1st Day of Surf School

June 11, 2017

1st Day of Surf School

You have to understand something about me: I do not know how to surf. At all. So obviously I was a little nervous that I was going to fail miserably.

My foam board was large, and being 5’6″ and 110 lbs, there wasn’t a whole lot of power behind my body getting that massive board over the waves. Once I finally made it to where the waves were breaking, a beautiful one started to develop. My instructor told me to paddle hard and gave me a sturdy push. I popped up, and would you know it, I stayed up and rode the whole wave.

Not sucking at surfing: check.

The rest of the morning was a more grueling experience. I learned a new phrase in Spanish today. “Estoy muy cansada.” I am very tired.

There’s a swell in Tamarindo for the next several days, so the waves were slightly aggressive. To avoid having the waves crash over me, I would “turtle roll.” This is a maneuver where I drop my body into the water with the board on my head as the wave rolls over. But doing this for wave after wave after wave? I ended up swallowing the whole ocean.

Then came the paddling.

My little chicken arms were not ready for the brutal beating I was about to put them through. I’ve never known the true meaning of exhaustion until today.

But besides all of that, once I finally got out there to the break, I was hitting almost every wave I went for. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about the next week. Word on the street is that my instructor will be upgrading my board to a hard shell so I can learn how to turn. Exciting developments!

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4 Comments

  • Reply Kim Edwards June 12, 2017 at 10:30 pm

    Oh girllllll, I feel ya! I once took a surfing lesson in SoCal, and it was BY FAR the most exhausting workout of my life! But man oh man, nothing beats the experience of finally nailing the whole surfing thing and gliding into shore on a wave. Totally worth it!

    • Reply Meagan Tilley June 13, 2017 at 10:34 am

      You feel so accomplished about life! Like – “did you just see what I did???”

  • Reply Suzy Olesch June 11, 2017 at 3:54 pm

    WAY TO GO GIRL !!!!!!

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