Words By: Brittany Phelan
Kayaking to me is much like skiing and biking. My whole life I’ve been a professional skier, and joined a pro mountain bike team 5 years ago. I have been lucky enough to have had the opportunity to pursue my childhood dream of competing for Canada at the past 2 olympics, finishing second place at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games. In the summertime, I compete on the Enduro World Series for mountain biking. Although biking is my second sport, to me it’s so similar to skiing that it allows me to progress and try new things that ultimately will help me when ski season comes around. I love both sports and the way they compliment each other and allow me to always be learning and progressing. They both have always kept me working hard to find that next level. Besides progression and fulfilment, these sports provide pure joy and I feel lucky that I found my passion at a young age, and was able to make it my livelihood.
Last February in a World Cup in France, everything changed. I had a huge crash in the second race run of the day and ended up reducing most major ligaments in my left knee to ‘confetti’ as the surgeon put it. Then Covid- 19 hit North America soon after, and everything stopped in my life.
With not much of a knee, and a long recovery ahead of me, I struggled to find my new place and some form or happiness and fulfilment as the things I loved most in life were gone. Thankfully the early days of rehab proved to be pretty full on with Physio exercises and treatment so everything went by pretty quick.
6 months post surgery I was cleared to start walking around a bit more, and to have more impact implemented in my training. I started mountain biking again which was amazing, but at the same time it was not the same. I was still told to make sure to not fall on my new knee or even put a foot out aggressively as the knee wouldn’t be able to handle normal stuff like that for awhile.
Being able to mountain bike was so freeing at first, but soon it became clear that I was still missing what I loved most about sport. Being challenged, having to figure stuff out, visualizing things I wasn’t sure about, finding focus and flow.
It wasn’t the same.
My fiancée Matt, an avid kayaker suggested I get back into paddling (a sport I’d grown up doing prior to pursuing biking and skiing professionally). Upon his suggestion I was nervous, but also excited. I hadn’t paddled in years.
Luckily Matt was able to source a boat and necessary equipment from Pink Mountain Imports.
The moment I got out into the water everything came back right away. I was a bit rusty at grabbing some more difficult eddies and flipped more times then I should have (luckily I could still roll and got lots of practice the first few days back ha)
My knee was protected in my boat and for the first time since my injury I wasn’t reminded of it being still injured until we would get to the take out.
The biggest gift this injury has given me was the opportunity to get back to paddling. It brought me everything I felt I was missing since getting hurt. Pure adrenaline, focus, lots and lots of learning and progression. Ultimately it brought back 100% of living in the moment, sport has a special way of narrowing the focus to nothing else except what you’re doing, with the people you’re doing it with.
A big thank you to Riley and Maison at Pink Mountain imports for getting me set up to get back in the water. And literally hooking me up with the last available Waka Stout in the country! Grateful for the help and support. Thank you!