Borneo Challenge: Sea Kayaking

The Borneo Challenge - organized by Gulf for Good, a charity organization in Dubai - had four challenging events:  sea kayaking, mountain biking, mountain trekking, and bamboo rafting.  In January 2007, six months before we headed for Malaysia, I began to train.  I didn't have the time to train fully for all of these events, so I had to make strategic choices:

• I was already biking regularly, so it's my strongest event.  It was mostly on the road, and mostly on the flats, but I could easily do mountains.  I planned to do some off-road biking, but dispensed with it, in the service of time.
• There was a scheduled, group training session to up-and-down the stairs at the Dusit Hotel.  That, plus stairs workouts in my apartment building, covered my training for mountain trekking.  
• I participated in another training session for sea kayaking, but that was it.  
• Instead of getting into the details of sea kayaking and bamboo rafting, I worked out on the rowing machine in the gym regularly.  It was convenient and time-efficient.
• I was already strong, but I needed to build stamina.  So I first shifted my weight training in gym to moderate weights and higher repetitions (10 - 12).  In the weeks leading up to the Challenge, I went even lighter weights and even higher repetitions (15 - 20).

First up was sea kayaking in the South China Sea.  It was a grueling start to the Challenge.  Emmanuelle and I partnered, and on three legs we arrived at designated islands last or next to last.  I had strength and stamina, but in the absence of proper technique, I got winded and wasted.  My arms and shoulders tired, and I had to break rhythm often to rest them, even for only a few seconds.  

Emmanuelle and I were not exactly good partners, but we managed to keep it together and work it out.  As we progressed from one leg to another, I worked hard to improve my technique and we saw how we could best work with each other: specifically, her at the front, me at the back.

The fourth and final leg, the longest at about nine meters, was the roughest.  All the others raced ahead of us, and just like that we were alone.  It got overcast quickly, and it rained, heavily at times.  The winds were whipping the South China Sea, so the waters were choppy.  Plus, the rains, mist and fog made the visibility poor.  The thought - oh, shit, we're going to die - must've crossed my mind.  But I must've kept focused and steely, because I hardly remember, six years later, feeling panicked.  

Emmanuelle and I kept calm and steady.  We heard others saying they were going to hug the shoreline toward the final island, but we decided against that.  Later we found out that those who tried that strategy got caught up in the currents and had to kayak upstream.  Others ended up on the wrong island.  We kept surveying the seascape, and again for awhile we could see nothing beyond a few meters out.  We had no compass, mind you, but instinctively we knew to keep kayaking forward.

After what seemed like hours of exhausting kayaking, we arrived at the island.  We hardly saw anyone around, so we wondered whether (a) the others had gone ahead or (b) we were on the wrong island.  Several minutes passed, before we realized we were among the first finishers.  Right now my memory tells me we came in second or third, but we may have been first.  

No matter, the exhaustion of that day and the testiness between Emmanuelle and me dissipated quickly.  

We were calm and relaxed, ahead of sea kayaking in the South China Sea