Western Australian SUP Paddling Adapter owner, Marcus Tardrew took a trip to Hawaii this summer to test himself against some of the best SUP paddlers around. Below is part of his report about his trip:
The following weekend was the big one, the race id been dreaming of doing for about a year, the M2O aka Molokai to Oahu. The 32 mile channel crossing is one of the most talked about races in the sup world and definitely the most respected channel crossing on the sup race calendar. When we sat on the start line it felt more like a team of paddlers, there was so much energy and everyone was talking to each other and cheering as the start guy gave us instructions over the mega phone. We could just see Oahu when we set off and i found myself following travis grants group straight away but the mixed up water seemed slow to me up. I seemed to have more confidence than usual and i decided to go out on my own and there was some small bumps to catch in the clean water. i felt really good and after about half an hour my escort boat found me was happy with the line i was going on. The bumps became few and far between and the next 2/3s of the race was a slog in chop. After about 5 hours i came to china wall where we turn a corner into the wind and really feel the pain for 2 mile. I managed to pass one paddler on this upwind stretch despite falling 3 or 4 times. there are waves to catch in this section and my right knee had pretty much seized and i just couldn’t surf the 17 foot board. i finally crossed the finish line totally buggered and in 12th place. I was so over the moon to finish here, I honestly couldn’t believe it.
In the 3 months leading up to this trip i was training on my sup paddle trainer 3 days and only twice on the water per week. So a majority of my training was done on the trainer due to a lack of time during the week of work. Was so stoked with my experience and definitely couldn’t have got the results i did with the paddle trainer.
