Posted on: Friday, April 30, 2004
RECREATION — Kaiwi Channel Relay Race • May 2
Elite paddler balances competitions, family
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By Katherine Nichols
Special to The Advertiser
The women on the six-person outrigger canoe call Paula Crabb "grandma." That's because she's the oldest competitor on the crew. The elite crew.
At almost 52, Crabb still races with and against the sport's best athletes. She doesn't compete for the age-group win. She goes for the overall victory. Already having achieved that once during this Kanaka I Kai Ka one-person canoe season, Crabb and her partner Jane McKee have their sights set on a top-three finish in the upcoming Kaiwi Channel one-person outrigger canoe relay race from Moloka'i to O'ahu on Sunday.
Emerging from the ocean after an hour paddling workout, Crabb easily slings the awkward training vessel over one shoulder. Tan, lean — her body fat has been calculated at less than 10 percent — and sporting a swinging ponytail and a pink bikini top with boy shorts a 17-year-old would wear, she looks decades younger than her age.
A former gymnast in high school and college on the East Coast, every inch of her small frame translates to power in outrigger canoe racing, a sport that has enchanted her since she won her first Na Wahine O Ke Kai Moloka'i to O'ahu World Championship in 1981.
Veteran of Moloka'i crossing
She has completed 23 out of the 25 Moloka'i crossings held, and paddled on three winning crews.
"She's nails. She can go forever and ever and ever," said Kisi Haine, a world-class paddler and steersman. "She's always great to have in the boat because you know she's never going to die."
A key to Crabb's success is the base she has developed over the years, says Walter Guild, director of Rhino Event Marketing and a paddler who has won the Moloka'i Hoe World Championships 10 times. "I think her years of experience and her ocean knowledge are really an advantage for her," Guild said.
She needs that experience because her workout time is limited.
"She's got so much going on with kids and everything else," Guild said, "she has to kind of train around the rest of her life."
The rest of Crabb's life involves a marriage to volleyball player and fellow paddler Chris Crabb, who recently retired after serving 30 years in the Department of Education. Together, they are raising two boys, ages 12 and 14. On the day of the interview, she cut short her training and still had a list of chores to finish before hopping on a plane to Los Angeles with one son for his basketball tournament.
Easy to find balance
Balance has never been difficult for Crabb. Despite her devotion to the sport, she'll gladly pick up in the middle of the summer season and leave town with her family for vacation, missing races along the way.
In addition to her mothering duties, Crabb has taught physical education at Punahou for the past 28 years, fulfilling her duties as role model at every turn. She exercises with the students, eats a variety of healthy foods and does not advocate any particular diet ("It's all about lifestyle and balance," she said). Until six years ago, she coached gymnastics as well.
A sabbatical from Punahou this semester allowed Crabb time for fresh pursuits such as Ashtanga yoga, snowboarding and kayaking, what she calls "new challenges" and "other activities to stay in shape."
When asked if she doesn't already have enough to keep her fit, she laughed.
"I enjoy the challenges of being busy," she said. "I guess I still have a lot of energy that keeps me that way."
Contrary to the competitive fire that fellow athletes surely have witnessed, winning is not the ultimate goal for her. Completing the race is what's important.
"I've got a strong determination. There's a drive that I still have to always want to finish what I've started and not give up."
That discipline carries her through the tough points in every event. It's about endurance. And confidence.
"That mental ability to really push yourself over the limit ... I haven't lost it," she said.
Current goals include "being there" for her kids, incorporating her new knowledge of yoga exercises and lifestyle into the P.E. curriculum and traveling to a paddling race in Italy some day. With so much happening in her daily life (she even made a daily schedule for herself during her sabbatical), the ocean may offer the only respite. It has a peaceful, calming effect, she said, and offers a sense of freedom.
Guild has noticed this, too.
"Every time I see her carrying a boat in or out of the water," he said, "she has a huge smile on her face."
