The Last Day of Summer

I wasn't going to let the last day of summer slip away without putting in one more fun surf session.  We took the day off and started heading north.  We could have went straight to my typical fun zone - Dogpatch, but I wanted to check out something new.  My friend Reid has been telling me how fun it's been to surf Cardiff so I figured we should check it out.  When we got there, a mob of surfers were already out on the water.  Usually I don't like surfing when the waves are inundated with surfers, afraid of getting in their way or hitting someone.  I decided that I needed to get over it and just surf it.  I'd have to learn to surf through a crowd sooner or later and now was just a good a time as any.

My Boga never lets me down.  If you look real close-- you can see the swarm of surfers in the water.

It was meant to be.  Some surfers came down from San O saying the beach was closed due to a sewage spill (yuck!).  Plus, I had an awesome time surfing Cardiff.  I charged a couple of pretty big set waves.  I'm so much more comfortable with my surfing that the big waves don't scare me (but I'm not saying I'm ready for Mavericks... or ever will be.)  It ended up being a fun surf session!  I would have surfed longer but my hunger got the best of me.  We  found a cool breakfast spot close by.  Stay tuned for the post about this place.  For now, I've got to go pack my bags for the Philippines (flying out tonight).  From what I hear, there's surf there too :)

"Calgon... Take Me Away!!"

Last week was a crazy, hectic week.  I was working 10-12 hour days.  I wasn't sleeping well.  It was just an exhausting week.  Reminding myself that the weekend was around the corner-- which meant another day of surfing for me, helped get me through this treacherous week.

I took a few shots of some of the boys out in the water:

These boys were rippin' it on these fun, little waves.  I love watching them and taking notes so that some day I could hit ripper status!

It Was a Massacre!

I was driving Saturday morning to Coronado around 9:00am ready to be a spectator and cheerleader for my friends participating in the Chainsaw Massacre in Coronado.  I strained my lower back the weekend before surfing and thought I wasn't up to doing the race like I originally intended.   I also haven't been able to do any SUP training in the past couple of weeks (aside from surfing) so I didn't feel that I would be prepared to compete in the 6.5 miles open ocean race.

The race course was to the point that you see in the background
and then back, through the surf and a run through the blue flags.

But if you truly know me, or have been keeping up with my somewhat inconsistent blog, it's not so easy for me to just sit on the sidelines and watch.  So I did my typical "Liza-move" and hit a u-turn home to pick up my BOGA race board "just in case".  You know how it goes from here...

I got to Coronado, met up with my friends and registered for the race.  I knew it would be grueling but there wasn't much competition in the women's category, so what did I have to lose.  It was a race against the clock.  It was a race against myself.  I really wasn't sure what to expect.

Guess who got 1st place in her division?!  Okay, there were only 5 women in the race and 2 DNFs...  but you know what?,  it was still a great accomplishment to me.  It taught me that with any excuse I could use in the book, I still could finish a race and do well.  It was a tough race.  The chop and wind was crazy as we got closer to the buoy.  I learned that I definitely need more practice out in the open ocean.  I hung in there and didn't fall in once but there is so much I am learning about the ocean through surfing that is helping me with my racing.

I was only supposed to be a cheerleader for my good friends, Kiwi, who won 1st in the SUP stock division and John, who won 3rd in the SUP stock division.  If I'm gonna be a part of this crew, I need to learn not to never be left back waiting on the sand.

Ahhh... Long Weekends

Long weekends are fun until you head to work on Tuesday and need to complete 5 days of work in 4 days. So you need to make the long weekend worth it! I surfed every day at my favorite surf spot, the Dog Patch in San Onofre. Waking up at 4:00am isn't so bad when you know you'll have a prime parking spot, surf all day, BBQ and nap if you need.

If you're a surfer, you know that a huge South swell rolled through last week and the surf was crankin'. Unfortunately, with audits coming up I couldn't squeeze in any time during the week to surf, not even a "sick" day. I was overly-excited to get out on the surf when Saturday finally arrived.

We thought for sure we'd be the first to get into the SanO Beach since we got there around 5:30am. To our surprise, there was a line of cars already waiting. No problem. We were still early enough to get in and find a parking spot.

The surf was pretty junkie Saturday morning but that didn't stop me from going in. It got better as the morning clouds burned off and I "charged it". I went for every wave that I could and as a result, caught a ton of them. I'm practicing my turns and am learning to "pump" up and down the face of the wave.

I hear another big swell may be coming our way this week. I hope to run into you out on the water

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