Christoph Kesting summed up on Wednesday morning how he felt after a paddleboard training session that had him on Guelph Lake until midnight the night before.
“Absolutely knackered,” confessed the Guelph man in an interview.
He’d better rest up.
On Saturday, Kesting will be taking part in a 54-kilometre stand-up paddleboard race across Lake Ontario.
He will be one of 29 competitors setting out from Port Dalhousie and making the six- to 12-hour trek (depending on the wind) in the Niagara2Toronto race.
“I do really well with having these peak experiences in my life, these quests or big projects, I need one like that,” said Kesting, who owns KestingHomes, a company that builds container homes.
“I was looking around for another big challenge, signed up for the race and then immediately said ‘oh my god, what have I done?’”
While Kesting, an experienced paddleboarder and committed environmentalist, is competing this weekend for the personal challenge and love of the sport, he is also doing it for a cause, raising money for the Wellington Water Watchers’ work on protecting and growing the greenbelt.
“When we do fun things, when we have a purpose to connect to it, it just gives it so much more energy and power.”
Kesting has travelled to 36 countries and says he is shocked how other countries and other parts of Canada give water so much respect and realize how “incredibly precious” it is, yet often here in Ontario we don’t.
“There’s just something in Ontario, it kind of boggles me a bit, that we take it for granted,” he said.
In part, he said, this adventure is a way of addressing his own apathy, doing something, in his own small way, to help bring attention to the cause.
Wellington Water Watchers said in a news release that protecting the greenbelt and waterways against development and urban sprawl is essential.
“I think it's wonderful that Christoph is using this event to draw attention to the relationship between environmental conservation and the health of water systems here in the Great Lakes Region," said WWW executive director Arlene Slocombe.
"We need to put environmental protections in place now, as our province grows. The Wellington Water Watchers is working hard to see our wetlands, river corridors, moraines, and other significant recharge areas included in an expanded Greenbelt.”
To sponsor Kesting, click here.
To learn more about the Wellington Water Watchers’ efforts surrounding greenbelt protection, click here.
