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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, July 26, 2008

PADDLING
Never mind history, Oahu woman focusing on finishing

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

QUIKSILVEREDITION MOLOKA'I TO O'AHU PADDLEBOARD RACE

WHAT: 32-mile paddleboard race across the Kaiwi Channel

WHERE: Start at Kaluako'i Beach, Moloka'i; finish at Maunalua Bay, O'ahu

WHEN: Tomorrow, 7:30 a.m. start; first finishers are expected around 12:15 p.m.

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All Morgan Hoesterey wants to do tomorrow is finish.

Hoesterey is the lone female entry in the C4 Waterman Stand-Up Paddle division of the QuiksilverEdition Moloka'i to O'ahu Paddleboard Race tomorrow.

She is the first female to even attempt to cross the Kaiwi Channel by herself on a SUP board. So if she is able to complete the 32-mile race, she will make history.

"I'm not even thinking about records or anything like that; that's not why I'm doing it," said Hoesterey, 27. "I've always been an ocean person, and this is a challenge I really wanted to take on."

Stand-up paddling is the latest craze in ocean sports, and more than 50 competitors are expected to enter tomorrow's race on SUP boards.

However, most of them will do it as two-person relay teams.

Seven men and Hoesterey will attempt to cross the channel solo. It will be a grueling task.

"I'm not taking it lightly — I've been training hard," she said.

The record time in the SUP division is 6 hours, 20 minutes, 59 seconds, set by Kevin Horgan last year. In previous years, most of the men have finished with a time between seven and eight hours.

Hoesterey said she hopes to make it within eight hours.

"I just want to make it from one island to another," she said. "I know there's an eight-hour cutoff, so I want to make it before that. I'm preparing to go eight hours."

In the sport of stand-up paddling, competitors must stand on a paddleboard and propel themselves with a canoe-style paddle. It is like a combination of surfing and canoe paddling.

Hoesterey is a former standout swimmer at the University of Hawai'i who now works at the Wet Feet Hawai'i store in 'Aina Haina.

The store specializes in SUP equipment, so she is surrounded by fellow paddlers at work. Two of her co-workers — Jeff Chang and Doug Lock — will also enter tomorrow's race.

Chang will also do it solo; Lock will enter with a relay partner.

"I'm actually really lucky because they're my bosses and they let me follow them when they go out for a paddle," Hoesterey said. "We usually do 10 miles at a time. But I also try to do a 20-mile (paddle) once a week — that usually takes about three hours."

Hoesterey said she also cross trains by working out with a beach volleyball team, and hiking up Koko Head Crater.

Still, she said the key to tomorrow's race will be her mental preparation.

"There are going to be times out there when I say to myself this is the craziest thing I've ever done in my life," she said. "But you have to fight through that and realize that it is going to be a long, hard race."

Race director Mike Takahashi said he expects conditions to be favorable for the first five hours, but "adverse" after that.

The QuiksilverEdition Moloka'i to O'ahu race was created in 1997 for traditional paddleboards (who paddle only with their arm strokes).

The SUP division was added in 2005.

Other females have completed the Moloka'i race, but only as relay teams.

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com.