1 week after The Everglades Challenge

1 week after The Everglades Challenge

 

 

   I've taken a week post expedition to spend time with my family and rest up from the Florida Experience.  It's been great to change Poopy diapers, pick up lots of toys, clean the house, and have basic conversationswith my wife as I return to normal life for a while. 
   During the expedition my wife would send me pictures and videos of the kids. It was the highligh of my day.

Family vacation in Tennessee fall 2012

   But pictures aren't the same thing.  Having them close to hug and love on. Now that's what I need.
During the race I had pictures of my family taped to my deck bag. It's really what brought me through the race.
   I remember at checkpoint 3 (Flamingo) where I made it in 5 days of hard paddling. That's 270 miles in 5 days! I slept for a few hours. when I woke I loaded up and portaged my board and gear around a dam about 50 yards. Warren Richey (Author of Without a paddle) was there filming a documentary of the race. He interviewed me as I was carrying my gear on the portage. He asked me how I was getting through the race given my circumstances. I remember having a hard time talking as I was tearing up and said," I look at the picture of my family. That's what gets me through this".
Family is an integral part in What I do.  Without them I don't have a chance at success. I never forget this. No person should.

     I know there's a lot of folks that want to hear the full story of the expedition. There's just too much that happened to be able sum it up in a blog. The Texas Water Safari blog took me 9 seperate chapters to get through, and I still wasn't able to get all the detail needed to do the race justice. So for this expedition I have decided to write a book. Nothing too long, maybe 150-200 pages.  But to really get the full picture we have a nice documentary that we are putting together of the expedition.  Jordan Fogerson and I are collaborating on putting this together.  It will take about 4 months to put together but will show you an inside look of what I go through in order to do what I do.  It will trace 5 months of pre-race, race, and post race adventure.
    If you are a sup shop, organization, group of paddlers, or any other entity that would like to have an event when the documentary releases, please contact me at shaneperrin@gmail.com.  I'll come out and paddle with you, do a short speaking engagement, charity event, or just sit on your couch and drink beer as we watch it. 
     Some of the things I'll talk about: the people I met along the way:
                                         
                                      Pre-race. JoJo and Joe at Suncoast Surf shop. A huge help. very cool shop

                     A surprise visit from My dad and Grandmother at Sanibel island

               Paige with Hooked on SUP who manned the or "Womanned" checkpoint 1

                                                                        The Journey

                                                      And Much Much More!

 Check back here at the blog too as I have alot of people to thank, Updates on the post expedition life (like a few days ago when I woke up at home but was trying to figure out how to get back on the water as i thought I was still racing), and next chapter of racing. Hint, April 28.2013 I'll be racing a 80 mile race in Tennessee. Search the VOL80


Florida Everglades Challenge Experience

Florida Everglades Challenge Experience

 

 

     There's alot that has taken place since my last blog post. Pre-expedition consumed my life as well as my family's.  There was little time to post anything as we prepped for the biggest expedition race of my life.  My days were filled with 4am workouts, working for the parks 6:30am-3pm, coming home and prepping, then an evening workout.  Before I knew it, race time was here.

 

 

     I will eventually go into more detail of the experience.  For now please listen to this interview with Leslie Kolovich on the Sup Radio Show.

 

Florida everglades Challenge Interview

 

Time wise, I am catching up spending time with my family. I missed them tons while gone for 2 weeks. So I'll have some down time to love on them.

     I'll be writing a book on the experience as there's too much that happened to write in a blog.  Plus the documentary that was filmed by Jordan Fogerson is being edited and should be done in 4 or so months. 

                                                         Leaving Marathon Key 3/10/13