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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Ramon Antonio Vargas

Female US rower reflects on ‘surreal’ record-breaking journey from California to Hawaii

palm trees along a beach
Palm trees over Waikiki beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 10 February 2025. Photograph: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

A Grand Canyon river-rafting guide who recently became the first US woman to row solo from California to Hawaii – traveling in record time – says she hopes her accomplishment inspires other women to push their limits and take risks.

“It’s really motivating to think [that], maybe one day, I will get to see another woman work even harder to do what I did,” Kelsey Pfendler, 32, told ABC’s Good Morning America program on Monday, three days after completing the record-setting journey across the mid-Pacific. “And it would be so special to watch.”

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