PB & Honey, honey

I’m sitting here, eating this peanut butter and honey sandwich (pre-lunch) and I couldn’t help but reminisce about the days when I used to paddle. Before every heat, I’d eat one of these with extra honey to give me energy and endurance. Sometimes we’d race a 6-mile course, without breaks or alternations. Sure, we’d have trained for heats and our bodies were toned and ready for exactly this purpose, but sometimes we all needed that extra push.

Honey is a source of carbohydrates, providing 17 grams per tablespoon, which makes it ideal for your working muscles since carbohydrates are the primary fuel the body uses for energy. Carbohydrates are necessary in the diet to help maintain muscle glycogen, also known as stored carbohydrates, which are the most important fuel source for athletes to help them keep going.

Whether you’re looking for an energy boost or just a sweet reward after a long workout, honey is a quick, easy and delicious all-natural energy source! (Baseball + Honey!  National Honey Board).

Aside from the interesting facts, this PB&H got me thinking about my passions. Paddling was such a huge part of my life. I started when I was in 7^th grade and continued with it throughout high school. I was good, and if I had truly put the time and effort into the sport, I would have been great.

You see-paddling is NOT an individual sport. The motion of each blade must be succinct with the others in order to propel the canoe forward in the water with the least amount of drag. If you aren’t a team player, than the whole boat fails. You can feel it, too. You are sitting in your seat and if there is any drag you can feel it. But you can also feel the flow. The boat glides instead of resists, and that is the feeling you always want to feel when paddling.

There were parts that I didn’t like, however. These parts held me back from truly reaching my potential as an athlete in general. In paddling, believe it or not, there was a lot of running. You use your legs to dig into the bottom of the canoe and use that force to rock the vessel forward. Paddling is not just arm strength, and since they are already being worked in practice constantly, we did a lot of running on the side to bolster our legs for “digging.”

Saturdays we would get up early and be at practice by 6 am. We would begin by running and then would have to haul the boats into the freezing cold water. It would still be dark out and the lack of sleep loomed over us. We’d paddle out to the open sea, a rarity, as we would usually practice in the stagnant canal during the weekdays (the open water was reserved for more “accomplished” private schools who could afford it).

Despite all the moaning and resentment, there was always the sunrise. We’d be paddling back from a warm-up run and were now facing Diamond Head, still shaded by the night. And then, the light came. It would slowly rise over the crater and eventually tower over us magnificently. The light poured down on the water, making visible the beauty of the sea beneath us. Everything was quiet, only the sound of our paddle blades cutting through the water and the movement of the canoe coursing towards our sun. It was ours, every Saturday, it was ours.