First FL Jr SUP Team Practices!

The first Florida Junior SUP Team Practice was such a success!! Most of the team was able to make it to St. Pete Beach for the inaugural practice, which was a blast!! Time was limited because the practice is the same day as the Pacifico Paddle Challenge in order to accommodate the kids and their parents, who come from all over Florida, but it was still really fun!

                                   

First all of the kids introduced themselves. Thankfully, there's a great age range of kids and everyone had someone their own age, and I was able to equally split the group into older kids and younger kids. We worked on race skills--starts, turns, and finishes. I think they all learned a lot from each other! The littler kids paid a lot of attention to the older ones, and they all watched and rooted for each other in the races. It was so awesome to see all the team members making bonds and having fun!

When it came to the race, all of the kids totally brought it. Tanner, a 12 y/o from Destin, won the overall rec race!! 15 year olds Taylor and Connor were third and first, respectively. The littler girls; Dekai, Lindsey, Lina, and Lucy had really strong races, and it's amazing to watch them take on these long, difficult courses. Dekai's sister Milla did the Elite race and kept up pretty well with some of the faster girls! I am super proud of them. They were so grateful to get their team shirts (with an awesome logo by Sharks Creative) and loved the goodie bags my mom and I made up! 

The next weekend I organized an impromptu practice at the Paddle Addict Poker Run with some of the local kids, including Lina Bowers and Lucy Allan. Lina and Lucy are two of the most dedicated 9-year-olds I have ever encountered. They train several times a week, and even to to race courses the day before and paddle the whole route to prepare for their race. Lina is more of a sprinter, while Lucy always sticks with one steady pace. As a result, they go back and forth as to who beats who in their races. But at the end of the day, they're always nothing but happy for the other girl. Lucy came to the practice, even though she had just arrived back in Florida the night before after her spot on the David Letterman Show doing dog tricks!! 

The Marstons came to the practice as well. Gracie and Hailey are 10-year-old twins who are great competitors to Lina and Lucy. Their brother Will is 12 and they're all solid paddlers and good kids. Everyone stayed together through the course and I worked with the kids on stroke the whole time. After, we even had another paddler direct us through SUP Yoga! Our next big team practice isn't until the Orange Bowl in January, but we should have some more mini practice in the meantime :) 

It's so rewarding to put my own interests aside and focus on helping others. It's given me a lot of perspective on what's really important in a world where so many little things are vying for my attention. I see this effort going far and reaching wide, and I'm so happy to be at the start of it!! 

FL Junior SUP Team

It was already mid-October, and I had been beached for nearly a month.

Leading up to the Battle of the Paddle at the end of September, I had trained and pushed through some pretty serious tendinitis in an effort to prepare for the biggest race of the year. By the end of that weekend, my condition was worse than it had ever been, but I had a nice long stretch of off-season to rest and try to heal my injury. This is harder than is sounds. No paddling, no surfing (even if there was waves to surf) and limited cross-training. 

But I must admit that the timing was rather impeccable. Fall of my senior year is crunch time, with huge reports, accelerated schoolwork and, of course, college apps! My number #1 choice for college is the University of California San Diego. It's got strong academics, a really cool campus layout, and it's walking distance from the beach! I'm applying to a couple other California schools and instate universities as well, but UCSD is definitely my dream.

Being off the water made me restless and bored, and that's the kind of situation that leads me to overly ambitious ideas. As a result, I decided to launch my latest (and hopefully greatest!) idea- the Florida Junior Stand Up Paddle Team. This is an idea that I've been sitting on for a while, but the time has never been quite right. It was at the Fall Paddle Festival this year that I finally realized that the time is now to capitalize on youth in stand up paddling. The Fall Paddle Festival was the first race I ever competed in. At the time, I was the only junior in any division. The following year, there was maybe 3 or 4 kids racing. But in 2013, there were several juniors in just the open and elite races, let alone the kids race! Several of these kids were making podium overall, not just in their age bracket. 

I saw all of this potential; good kids trying to make the most out of an adult-dominated sport. There was no strong infrastructure for them to relate to each other, no way to branch outside their own success and be part of a group experience with their peers. I realized that I was in the perfect position to change that and bring these kids together and start something awesome. I've been in their positions as a junior trying to learn the ropes of a new sport and navigate my way through the challenges that accompany undertaking such a challenge. Plus, I'm only 17 myself-kids listen to kids before they listen to adults telling them what to do. 

It's really important to me for people to understand the the FL Jr SUP Team is in no way exclusionary. Does it require an invitation? Commitment? Dedication? Yes, yes, and yes. But that being said, it's equal opportunity for all those who wish to join. All the kids have made SUP a real priority in their lives; training, surfing, and racing. My ultimate goal is for other kids entering paddling to look to the team members and aspire to be like them. I would love to encourage kids to take their paddling to the next level, and go for the team themselves. The roster is going to be updated frequently, but only those who show serious commitment to paddling will be included. 

As important as it is for the team members to be proficient paddlers, it's doubly important for them to be role models. All the kids on the team have good grades, are super nice, and show great sportsmanship. What more could I ask for?

Team Roster

Taylor Jalving, 15, Fort Meyers

Connor Rush, 14, Orlando

Milla Navarro, 14, Miami

Izzi Gomez, 13, Jupiter

Lindsey Geiger, 13, Satellite Beach

Will Marston, 12, Bradenton

Tanner Chechak, 12, Destin

Dekai Navarro, 11, Miami

Gracie Marston, 10, Bradenton

Hailey Marston, 10, Bradenton

Dylan Geiger, 10, Satellite Beach

Lina Bowers, 9, Clearwater

Lucy Allan, 9, Clearwater