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| Front cover of the Sunday Times Magazine 28/04/13...... yewwwww!! |
Ahoihoi buddies!
Craic?! SO what's news eh?! Well I've been home nearly a month now and it has flown by. A crazy mix of driving (2,000km in 2 weeks), cycling nearly 400km, windsurfing, SUPing and partying. Pretty epic! And after all the mental travelling I've done this year it feels unbelievably cool to be able to do everything I love in my home surrounded by all my awesome friends and family :-) Majorly happy bunny right now!
For all of you who know me or have followed me this past 12 months you'll know I've clocked up a fair few air miles..... about 150,000 to be precise.... cha-ching for the Platinum US airways members card! But just a wee re-cap for all the newbies to the general happenings of Katie's year of adventuring.... actually maybe I'll leave the yearly re-cap until my time is truly up in 8 week's time. I was just about to start and realised it's a mammoth blog so I'll just focus on the last month, phew!
So all and all it's been fairly mental, particularly on the whole media front since I windsurfed Jaws. I can't believe the reaction from home, it's all been so positive and a HUGE thanks to everyone for all their kind words and encouragement.... it really has been INSANE!
Here's just a snippet of the articles that have been published;
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| Irish Times page 5 by Lorna Siggins. Link to article: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/irish-woman-windsurfs-world-famous-wave-off-hawaii-1.1351870#.UWJk68yWKBc.gmail
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Galway Advertiser
Galway Independent
Connacht and Galway City Tribunes
I was also delighted to have been on the Ray D'Arcy show having the chats about the day at Pe'ahi... unfortunately the playback is deleted now but safe to say we had a bit of craic!
So, like I said after all that media frenzy it was back to being home in Galway and having an unreal time travelling back home to find some wind and waves and general laughs with my buddies :-) As i mentioned in my last post we had our 1st Irish Wave event of the year in Fanore and I managed to make it to the final of the men's pro fleet and take 4th overall..... woop!! .... and obviously with it the women's title..... but that's purely because there are no women who compete.... COME ON girls!! I'd love to see more of ye at the next event!!!
SUP session Kilkimmin
So when I wasn't hunting down water time I fortuitously came across this incredible initiative by a group of amazing people led by Jim Breen from my friend Meabh. It was a bike trip across the entire length of Ireland in order to raise awareness of suicide in Ireland today. Suicide claims over 500 lives a year in our country, and more than likely the reality is a larger number than that. So a group of friends and I took to our bikes, donned the oh so becoming colour of orange and cycled from Limerick to Galway. The atmosphere was so incredible that I ended up joining the crew again on the legs from Sligo to Letterkenny and from Letterkenny to Moville. It was for an incredible cause and the subsequent attention and interest and support it generated from the public was unprecedented, fair play to every one on the Cycle Against Suicide team!
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| Way too much spandex.... way too much orange! |
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| Me with my beautiful sister Lisa after finishing the last leg of the cycle... on my BIRTHDAY!! Cup cake joyjoy |
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| Me with my besties out for my birthday.... 27 this year, eep! Lisa, Ailbhe and Shell and I xxx Love ye ladies! Alrighty, so well with that I'll sign out for now. Lots more media forays to come so stay tuned. I've got my American Windsurfing Tour Queen Sam Bittner coming to visit for the next two weeks so plenty of windsurfing, surfing, SUP, touristing, laughing, partying and general banter times ahead as we join the first two legs of the British Wave Sailing Assoc (BWA) Tour this weekend and next week in Wales and Kerry..... poor things won't know what hit them!
And just one last thing to mention before I sign off. All this talk of suicide and birthdays and BWA has me acutely aware that it is my beautiful friend Mikey Clancy's birthday tomorrow, May 14th. He is turning 23. For as long as I can remember Mikey and I celebrated our birthdays together in style down in Kerry in Spillane's during the annual BWA event there. There will be a gaping hole where he should be next week, eating my mum's birthday cake and drinking Guinness with all the crew.
Happy Birthday Mikey, you are one in a billion
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