Today was the 32nd annual Great Race in Auburn, NY. The race consists of one person running, one person biking, and either two people in a canoe or one person in a kayak paddling. (I’m pretty sure they don’t have a category for single canoes.) The long course is 10 km running, 20 miles cycling, and (theoretically) 4 miles paddling. The short course, which I had no intention of doing, was only 5km running, 10 miles cycling, and 2 miles paddling. I had tried to put together a team with the Huggers Ski Club, but in spite of the fact that many of them are avid cyclists or runners, I couldn’t, so I put a notice on the Great Race’s message board and got together a team.
Putting together a team from the internet is like a blind date, but instead of wondering if the dinner is going to be awkward, you’re wondering if your team-mates are going to be either not a hell of a lot better than you or a hell of a lot worse. You don’t want to be the weak link on an otherwise strong team, nor do you want to be the only strong person on a weak team. But since it was my first race, and it was a blind-date team, I was really mostly telling myself not to care about team placing, and just worry about your own performance – I knew I was one of the better paddlers there and so I wouldn’t let down a good team, but you can’t know how the rest of your team is going to do.
Continue reading “Auburn Great Race, preliminary thoughts”