How FB workouts helped avoid a near canoe disaster!
First, let me say I hope I won't get too many negative responses from this story. Mistakes were made. Fun was had. Memories forever.
While on a vacation recently with my husband and dog in northern Georgia, we rented a canoe to take a long four hour river ride and do some fishing. We were informed it was a Class I river, a little bumpy here and there and semi-fast waters in areas, but should be easy overall. I was thankful for the upper body and core strength from FB workouts while navigating some of the more challenging parts of the river, but it was pretty easy. All was smooth sailing, until the very end, where the water speed increased greatly and there were many large boulders and rocks to quickly maneuver around, not to mention large dips to go through that made it feel like plunging down a roller coaster. What happened to our nice, leisurely paddle down stream? Unfortunately, we became wedged between two boulders and the fast-moving waters came over the edges of the canoe and tipped us over! We all fell out of the canoe, which was trying to quickly continue down the river without us in it. I lost my grip on the oar when I fell out of the canoe and was reaching for it as it was quickly moving downstream. My other hand grabbed the side of the canoe, all this while trying to balance on slippery rocks and against the strong force of the water, when I heard my husband yelling, "Get the dog! Get the dog!" I turned around to see my dog starting to get pulled into the deeper rapids as he was trying to swim in my direction. I saw that my husband had a hand on the canoe and one on his oar and couldn't reach the dog. I did a deep squat, stuck my butt out, caught the dog against my hip, leaned forward and reached the oar, grabbed it, stood level again and pushed the dog with my hip into the canoe where he could easily stand, albeit in about 8 inches of water. This all happened within seconds. Once the dog was safely in the canoe, my husband and I carefully (shakily) swam/walked the canoe to the rivers edge where our dog immediately jumped out and started looking for fish (his favorite pastime) along the river bank, completely unfazed! We pulled the water-filled canoe onto the bank, tipped it over to get the water out, took a few minutes to recover, got back in the canoe and finished the ride.
Being in my 50's, I definitely know that being fit and working out to FB helped me be flexible, fast and strong enough to divert what could have gone very differently. Not to mention being strong enought to lift a metal canoe full of water and tip it over! All without even being sore the next day...Thank you FB! Note: Yes we had life jackets (even for the dog) it was 95 degrees with humidity in the 90% range. We had taken them off as we were hot and we didn't want the dog to overheat. For the most part, the river, up to this point, had been shallow enough for our dog to stand in. Like I said, mistakes were made. Don't judge :)
How FB workouts helped avoid a near canoe disaster!
First, let me say I hope I won't get too many negative responses from this story. Mistakes were made. Fun was had. Memories forever.
While on a vacation recently with my husband and dog in northern Georgia, we rented a canoe to take a long four hour river ride and do some fishing. We were informed it was a Class I river, a little bumpy here and there and semi-fast waters in areas, but should be easy overall. I was thankful for the upper body and core strength from FB workouts while navigating some of the more challenging parts of the river, but it was pretty easy. All was smooth sailing, until the very end, where the water speed increased greatly and there were many large boulders and rocks to quickly maneuver around, not to mention large dips to go through that made it feel like plunging down a roller coaster. What happened to our nice, leisurely paddle down stream? Unfortunately, we became wedged between two boulders and the fast-moving waters came over the edges of the canoe and tipped us over! We all fell out of the canoe, which was trying to quickly continue down the river without us in it. I lost my grip on the oar when I fell out of the canoe and was reaching for it as it was quickly moving downstream. My other hand grabbed the side of the canoe, all this while trying to balance on slippery rocks and against the strong force of the water, when I heard my husband yelling, "Get the dog! Get the dog!" I turned around to see my dog starting to get pulled into the deeper rapids as he was trying to swim in my direction. I saw that my husband had a hand on the canoe and one on his oar and couldn't reach the dog. I did a deep squat, stuck my butt out, caught the dog against my hip, leaned forward and reached the oar, grabbed it, stood level again and pushed the dog with my hip into the canoe where he could easily stand, albeit in about 8 inches of water. This all happened within seconds. Once the dog was safely in the canoe, my husband and I carefully (shakily) swam/walked the canoe to the rivers edge where our dog immediately jumped out and started looking for fish (his favorite pastime) along the river bank, completely unfazed! We pulled the water-filled canoe onto the bank, tipped it over to get the water out, took a few minutes to recover, got back in the canoe and finished the ride.
Being in my 50's, I definitely know that being fit and working out to FB helped me be flexible, fast and strong enough to divert what could have gone very differently. Not to mention being strong enought to lift a metal canoe full of water and tip it over! All without even being sore the next day...Thank you FB! Note: Yes we had life jackets (even for the dog) it was 95 degrees with humidity in the 90% range. We had taken them off as we were hot and we didn't want the dog to overheat. For the most part, the river, up to this point, had been shallow enough for our dog to stand in. Like I said, mistakes were made. Don't judge :)