had a wicked south-pulling current and it was a longer-than-long race–my GPS marked 37.7miles, and 6.5 hours of paddling.  I steered two long pieces, and afterwards my forearms were so sore from trying to hold the paddle in place against the waves, that they kept rapidly cramping and contracting–resulting in my fingers twisting into strange claw-like shapes.  When I got off the boat after the finish line, John was snapping photos.  Later, he said he wasn’t going to show me the pics because they were so unflattering—I can only imagine how tired I must have looked.  It’s one of those accomplishments that doesn’t feel good until a few days later, when the body has had time for some repair work…

    So as I’ve finished the team outrigger season and now have some more space in my life, I’m considering where I’ll look next for my exercise and my fun.  I feel as though I need a bit less of the long-haul endurance work–both at work and at play.  I want to continue to develop my strength, but I also want to just “be.”  I need to remember what that feels like.  Again.

  • better than coffee

    clouds
    Today I woke up at an all-too-early hour to join a before-work outrigger practice on my one-person canoe (she was more than a little dusty when I pulled her out of her berth, having sat unused for the past few weeks).  It was still dark when I was assembling the connecting pieces between the main part of the boat and the outrigger.  I fumbled because I couldn’t see what I was doing, and some of the other paddlers gave me a hand.  They commented a bit on my boat (she’s older, but a classic).

    When I launched into the water of the Back Bay everything was glassy and quiet.  The moon was full and high in the sky, and Orion was overhead.  I paddled out about a mile to the PCH bridge before I joined the other early-morning stalwarts.  I was the only female and the only morning-practice n00b–so I knew I’d be a lot slower than the others.  We did 3 sets of pyramid sprints around Lido Island (my very favorite loop in the harbor), pointed straight at the moon as she was setting on the horizon.  By the time we came around the far end of the island, the horizon was all aglow with the sun rising on the other side of the sky.  The view of the palm trees and hills framed by waves of deepening color was breathtaking.  I counted the white heron that flew directly in front of me as I passed Spider Island a good omen.

    The guys gave me a bit of a lead on all the sprints and we finished nearly every piece together (I suspect that they were being easy on me, and I am grateful for that).  As I washed my boat and headed back for a shower, I realized that my love for outrigger paddling just grew to whole new level.

    I now have the best reason ever to get out of bed early every morning (and a paddling wake-up call is so much better than coffee).

  • Catalina Crossing!

    It’s that time of year again, when all of my thoughts are focused on the U.S. Outrigger Champs race.  The picture above is from last year, where I am sitting in seat 5 (just in front of the steersperson) on the last leg of the race to Descanso Beach.

    I’ll ride the Catalina Flyer over to the island early tomorrow morning and then paddle my way home with a Masters Coed team.  Three of us paddled together in this race last year, and it was a great experience.  I’m looking forward to making more memories!

    If you’re local, you might want to head over to Newport Beach to watch the outriggers cross the finish line!  We’ll come in at the Newport Harbor mouth, come straight down the channel, and finish in front of the turnoff for the Newport Dunes, probably the first boats will arrive around 2pm and the rest of us will trickle in over the next few hours.  I’ll be texting my location to John occasionally (if I have a signal) and hopefully he’ll forward any interesting updates to twitter (@johnremy).  If I can, I’ll send over some tweets and pics myself while I’m taking a rest on the support boat!  :)

  • go-walla

    Just a few days ago, I joined up with gowalla.com. I’m feeling a lot like I did a few years ago when I first joined twitter–the possibilities of this new platform aren’t yet apparent to me. But I have friends who really enjoy geo-tagged games (so I’m convinced I just might, too), and I have to admit that there’s something kind of fun about “checking in” at different places and seeing other people who have also frequented those same spaces.

    But I have to say, probably the main reason that I joined, is because I’m bringing my phone along with me to when I canoe to Catalina this year. And you can bet that as soon as I’ve paddled all those miles over, I’m going to be celebrating by broadcasting my geolocation far and wide.

    Today I came across this video of last year’s Oceanside outrigger race. In this vid I’m steering a coed crew and I appear at around 55 seconds from the right side of my boat, and then a few seconds later from the left side (I’m wearing a green baseball cap). Can’t you just see how exciting the race is from this video! The waves were particularly rough that day and several boats tipped over. On the 28th I’ll be paddling in Oceanside again, and then Sept. 11th will be the big Catalina crossing. Woot!

    Oceanside Women’s Race from Andrew Waldron on Vimeo.

  • turning

    I’m sitting in seat two of the orange and blue canoe in this picture. We’re making a turn here, fighting with a slew of other boats to get the best position (not on the outside). Turns are so exciting and scary–bumping up against other canoes and trying to get the timing just right! I love it when we get the chance to see photos that reflect some of the craziness of those moments!

  • The Ocean & Me



    This post is about my experiences with the ocean, and is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish. 

    My maternal ancestors come from the Isle of Man, a peculiar piece of land that’s situated in the Irish Sea. My ggggrandfather and his kin were ship captains, and were certainly smugglers like most who hailed from Manx ports.  A few years ago when we visited the Isle we saw his warehouse in the main port city.  We also saw the ancestral farmlands and the parish cemetery where nearly every headstone had a familiar name.

    I didn’t see the ocean myself until I was 14 years old, having grown up in Oklahoma and Colorado.  I’d just completed a year of chemotherapy treatments and my family planned a HUGE trip to California.  My first glimpse of the ocean was from PCH, driving towards San Diego from LAX.  By that time I’d already lost my leg and was ambulating rather precariously using crutches and an ill-fitting prosthetic limb.  I don’t recall actually dipping my toes into the Pacific during that trip, though it’s possible that I did.  Much of my memory of that era is long gone–which may be a blessing given how tough a time it was for me.

    Shortly after that trip to California my family relocated from Denver to Bakersfield, which meant that we lived close enough to visit the beach a few times every year.  However, because none of my prosthetic limbs were water-proof (or even water-resistant), I had to use crutches when I wanted to be on the beach.  And the logistics of trying to “crutch” in the waves was so frustrating, I never went more than shin-deep in the ocean until about two years ago.  Isn’t that crazy?  My first swim in the ocean was at age 36!  That summer John & the kids helped me do so by fetching my crutches back and forth as I needed them to enter & exit the ocean.  And I had the opportunity to swim in both the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean that year because of our family vacation to the outer banks of North Carolina.

    me

    When I decided to take up the sport of outrigger canoeing, I met with my prosthetist and discussed the possibility of crafting a waterproof leg that I could wear in and out of the canoes.  He’d never made a leg like the one that I wanted, but was willing to see what he could come up with!  He ended up cobbling together a “pirate” pegleg with an ankle joint at the knee (the only waterproof joint he could find that could be locked into both straight and bent positions).  There’s a little knob that I turn at my knee when I transfer from walking to sitting in the boat, that locks the knee in either position.  Perhaps the most questionable part of this leg was whether it would stay on when I fell out of the boat or needed to jump into the ocean (such as in 9-man season when we change seats for the long races).  The first time I tried was on a “huli drill” where I had tip our 6-man canoe to practice the recovery process.  I was in charge of tipping the boat because I was the steersman.  I can’t tell you how scared I was about that–not even knowing if my leg would stay on once I fell into the water, much less knowing how it would work to swim in the ocean with it attached to my body!

    But what I learned from my huli drill & from the other times that I wore it in the ocean, was that leg does stay on and that it’s quite a gift to be able to walk autonomously from beach to water.  Each time that I’ve jumped out into the waves and started swimming is a miracle to me.  I don’t take it for granted even for a second!  It took me 36 years to swim in the ocean and when I did, it felt so “right.”

    I suspect that my love for the ocean runs gene-deep, coming from my island ancestors who sailed the seas. But whatever the reason, when I’m in the ocean I feel connected to the universe in a way that I’ve never felt in any other space.  With the water buoying me up, the rhythm of the waves rocking my body, the sun warming my skin, and the thrill of the unknown below…it’s there that I feel the complete perfection of my life and this world.

    C, Suz and me in the waves
    Picture of me in the Atlantic Ocean with GameBoy and my little sister.

  • The Ocean & Me



    This post is about my experiences with the ocean, and is one of a series to support my 39th Birthday Wish. 

    My maternal ancestors come from the Isle of Man, a peculiar piece of land that’s situated in the Irish Sea. My ggggrandfather and his kin were ship captains, and were certainly smugglers like most who hailed from Manx ports.  A few years ago when we visited the Isle we saw his warehouse in the main port city.  We also saw the ancestral farmlands and the parish cemetery where nearly every headstone had a familiar name.

    I didn’t see the ocean myself until I was 14 years old, having grown up in Oklahoma and Colorado.  I’d just completed a year of chemotherapy treatments and my family planned a HUGE trip to California.  My first glimpse of the ocean was from PCH, driving towards San Diego from LAX.  By that time I’d already lost my leg and was ambulating rather precariously using crutches and an ill-fitting prosthetic limb.  I don’t recall actually dipping my toes into the Pacific during that trip, though it’s possible that I did.  Much of my memory of that era is long gone–which may be a blessing given how tough a time it was for me.

    Shortly after that trip to California my family relocated from Denver to Bakersfield, which meant that we lived close enough to visit the beach a few times every year.  However, because none of my prosthetic limbs were water-proof (or even water-resistant), I had to use crutches when I wanted to be on the beach.  And the logistics of trying to “crutch” in the waves was so frustrating, I never went more than shin-deep in the ocean until about two years ago.  Isn’t that crazy?  My first swim in the ocean was at age 36!  That summer John & the kids helped me do so by fetching my crutches back and forth as I needed them to enter & exit the ocean.  And I had the opportunity to swim in both the Pacific and the Atlantic ocean that year because of our family vacation to the outer banks of North Carolina.

    me

    When I decided to take up the sport of outrigger canoeing, I met with my prosthetist and discussed the possibility of crafting a waterproof leg that I could wear in and out of the canoes.  He’d never made a leg like the one that I wanted, but was willing to see what he could come up with!  He ended up cobbling together a “pirate” pegleg with an ankle joint at the knee (the only waterproof joint he could find that could be locked into both straight and bent positions).  There’s a little knob that I turn at my knee when I transfer from walking to sitting in the boat, that locks the knee in either position.  Perhaps the most questionable part of this leg was whether it would stay on when I fell out of the boat or needed to jump into the ocean (such as in 9-man season when we change seats for the long races).  The first time I tried was on a “huli drill” where I had tip our 6-man canoe to practice the recovery process.  I was in charge of tipping the boat because I was the steersman.  I can’t tell you how scared I was about that–not even knowing if my leg would stay on once I fell into the water, much less knowing how it would work to swim in the ocean with it attached to my body!

    But what I learned from my huli drill & from the other times that I wore it in the ocean, was that leg does stay on and that it’s quite a gift to be able to walk autonomously from beach to water.  Each time that I’ve jumped out into the waves and started swimming is a miracle to me.  I don’t take it for granted even for a second!  It took me 36 years to swim in the ocean and when I did, it felt so “right.”

    I suspect that my love for the ocean runs gene-deep, coming from my island ancestors who sailed the seas. But whatever the reason, when I’m in the ocean I feel connected to the universe in a way that I’ve never felt in any other space.  With the water buoying me up, the rhythm of the waves rocking my body, the sun warming my skin, and the thrill of the unknown below…it’s there that I feel the complete perfection of my life and this world.

    C, Suz and me in the waves
    Picture of me in the Atlantic Ocean with GameBoy and my little sister.

  • My 39th Birthday Wish

    Many of you probably remember my birthday wish last year, where we raised over a thousand dollars for HandReach to purchase prosthetic limbs for Huang Meihua, a survivor of the Sichuan earthquake.  What a wonderful experience that was, particularly because I was marking the 25th anniversary of my cancer diagnosis with that event.

    I wanted to do something similar this year, and have thought a lot about what might be an appropriate organization to support with birthday donations.  Because here’s the thing:  I have everything I need and want.  And my birthday would be so much more meaningful if we could “gift” something together.  So I’ve got a plan…

    But first, a story:  Nearly two years ago when I was just starting to recover from my leg infection and wanted to “get healthy” again by exercising, I was chatting with my neighbor.  I was telling her how frustrated I was with nearly every athletic activity that I’d tried, because I always had to ‘adapt’ the activity to me–to do different poses than the rest of the yoga class, to ride a heavy 3-wheeler instead of regular bicycle, and so forth.  I told her that I wanted to find a sport that I could do without having to alter it for my different body.  She then told me about some of her friends who had lower-limb issues (from  amputation to blown out knees to nerve damage) who were outrigger or dragon boat paddlers.  She then suggested that I try it out and told me about her team (IMUA Outrigger Canoe Club).

    Well, most of you have already heard what happened after that…and you have been all-too-kind in indulging my paddling passion in the meantime…

    So here’s how this is relevant to my birthday:

    First and most importantly, I want each of you to think about someone you know that should know about paddling, and share my story with them.  Tell them about the one-legged 39 year-old blogger that you discovered through the magic of the internet and let them know that paddling is the perfect sport for someone who has lower limb issues (or for anyone who loves the water and wants to move their body!).  Send them the link to my website.  Spread the good word of the paddle far and wide.  Really, truly, this is what I most want for my birthday.  I want to reach the folks out there who need to know that outrigger canoeing just might be the perfect sport for them.  Here are some relevant links that you could send them:

    My first race–when our boat tipped over just after the starting line

    Learning to steer the canoe 

    On Cancer, Canoes, & Connectedness

    My thoughts after racing from Newport Beach to Catalina Island

    So share this with your friends and drop a comment below to let me know how it went.  I can’t wait to hear about it!  To know that others might find paddling as satisfying as I have, would be the perfect gift.

    Second:  As I’ve become more involved in the outrigger community, I’ve learned that there are some “Adaptive” racing opportunities out there for those of us with disabilities.  For example, you might remember that originally I’d planned on spending birthday #39 in New Caledonia, paddling for an Adaptive team at the World Va’a Champs.  But our racing division was canceled because there weren’t enough Adaptive teams signed up for the event.  What I’ve learned from this is that I don’t really need to paddle for an Adaptive team. Outrigger is a sport the ‘levels the playing field’ and I can compete with bipeds just fine.  And this is where the second part of my wish comes in…

    My Team, IMUA, has three lower-limb amputee paddlers.  When I showed up on the beach for practice for the first time, no one suggested that I wasn’t “able” enough to compete with the team.  Though team members were more than willing to make sure that I could get in & out of the boat okay (which, before I got my waterproof prosthesis, meant stowing my crutches on the beach above the tideline as we launched), there was never a moment where anyone suggested that I needed to be on a different team because of my disability.  And the fact that IMUA has three amputee paddlers when I don’t know of any others in our league says a lot about our team’s openness.  Not only do we have amputee paddlers, but we have paddlers with bodies of all shapes and of all ages (from 7 years-old to 70 years-old!).  Some of us are elite athletes and some of us are just keeping fit.  The diversity of the team is its biggest strength!

    So if you’d like to give a donation to celebrate my birthday, I’m asking that you donate to IMUA in my name, to carry on the good work of the team that has embraced me this past year.  Our team is doing so much good in the world of paddling–from sending a Senior Masters Team to race in Hawaii this week, to developing a full-fledged Children’s program that includes 3 groups at different age levels (my kids’ teams), to being the most enthusiastic group at the local races.  To sweeten the deal, for everyone who donates $39, I’ll take you out on the water for your own personal outrigger lesson!  We’ll go out for a few hours in the Newport harbor on 1 or 2-man outrigger canoes.  If you’re not local, we’ll take a raincheck for the next time you’re in SoCal (because everyone tends to get down here for one reason or another!).  My birthday goal is to find 10 friends who’d like to donate $39 for a personal paddling lesson.  (Note: If you want to donate, send me the funds via PayPal to janaremyATgmailDOTcom.  I’ll have a button up on my site in a day or two where you can make direct donations to the team, but until then, just send the money to me and I’ll pass it along to the team).

    So it’s really simple, friends.  Don’t bother with birthday cards or cake or anything like that.  Just tell my story to someone that you know and pass along the link to this post and/or some of my other outrigger posts.  And if you’re ready to join in the fun, pledge some money and we’ll get you all set up for your very own lesson.  By doing this, you’ll give me a super gift.  Because if we can share this sport with just a few friends and friends-of-friends who really need to hear that there’s the perfect mode of exercise out there for their particular body, then I’ll be thrilled!  That will make my day and my year just perfect!

  • some lessons from the sea

    Just returned from a family adventure to the Santa Barbara coast.  Catgirl & I had races launching off of Leadbetter Beach on Saturday morning, so it seemed a great excuse for the family to “get away” for a couple of days.  [Note: Why does “getting away” in LA necessarily mean hours of time spent fighting traffic (sigh). Next year we will plan better so we can take the train instead of driving…]

    Our campground was one of those where there is more space for cars and RVs than for tents (hello, SoCal), and our campfire was only about 10 feet away from that of our neighboring site.  But the location was incomparable.  On the other side of that campfire was a chainlink fence and on the other side of the fence: traintracks! (oh, how I do love me a train!).  Periodically the Surfliner and freight trains would come crashing through–so loud that the ground shook and it felt like they would soon come barreling into our campsite.  Perfect!  Oh, and on the other side of a row of RV campsites was the water–the waves crashing loudly against cliffs of natural bitumen.  Scrambling along those cliffs was quite the adventure for us!  Amazing shells, rocks and other wonders.  Because we arrived at dusk we mostly explored the cliffs (at high-ish tide) in the dark that first night.  As I sat on an outcropping with my legs dangling down far enough to catch the spray of the waves crashing beneath me, all was right in my world.

    Saturday morning we arose before dawn to prep for our race.  Catgirl launched with her canoe into the ocean around 8am. It was their first surf entry and their first paddle in the open ocean.  When we could see that about a mile out a boat huli’d, we quickly asked some race officials whether it was the Keiki girls.  But it wasn’t and they were quite safe and invigorated by their 4mi paddle! They hardly even look weary in this post-race photo!

    Just after they returned, I set out for my own race, a 13mi triangle out on the open ocean.  I was slated in an “Open Coed” boat with a new-to-me crew.  I’d only paddled with the other two gals a few times and the three boys I met for the first time as we hopped in the canoe. My past experience with new-to-each-other crews is not so good–often it means that you don’t blend well or know how to support each other.  I had resigned myself to having a tough (meaning: long and frustrating) race.  On top of that, I’d been asked to sit in seat #1, which I’d only done a few times at practice, and never for such a lengthy race.  Seat one is particularly tough because you set the pace for the entire boat.  And every time you set your blade, you’re putting it into ‘dead water’ because you’re out in front.  It’s hard to sit up there and keep a good rhythm for any length of time–especially out on the open ocean where you’re often taking the full force of the wind and waves and having to “keep time.”  Adding  to the difficulty is that you often can’t hear what’s happening in the boat behind you, because you’re sitting so far forward of the rest of the crew.

    The race started and we were dead last.  Last.  In a sea of 50+ boats, that is pretty discouraging news, indeed. I tried to remind myself that I was paddling for the fun and experience and not just for medals.  I was looking at the scenery.  I was trying not to focus on all of those other boats out there in front of us, getting smaller by the second…

    And then somewhere between mile three and five, something changed.  Other crews that had started out fast were starting to fatigue.  But I could feel that my boat was just getting warmed up.  We’d figured out each other’s rhythms.  Things were starting to gel (and, especially, the guys in seat 2 and 3 were keeping us all motivated).  And then we started passing other boats.  Two, then three, then four.  More than I could keep track of.  Seat #2 kept pointing out to me how tired those crews looked and how strong we were.  We kept going.  We neared one of the oil rigs off the coast–our first turning point.  Kathy, our steerer, took that turn beautifully and we gained more ground.  By the second turn at about mile 8, we were gaining on the other crew from our own team.  I whooped as we passed, knowing that we weren’t supposed to be passing them.  But…wow!  In those last few miles the wind picked up and we started to get catch some bump.  We were surfing the swells and then we saw off the left hand side of the boat a group of about 40-50 seals, all frolicking around us–undoubtedly curious about this odd group of canoes crossing their kelp beds.  That sight alone was enough to give a second wind, but then I also heard the train off in the distance.  It whistled as it sped by us on the coast (or was this just my dazed imagination? I’m not even sure now).  I let myself feel that sound–the sound of an engine on its tracks–and kept my arms going, even though I realized that the paddle was feeling so heavy I wasn’t sure that I keep hold of it!

    Heading into the finish line we were neck-and-neck with another coed crew–so close that I’m not even sure which one of us crossed first.  We didn’t place in the top three boats of our division, but  I do believe we were 4th or 5th–a huge change from dead last!  After we crossed the line and slowly turned the boat around, one of my teammates pointed out the dozens and dozens of other boats still crossing the line behind us.  We had passed all of those.  It was more than I could wrap my head around.

    I was so sore, I needed help getting out of the boat and walking thru the surf to the shore.

    In a daze I wandered back to our team’s camp and ate and drank and curled up on the grass for a nap.  I can’t even express just how great it feels to have worked so hard, and especially to have worked so hard as a team. I’m glad that they all believed in me, and that we kept powering through the race even though we had such a rough beginning.  And I’m learning that that’s exactly what it means to wear the IMUA jersey.

    Later that night we returned to the beach near our campsite and I had lots of time to think about what I’d learned. 

    Note: all of these gorgeous pictures were taken by John Nakamura Remy.  How fortunate I am to be tied to a man with such vision. A full set of pictures from the race day are here.

  • good luck kiss


    IMG_6363, originally uploaded by mind on fire.
    It was hard to see Catgirl shove off & race yesterday–her first “Ironman” outrigger canoe race at Crystal Pier in San Diego (ironman means that it’s a long course without any seat changes). Here I am giving her one last kiss before she leaves.

    Of course everything went well in her race and her boat took second in the Girls’ division. And my boat took second in our race later in the day–what was my most competitive and exciting race to date. What an awesome beginning to the summer race season!

  • just one of the reasons that I’m not blogging as much these days…


    IMG_9577, originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.