The River and the Race

Quite the exciting weekend here at Think Like A Jillian. On Friday, Gordon took me kayaking on the river for the first time. It was the scariest thing I have ever experienced, ever. Ever. The water was flowing really fast and I felt like I didn’t have a lot of control over my boat and its direction on the river. Some of the waves seemed really big (though they were probably just level 1). I spent the whole time going “ohmygodohmygodohmygod” and just trying to stay upright. The funny thing is, I made it through the rapids just fine, but then had some unexpected trouble in calmer water and ended up flipping over. I could feel my helmet scraping (lightly) against the rocks on the bottom, so I wet-exited and swam to shore. It was a bit of a mess. I didn’t catch my boat, so Gordon had to go downstream after it. He eventually found it, but we were still a paddle short, so that pretty much put an end to our little adventure. Gordon and I were able to laugh about it almost immediately and it made a great story to tell over beer and pizza with friends that night. I’ll even try it again, albeit on calmer, slower water.

Then on Sunday, my sisters and I ran Bloomsday, the largest timed road race in the world. The course winds through the prettier parts of Spokane for 12 kilometers and usually draws upwards of 45,000 participants. It was my fourth year doing it and I had a great time. Jaima and I managed to knock a whole hour off of our time from last year--we’ve really been training for it this time. The day was sunny and beautiful and it was the best race yet, I think.