While training for the race, Kilauea’s Alana Frazier said she hoped to beat her personal best time of four hours, 42 minutes, Moloka‘i to O‘ahu. Then the Kona winds kicked up at the Steinlager Ka‘iwi Solo OC1 World Championship race,
While training for the race, Kilauea’s Alana Frazier said she hoped to beat her personal best time of four hours, 42 minutes, Moloka‘i to O‘ahu.
Then the Kona winds kicked up at the Steinlager Ka‘iwi Solo OC1 World Championship race, making the race a test of survival as well as endurance.
“It was not conditions anyone hopes for, but it’s who copes the best,” said Frazier, who finished second among the women, in 6:08:21, less than five minutes behind winner Lauren Bartlett of Maui, who finished in 6:03:47.
“I never wanted to think about giving up,” she said, though others did. “I think the key is to be positive, smile, be thankful for being able to paddle on a beautiful day.”
Not all would agree with her definition of “beautiful.”
“It’s like running uphill for six hours,” said Kaua‘i native Luke Evslin, who finished eighth among the men, in 5:33:57. “The solo this last weekend was brutal.”
“Yeah, it was horrible. It’s not something that we enjoy at all,” said Mark Frazier, 35, Alana’s husband and head coach of Na Molokama ‘O Hanalei Canoe Club in Hanalei. He finished sixth among the men, in 5:31:12.
But the trip cost them around $1,000 each, when shipping canoes, accommodations, transportation and other expenses were factored in, “so you owe it to yourself to do a little bit of training,” and not even thinking about not finishing the race, Mark Frazier said.
“They both did incredible,” said Evslin, who is a canoe-builder who has been living on O‘ahu for the last three years.
“I never did it in those kinds of conditions before. I always did it with tradewinds,” said Alana Frazier, who until this year had always finished the race in under five hours. This year, she had to keep reminding herself to “keep paddling hard to finish.
“It was not fun looking at O‘ahu and not looking like it was getting any closer. I’m glad that it’s over. We got our money’s worth,” said Alana Frazier, 28.
“Being able to see the first-place female finisher in the second half of the race was a great motivator to keeping my pace up. I am also pleased to have finished nearly 24 minutes ahead of the third-place woman and ahead of quite a few men,” she added.
Among the men, Lawa‘i’s Makana Denton finished in 17th place, in 5:45:32.
They were hoping for, expecting, calmer conditions for this weekend’s Maui-to-Moloka‘i race, at 23 miles around 10 miles shorter than the Moloka‘i-to-O‘ahu race.
Both the Fraziers work at the Princeville Resort, so with the hotel closed down for renovations have extra time to train and, in Mark’s case, coach.
They train out of Hanalei, but sometimes will paddle from Kalihiwai or Anahola to Hanalei, the longer route being nearly three hours “on a nice day,” she said.
“We’re down at the club a lot. It’s like our second home,” she added.
For Evslin, 24, the Moloka‘i-to-O‘ahu crossing was his fifth or sixth. He has been paddling since he was 12, with Kaiola Canoe Club on this island, until he discovered one-man canoes when he was 16, he said.
“Then once I started one-manning, it just kind of opened up the sport for me,” said Evslin, son of Monica “Miki” and Dr. Lee Evslin of Wailua Homesteads.
The Fraziers got into paddling in a circuitous manner, with Mark Frazier getting involved in team canoe racing when he followed his parents and brother to the island. “Canoe clubs were a great way to meet people.”
Tom Bartlett introduced Mark Frazier to one-man racing, and Mark Frazier has been on the board, and safety director, of, among other races, the Kaua‘i World Challenge.
“I’ve always been kind of a competitive guy,” playing team sports in high school and college.
“Then, I got into one-mans,” at some point because he became bored with team sports, “then back to team sports because they’re kinda cool.”
When Alana Frazier broke her arm in Colorado, Mark Frazier noticed that some of her rehabilitation exercises were the same ones he did for his paddling training. He told her she should paddle, and she reminded him that she did paddle competitively, at ‘Iolani School on O‘ahu.
They have paired to win a couple Moloka‘i-to-O‘ahu relay races (the next one is coming soon), and he still talks with excitement about the series of races that is tantamount to the World Series of OC1 (one-person canoes) racing. “It’s an amazing series,” four races including the Kaua‘i World Challenge, the Steinlager Ka‘iwi and two other races, where “some of the best athletes in Hawai‘i, around the world, train for that series. “The month of April is just a blast, if you can keep up with it financially.”
• Paul C. Curtis, sports writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com
