“It’s coming out of the oven now and is going to the grill” are words that should never be uttered when speaking about breakfast burritos. The vibey joint that RJ, Garrett and I went to fuel up at before our heats certainly had a hipster sentiment, but putting burritos in an oven and taking upwards of 45 minutes to do so is just not okay.
We raced back to the car with our sub-par cabbage, feta and baked egg burritos (when you’re used to eating Brother’s Burritos in Hermosa Beach every other day, everything else is sub-par) just in time to suit up for my heat.
I hadn’t had the jitters like this in a while, and names had been ringing in my ears. Mele Saili. Makala Smith. Karina Rozunko. All liquid ballerinas. All forces of mermaid shred on a longboard. And all of them in my division.
Karina was MIA, but Mele was standing five feet away at the top of the rock-stairs, sporting a red jersey and looking focused for the heat before me. The buzzer sounded and as she started sailing down her own waves, I pulled on my own competition gear. Makala was in Red, I was pink, and the other 4 girls completed the salty rainbow. We sat in the lineup waiting for the ring, watching the previous heat flow back and forth in the knee high lines. I disappeared into myself with no game plan, and as the ring sounded, the splashes of paddles and cutbacks began.
The heat was difficult. Small waves don’t have a lot of force, and the inconsistent lines were barely coming through at knee high. I would drop into a small wave, not wanting to miss my wave count, only to paddle back out and see a different colored boarder sailing down a waist high set, lining up all the way to the cliff in front of the judges tent. 15 minutes passed as seconds, and although I got my count, I knew the results before they were posted. I didn’t advance.
Ultimately, it was a learning lesson. Have a plan, be patient. Wait for the sets. Then, let speed, power, and flow take over. Next time.
