Carli Janes
Stories (1/0)
Lifesaving Sport
I remember my first national competition in New Brunswick. I was in the first race of the day, the Ocean Woman. I stood on the line, stomach turning. I almost threw up. I looked out at the waves and just remembered: I trained too hard to get here to not do it. The waves were bigger than I was used to, maybe five or six feet. I had been training on a lake, this was an ocean. How could I stay on a surf ski? How could I swim through this? How would I be able to catch those on a paddle board? I’ve seen lots of those Australians do it on Instagram and YouTube, but this was real life! And as you can probably guess, I puked on the start line. But, as you probably wouldn’t guess, I won silver. I was behind one of Canada’s best athletes who had just came back from Australia to play with the big guys, which is what I will be doing. It’s all very exciting and scary but when people used to ask me what I was doing after high school, all I could really say was “traveling.” Sometimes I would say I'm training for swimming, but not often. Lifesaving as a sport is wildly unpopular in Canada. It’s the climate. In Australia and New Zealand and South Africa, the sport is a sport. It’s dangerous with those waves, the competition is incredible, and those athletes look like they’ve never been inside before. But the thrill is worth it. And the people.
By Carli Janes6 years ago in Unbalanced