Beat downs and big water by Jeremy Wood

Watching Mauricio run the race line on Initiation. 

My name is Jeremy Wood, and the biggest rapids I have run back at home were at most, class 3. Here on the Ottawa river however, we have run high volume class 4 rapids with 15-20 foot tall waves and sticky holes, which are perfect for beat downs. For me, this meant I had to push myself beyond what i was used to, which ended pretty well, most of the time. I had my biggest beat down in a hole called Odyssey, in a rapid called Initiation. It was on race day, and it was finally my turn for a timed run down the rapid. I had done two practice runs before hand, and I thought that it would go pretty well. I started paddling down, and headed left towards the eddy, but i messed up my line, and wound up in Odyssey. Almost immediately I was flipped over, and proceeded to roll up as i usually would. As soon as i came up, I flipped right back over. I felt myself being violently pulled by the water, but i managed to roll up again. When i flipped over and was violently pulled by the water again, I knew that i had gotten stuck in Odyssey. It was pretty nerve-racking but I calmed myself down, and kept rolling back up each time that i was flipped, until I finally made it out. The beat down probably only lasted about 15 seconds, and i had sufficient air the whole time, but since it was my first beat down, I was pretty shocked and exhausted by the end of it. While I was terrified while it was happening, it was probably good that I got beat down, because it helped me get over my fear of running bigger water than I was used to.