Whitewater champion to talk about new book in Edwards

The GoPro Mountain Games are approaching fast, and this annual event gives everyone an opportunity to watch world-class athletes test their mettle in various sports like kayaking, climbing, biking, slacklining and more.

On Wednesday at The Bookworm of Edwards, author Susan Norman — a national and world champion in whitewater kayaking and rafting — will share about her memoir “Risk: A Life Saved by the River,” a compelling narrative about this pioneering woman’s connection to wild rivers, and how the journey heals her past and current childhood trauma. Norman’s connection to the river and whitewater sports started when she was very young.

“My dad made me try whitewater paddling when I was two-and-a-half, but it wasn’t until I was about 16 that I started developing my own passion for the sport,” Norman said. “Then I started competing. I was a fearful kayaker and I saw that the skill level you could achieve through kayak slalom racing would make me a much more skilled paddler. Whitewater paddling, like many other sports at the elite level, requires a magical combination of power and grace. When you start developing those skills, the result is very addictive. I didn’t enjoy the racing itself most of the time, but I loved the training and the community.”

Norman built community in whitewater sports through two different competitive seasons in her life.

“I competed in whitewater kayak slalom for the US National Team over a period of about six years, while I was working my way through my undergraduate degree,” Norman said. “I spent several summers traveling and competing in Europe, won the National Championships in 1982, and lived a total paddling dirtbag lifestyle. Then in my early 30s, after I had completed college and was beginning my career as a United States Forest Service hydrologist, I began competing in international whitewater rafting. I competed on a six-person team with an all-star cast of powerful women athletes and pioneers in the sport of rafting. Many of our competitions were on large volume and/or technical Class V rivers all over the world including Siberia, Africa, South and Central America. We won several World Championships, and my teammates are life-long friends.”

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Norman became a parent for her nephew when his biological parents were struggling with addiction, mental illness and poverty. “I became a parent for my nephew because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t,” Norman said. “He was going to end up in foster care. It initially felt like paddling off a waterfall into a class V rapids with Class II paddling skills. My son presented a lot of challenges related to his emotional trauma, and I discovered I also still carried a lot of that kind of baggage from my own childhood trauma. I relied on county and school counselors to help me learn the skills I needed to understand both myself and him, and cope with our challenges,” Norman said.

It wasn’t just her athletic community that made an impact in Norman’s life, it was also her writing community that encouraged her to share her story. “The writing coach and group I worked with eventually convinced me that my late-in-life parenting journey was tied to my life long relationship with the river, and needed to be a significant part of the story,” Norman said. “That truly is what makes my adventure sports memoir unique, because the parenting story is woven in to create a much bigger picture of why a connection to the outdoors through adventure sports can provide lifelong resilience.”

In reading her unique sports memoir, Norman hopes that readers learn how risk-taking can have a positive impact on life.

“Taking chosen risks through outdoor adventure is a powerful path for creating personal resilience to face unforeseen challenges we all have to face in life,” Norman said. “Of course, the level of chosen risk will and should evolve as we age. But continuing to put ourselves out there, with reasonable calculated risk, in community, will continue to provide powerful emotional and physical benefits.”