Mariann Sather Norwegian kayaker

The World Freestyle KayakChampionships are running this week in Germany.  This week's blog-posts are dedicated to the crazy women who run rivers, and love the white water.

Norwegian Mariann Sather is one of the women to watch at this tournament. Sather has been competing for ten years, while fitting in degrees in English, Spanish and Norwegian on the side - usually distance learning as she's competed in 50 countries so far. She has an inspiring view on life, one that certainly made me think it's time to do more with my days.

"To write is almost as big of a passion as kayaking, as well as helping people realize that normality is what you determine it to be. To roam the rivers of the earth,  teach at the local school or jet-set around the globe, we all carry dreams that have the potential to become reality."


This footage was shot on a trip to Corsica in May this year. 

Do you need to do good to feel good?

Thousands of Irish women will run this summer to raise money for charity. Many of them will have never run before but the motivation of raising money will get them out on the streets. I asked a friend on Sunday which charity she was supporting in her first marathon-relay, she looked at me askance and said "Nothing, I'm running for myself."

I should have hugged her, but I was so surprised to hear someone being this honest and respectful of themselves, I just smiled and carried on talking about carbs. Why do so many women need a charity to justify giving time to running? And to being healthy. 

It's something charity fundraisers like Australian Annie Crawford of Can-Too have used; a lot of women   (yes, I am generalising here) are not comfortable saying I want to run, I want to be strong, I want to have time to be with my friends which does not involve shopping or alcohol. In Dublin 40, 057 women ran in the women's mini-marathon this week, the headline in one of the papers was "Sprains and blisters but all for a good cause."

Why couldn't the good cause be just wanting to run? And before you say it, I know lots of men run for charity too but it seems to me that watching women's events, there is a far higher percentage of charity Tees and banners than there would be if it were all men.
I don't think it's a bad thing to raise money, it would just be great if women were able to stand proud and say I did this for me.

What do you think - do women really need that extra Do-Good factor to Feel Good?

Emily Jackson, American Kayaker wins again

It's that time of year again - rivers, mountains, kayaks and Emily Jackson wins the Teva Freestyle gold for the seventh year running. At 21. Must be getting quite frustrating to be chasing her at this stage. 

Emily Jackson by Corey Rich

Jackson is just one of the successful kayakers in the Jackson home. But this event at the Teva Mountain Games is the one she has really made her own. Talking to the local paper, she said: "My first run, I got all my hard tricks in right away. I got lots of air on my front loop, my McNasty and my phonyx (monkey). I felt really good. My score was beatable, but Ruth (Ebens), like me, didn't have her best ride.” 

She has placed in the top three in any event she's entered since 2006, including winning the world freestyle title in 2009, second in the Pan American games 2010, winning the Natural Games in Milan, Italy as well as that Teva title every year.

Off the water, she has worked with Dr Jessie Stone in Uganda - posted about here work here - raising $30,000 so far for Power Health and their work combatting malaria. 

Wordless Wednesday

How cute is that little girl - power of sport indeed!

Wordless Wednesday is a group of bloggers who give words a rest once a week.

Duchess of Cambridge's old school and sport

The University of St Andrews in Scotland is more well known these days for being the back-drop to a right royal romance. You may have seen the wedding photos. But it's also home to the Umutima 2015 International Development Youth Summit which takes place next week.

One of the partners in this is Friend of Edusport, a British charity who see sport and education as ways to combat poverty. The spiel on their site says that in much nicer language and also that they "advocate for female empowerment towards more equal and equitable societies."

Of course to do that, you need money. They appear to fundraise through a mixture of  inspiring sports women (and 1 lonely man!) as ambassadors, and running events around the UK,  New Zealand, America and Norway. All for their work in Lusaka, capital of Zambia.Some of those projects are giving sport or education support to children with HIV/ AIDS, and delivering 17,000 books (so far) to school and community libraries.

It's easy to be skeptical of small charities - especially when you read the Three Cups of Tea story as re-told by CBS - but in this case, when people are genuine and determined to make that difference, it reminds you that charity doesn't always have to be on a large scale.

Do you know of any other sports charities? 

The Butterfly Effect

You know how everyone says you should take up a sport, meet some people and get out and about? A group of women kayakers and surfers do just that - in ten different countries around the world. The Butterfly Effect  was set up about four years by Tatiana Howard ago to encourage women to get in the water.

But it's not just about having fun. The list of sponsored activities goes on and on ...." teaches kids the sports, encourages yoga for injury prevention and health, donates to charities by funds, clothing, food and/or school/art supplies, and cleans up beaches around the globe."

The next event is on March 26th in Grindelwald Switzerland. It's the first snow event so will be interesting to see if it gets the same enthusiastic turn-out. This video is from one of the 2010 events in Fiji.

Fiji Expedition Butterfly Effect 2010 from Tatiana Howard on Vimeo.

Professional Surfing a male dominated sport?

This is a guest-post from Mpora.com (hopefully the first of many!) Mpora covers Skate, Surf, Snow, Mountain Biking, Motocross or BMX, sourcing videos, photos and blogs to bring the best together. This post was written for ISW by the Surf Editor, Rebecca Clark, introducing three inspiring women surfers.

Professional Surfing a male dominated sport? They wish. With strong-willed, inspirational and accomplished women like Alana Blanchard, Bethany Hamilton and Erica Hosseini at its forefront, it's only a matter of time before women's pro surfing gets the equal coverage it deserves.

Bethany Hamilton is first up, a girl who even after suffering a shark attack in October 2003 surfing off the north shore of Kauai, which left her left arm severed, got back in the water and was competing again by January 2004. That just screams commitment ... or insanity, but I'll side with commitment.

Bethany Hamilton in Somewhere: Gadis-Gadis Latut

Her achievements include Best Comeback Athlete award in 2004 courtesy of ESPN ESPY and 1st place at the Explorer Women's Division, her first national title at the 2005 NSSA Championships.Outside competing, she's involved in huge amounts of charity work and is spokeswoman for Beating the Odds Foundation and World Vision International. Her autobiography "Soul Surfer" was made into a feature film in 2008 and she wrote a book for teens, "Devotions for the Soul Surfer"

Alana Blanchard can tackle intimidating of waves with the bravery and fierceness of a shark and master it with the grace of a dolphin. Well that's certainly impressive, and very believable.

Alana Blanchard

Well and truly leaving her stamp on pro women's surfing, she dominated competitions from the age of 15. She won first place in the 2005 Women's Pipeline Championships, the HASA State Championships and the Rip Curl Grom Search Nationals, results which lead to her being given the 2005 Triple Crown Rookie of the Year award.

Blanchard is regularly featured in sporting mags due to her intense dedication. Even non-sports mags like Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair want a piece of her, making her a key recognisable face for the sport. Well that and the surfing videos of her modelling the skimpiest of surf attire.

Finally, I bring Erica Hosseini to the table, the daughter of a former ski instructor who learnt to ski at 2-years old, and was water skiing and mountain biking by age 4. At 13, she began competing in the NSSA, but failed to rank.

The following year however, she embarked on a winning streak entering her first pro event and placing second. This broke a world record due to her being the youngest surfer to make it to the final of an ASP event. She then went on to win the Southwest Open Conference, Explorer Conference, Regionals, NSSA National Open Women's Title, and The Governor's Cup, taking her to 5 NSSA titles for that year. Not bad eh? Erica has since auditioned for the part of Willow in X-Men.

If you'd like to see anyone else from the Mpora site covered here, just leave a comment and let me know! 

Aimee Mullins Sprinter

Browsing through the TED-archives (procrastinating?) I came across this video of American sprinter Aimee Mullins.

If you haven't heard of her, think paralympian, sprinter, holder of the Foreign Affairs Internship at Georgetown University, model, actress, co-founder of Helping Others Perform with Excellence (HOPE) and double amputee - pure inspiration. It's been a few years - 1996 Paralympics but it's good to remember. This video is of an interview she gave in '98 talking about why running is so important for her and how she finds motivation.

There is a more recent video here on the TED blog. As we're on the last few days before the IPC World Championships, I'm sure you'll be hearing more about women like Mullins and April Holmes.

Can you think of any other athletes from the 90s who we should remember?

April Holmes Paralympian

April Holmes

Sport can be incredibly superficial and selfish. To succeed you have to be selfish and focus completely on yourself. Or do you?

American sprinter April Holmes isn't your typical runner. Holding world records in 100m, 200m and 400m, she does it all on one leg. A train accident nine years ago in Philadelphia left her facing a stark choice, optimism and a new life or despair.

In an interview with Today she said:

"I realized just in a blink of an eye, I could have lost my life.

God kept me alive for a reason. I realized I had work to do. I couldn’t just sit there and be stagnant."  Inspired by her surgeon, she took up running.

So far, so inspiring story. But Holmes has taken things one step further and spends much of her time travelling to schools talking to children and showing them just how far you can go. She says the highlight of the talks is when she takes off her prosthetic leg and shows it to the children - surprise, surprise the boys love it. Her foundation - the April Holmes Foundation - works to inspire and fund people with disabilites to overcome obstacles.

April Holmes

You can watch Holmes and other paralympians in action at the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Games in New Zealand, starting on Saturday January 15th. 

Do you know of anyone who has a similar positive attitude to life?

Athletes Aid 350 Actions

10.10.10 was a busy, busy day; marathons (more on those later in the week) and the 350 climate action group hosted Work Parties in 188 countries.

Their website 350 tells us: " Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet. Our focus is on the number 350—as in parts per million CO2. If we can't get below that, scientists say, the damage we're already seeing from global warming will continue and accelerate.  But 350 is more than a number—it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet"

Quite a few international sports women were involved in promoting this goal this including American climber Kate Rutherford and British rower Roz Savage.  By its nature, professional sport encourages athletes to become self-absorbed so it's exciting to see women making the effort to remember what lies outside the training room.

Kate Rutherford

            

Roz Savage

Autumn or Fall It's Time to Recycle and Cleanup

Old trainers Richard Faulder Flickr

There's something about this time of year. I feel like throwing out smelly training gear and getting ready for cold weather work. Even more excited than usual this year as I've been out of sports for ages thanks to a few illnesses. So the trick is to find ways to clean out without just dumping everything in the trash. And yes I do get a little emotional about throwing away running shoes which have carried me over way too many hills.

• Recycle your Shoes. Find a company near you at Shoes Recycling Programmes here.  
• Irish chain Lifestyle Sports ran an exchange programme earlier this year - maybe we can get them to hold another? Or check your local shops  
• Recycled Runners links up with brandnames to recycle shoes and unused shoe material. Who knew the shoes on your feet could make a basketball court - 2,500 pairs - or a running track - 75,000 pairs. 

What do you do with your old sports gear?