[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
They started the kayaks in one wave this year, with no canoes around. That certainly reduced the pile up problem we had last year – most people didn’t even come up to the line until 30 seconds to go, and there wasn’t as much back-paddling. Immediately on the start, Jim Mallory was off like a shot like we expected. Bill Feeney did one of his awesomely quick starts, and I tried to stay with the group with him and Doug. Pretty quickly, though, we dropped Bill and so it was me, Doug, a guy with a mullet in a greenish EFT (I mentioned him in the blog at last year’s race – I think his name is Jim but I’m going to call him Mullet Man) and a guy with short greyish hair in a Thunderbolt or Marauder (I’m going to call him GHG), all trying to catch Mike Littlejohn who had a phenomenal start. We did catch his wake, and so it was GHG to his left, Doug on his stern wash, and me trying to ride Littlejohn’s. I couldn’t hold it, though, and dropped back to his stern wash. I’m not sure where Mullet Man was at this point. I was going way to fast, and my pulse rate was up around 170.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
At the turn, they all gapped me, including Mullet Man. I pulled hard to try to catch them back up, or at least catch Littlejohn who was starting to drop off from them. Scott Stenberg was around me, on one side or the other, and somebody (who I eventually discovered was Paul D) was bumping into my stern as he rode my stern wake. Scott started talking to Paul D, and then just before the railway bridge, as I’d been pulling them along for 2 miles, he suggested I drop onto their stern wakes and take a breather so we could work together. Paul D took the lead, Scott took second, and I was in the best seat in the house behind them, trying to recover from that way too hard start and that long pull.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
As we passed the start line, Scott was trying to tell Paul what line to take around a C-4. They ended up getting so close to them that their paddles clashed, and then as I passed them they did a perfect “pit turn” and turned me out 90 degrees from my line. I swore at them, and then sprinted to get back on Paul D’s wake, but the sprint was just too much and I soon lost them. Looking back on the video, I can see now that the C-4 wasn’t really to blame for pitting me – I think they actually weren’t all that good, and I crossed too close in front of them trying to stay on Scott and Paul. So whoever you are, sorry I called you bastards.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
The rest of the way was just one long hot grind. I didn’t pass any kayakers, and no kayakers passed me. I kept thinking I was getting closer to Paul D (who’d been dropped by Scott) but I never actually did. Jim and I crossed (him downstream and me upstream) quite a bit higher upstream than last year, which I think might indicate some improvement on my part, at least.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
And the return downstream was so hot and airless that I couldn’t maintain anywhere near the speed I had on the first downstream portion after the start. A few times I could get a respite behind a C-2 or C-1 stock boat before I’d go blasting past it, and once as Holly Reynold’s C-2 pro boat came by I was able to hold her wake for a tenth of a mile or so. But most of the C-2 pros came by in groups, which made it too hard for me to get on their wake for any length of time.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
On the way down, I knew I had about 30 seconds to a minute on Mike F, and so while I was mad at myself for not being able to catch Paul D, I could at least take comfort that so far Mike hadn’t caught me. And that’s about how it stayed to the end – the video shows him finishing less than a minute behind me, which would put him about a minute slower than last year (1:32:13 last year).

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the speed increase I should have gotten with this faster boat. Cooler weather, I guess, and maybe not wearing dark blue on a brilliantly sunny day. And man, I wish I had the self discipline to lose weight. That’s what it’s going to take to improve, but I just can’t seem to do it.

So I figured what I’d do is get to work early today, and get home early, feed Widget, and then go out for a long paddle at GWC, then come home and walk Widget. And everything was going perfectly according to plan (I even brought along my headlamp in case I took longer than expected) until I got into the boat. I pushed my feet down onto the foot rest, and there was a strange noise and the foot rest gave way. That’s when I had a sudden flash of insight that a few days ago I’d found a wing nut on my driveway. After spending a few minutes trying to figure out if I could rig something in the boat to hold the foot brace in place, and failing that, trying to see if I could paddle without it. No luck. So I packed up and brought the boat back home.

Then I spent at least an hour with the boat upside down on a couple of saw horses, with my head lamp on, trying to squeeze both arms into the front of the boat, trying to thread screws through angled holes by feel, and generally getting frustrated and annoyed. With the boat upside down and my head in the hole, the heat rising off my body got trapped inside the boat, raising the temperature and activating the smell of hundreds of hours of wet swampy feet that have soaked into everything in the kayak over the years.

I finally got it done. I think I got the foot brace in the right holes – I guess I’ll find out on Wednesday. And because I missed the long workout that I wanted to do, I think on Wednesday I might do a lap around the bay before the race.

Today was the Rochester Open Water Challenge. The wind was coming from the south, meaning the bay was a little rough, but the lake looked very smooth. So I decided to paddle the long course, in spite of the misgivings I’ve had for the last couple of weeks. There was a chance that the wind would pick up in between the time the short course started and the long course did, but I figured it would be better to aim high and fall short than to take the safe route. Although I have to admit it looked like the waves were smaller on the lake than on the bay, so I was maybe taking the easy way out by going out on the lake.

The course was different than last year – Ken was hoping to have us run directly into the waves for a bit over two miles, then surf back, and then repeat it. But with shifting winds and no predominate swell, he ended up putting the turn around buoy 2.25 miles straight off shore. I tried not to be freaked out about being that far from shore. After all, there were three safety kayaks out on the course, not to mention the committee boat at the turn.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
At the start, going through the channel, there were immediately three distinct groups – Jason Q was leading, with two guys hot on his tail, including one in a Thunderbolt T-REX, then there was Doug and Mike. I was beside Mike Littlejohn and Stephen Bergash, although they both started to pull away as soon as we got into the lake proper. I didn’t see where the woman in the rowing skiff got ahead of me, but I don’t think she was ahead of me in the channel.

As we went out into the lake, the water could best be described as “lumpy” – there were waves coming from all directions at once. Not very big, but very random – if there was any predominate swell, it was coming from the west, almost directly the direction we’d have been going if we’d taken the original route. It was throwing me off big time. My stroke was falling apart – I was using my arms way too much, and I had to keep interrupting my stroke to brace or just to plant my blade in a wave top. I was trying very hard to push more with my legs, because that seems to help my stability. But I just wasn’t doing well. Not paddling well, not feeling stable or comfortable, and getting further and further from shore. I had to keep telling myself that if I dumped, I could just turn back, and if I finished one lap, I’d still have done more than if I’d done the short course. It was the only way I could keep myself going.

As we got to the committee boat, I was actually catching Stephen B. But he surprised me by going to round a buoy instead of the boat, and got another length or so on me. I quickly got it back, and passed him just as Julia rocketed past us both. We were doing all right, but the chop was getting worse. Julia dumped, and Stephen yelled that he’d take care of her and I should go on ahead. At one point this very strange little group of three waves appeared out of nowhere – it was fairly big, but only about 25 feet wide. I tried to surf them, but I didn’t have the energy to get on them right, and they were too close together. As a matter of fact, the only good surf I got was the last hundred yards or so into the beach. It was almost enough to make me want to turn around and go back out again, but only almost. I’d had enough, and I was ready to quit.

I’ve been beating myself up about the decision to quit ever since, but I was probably right to quit rather than going out again and dumping because I was overtired.

I think I’ve given it a good try to get ready for open water racing these last few weeks, but I’ve got a bit of a way to go before I’m ready to race it. Definitely next year, though.

After tomorrow, my focus will be back on the Thunderbolt as I get ready for Armond Basset (10 miles on the river) and then (maybe) the 90.

A few minutes after posting that “Current Radar Picture” and declaring that I wasn’t going paddling, the skies brightened up, the sun broke through, and Jim phoned me to see if I was going. He said “Come on, it isn’t golf”. And so I went.

And since there is a race this weekend, I thought we were going to take Dan’s coaching advice and “paddle easy, work on surfing technique”. Instead, I get out to the beach, get launched, paddle out to where Mike, Doug, Bill and Stephen are waiting, and Mike says “Aim for the smoke stacks, go!” and off we went to paddle the same course that we’re probably going to race this weekend.

There was very little wave action. I’m sure the other guys thought it was flat, but there was a strong breeze from about 30 degrees off to the left of where we were going, and it was starting to whip up waves. There was a very subtle swell coming in from behind, small and very long wave length. Sometimes you could feel a bit of a ride from that. And there were a few boat wakes coming from all directions, although not very many because of the recently passed storm. I found it challenging. I’m still very twitchy in the boat, and it seemed like a double effort to paddle strongly and keep upright in the waves.

Because I had been expecting a surfing session, I hadn’t brought my camelbak, and I was very thirsty. I was also afraid to stop paddling for even a second so I couldn’t have asked anybody else for a sip of water, nor even scooped some out of the lake.

After not very long, the group sort of separated out with Mike way off ahead, Doug, Jim and Stephen paddling not very far ahead, and Bill just behind me. And not long after that Doug peeled off from the pack of three he was with and came back to shepherd Bill and I. I was afraid to look around, and so I don’t know if Bill was keeping with me or if he was falling behind, but I think he was falling behind. He’s a lot better boat handler than I am, but he hasn’t been working out all that much in the boat and he doesn’t have the fitness of the rest of us.

As we got closer to the jetty, the wind was getting stronger and stronger, and the hoped for rest in the wind shadow never happened. Instead, the jetty turned the waves from being 30 degrees off my left to coming almost directly down the jetty from my right to left, making it easy to use them to turn around in. Bill and Doug didn’t come in near to the jetty, so I couldn’t ask one of them for water, and by the time I got out to where they were and everybody was paddling the same direction, I was back in a “concentrate and try to stay upright” situation so I didn’t bother to ask.

As expected, the waves being whipped up by the wind, now behind us and angled more in towards shore, were growing. Bill and I paddled the entire distance back side by side, as he used his skill to catch waves and get a ride while I tried to do the same. We were mostly side by side but every now and then one of us would catch a good ride that the other one missed and surge ahead, only to be caught and passed as the other caught a ride. A couple of “linked runs” saw our speeds nudge up into the 7 mph and higher range, although mostly we were around 6.2 to 6.4 mph. For a while, I was really enjoying it. But then the fatigue and dehydration caught up with me and I was starting to struggle again.

Mike was miles ahead and way off to our left, well off shore. Stephen was a not as far ahead, and he was well into shore. If the waves had been any higher, he probably would have been in bad surf and been expending a lot of energy. I think Bill and I had a good line because the last mile or more was straight down wind. I have discovered that sometimes it seems better to be diagonal to the waves so you can surf faster than they are going, but I still think it’s good to have a relatively easy straight downwind surf at the end.

So it was probably too much effort this close to a major race, but on the other hand I really need more wave time and this definitely counted as that.

I haven’t gotten very good at balancing – the guys with more experience seem to just rock their hips without thought, where for me it’s entirely a conscious effort, which makes it too slow to react – I’m often doing exactly the opposite of what I need to be doing as a wave or boat wake passes. I need more experience. I can feel improvement over the last few weeks, but I’m still not good.

The other guys weren’t finding it particularly easy, and I take some solace from that, but Dennis only dumped a few times and I don’t think Doug dumped at all. But they also decided not to paddle the whole course. So maybe I’m not that far behind them. But if the conditions next week are like this, I’m not going to be able to complete the race.

I’ve also settled on a name for the ski. In the past, I named my Skerray “Mary Ellen Carter”, after the song by Stan Rogers, because it enabled me to “rise again”, and the Looksha was “Gideon Brown” after the song by Great Big Sea, because she can “punch ahead in any gale”. I called the Thunderbold “Anne-Marie” after the boat in Stan Rogers’ song “Acadian Saturday Night” because it has “wings on the water”. And so now I’m naming the ski Old Polina because I “fly a long like a song” in it. Or at least I hope to.

I had a great visit with my dad, step mother and kids this weekend. It’s great to see them, especially my daughters. They’re both maturing so well. I still worry about them, but I suppose that’s my job.

In other news, I’m still trying to finish setting up the replacement hardware. I’m experimenting with using LVM snapshots to be able to backup the domU partitions while they’re active – I think what I’ll do is make snapshots, rsync them over to the new server’s partitions, then delete them, and then shut down the domUs and rsync them again while they’re shut down, and then start up the new guys. By rsyncing once with snapshots, that should make the amount of time between shutting down the partitions and bringing up the new ones much faster. I’m also going to look into replacing my current rsync backup scripts to ones that use snapshots as well, because that way I never have to worry about inconsistencies in the file system, especially in the database engines.

The weather was pretty good – a bit cool, very little wind, and it only started raining after we got in the boats to warm up. There was a huge crowd of ICF sprint kayaks, and so we would have actually preferred a bit of waves to give us an advantage over them. It turned out that most of them were in sprint boats because that’s the standard thing in Canada, rather than because they were shit hot paddlers. There were a few shit hot paddlers in sprint boats including Jim Mallory and Ken O-J and a lot of people I had no idea about.

At the start, we lined up between two buoys. There were two markers we had to round that were about 30 degrees to the right of perpendicular to the line between the buoys, so most people lined up at kind of an angle to the line. Jim and a few others actually lined up to the right of the rightmost buoy, giving themselves a shorter line to the marker, but considering how my boat turns and the traffic, I was content to be a little further to the left to approach the markers on a more obtuse angle. Except at the gun the guy beside me to my right sprints out perpendicular to the start line, cutting off me and Doug and Mike and a few others taking a more direct line to the markers. And then when I passed on the inside of him, he suddenly veered about 60 degrees to the right and slammed into me.

We reached the first marker in pretty good condition. I was on Mike Littlejohn’s side wake, Doug was on his tail, we were catching Bill, and there were only a few kayaks ahead of us, including Jim and one of the Canadians who were pulling ahead. We passed Bill before the channel.

Entering the channel, we had a bit of following seas, but with little wind it could very well be of our own making. Doug says there was a strong current coming out, but I didn’t notice it – although my GPS does record a drop in speed to under 6mph briefly. We quickly turned up river, but there didn’t seem like much percentage in skulking up the bank the way Jim was doing because there was little current and lots of weeds in close. An old guy in an old fashioned sprint boat came chugging by with excellent and effortless looking technique, and Doug was on his wake like a limpet. Mike Littlejohn got on Doug’s wake, and I was still on his side wake. I tried to pull up to Doug’s side wake, but I just couldn’t get over the one wave on to the next. The river turned, and Doug veered towards my side, and suddenly I was on his stern wake and Mike Littlejohn was trying unsuccessfully to stay on my side wake. After a while the old guy got a gap on us, and Mike dropped behind, and it pretty much stayed like that until the oxbow loop that was the turn. Doug managed to gap me once or twice but I struggled back on.

In the oxbow, it wasn’t quite as shallow as I’d feared. Kent O-J finally caught us (he’d had some trouble with the waves in the lake in his new sprint boat), and when he went by Doug put on a burst of speed to stay with him. It wasn’t successful for very long, but it was enough for him to open an insurmountable gap over me. I tried like hell to use every trick to bridge the gap, but I never got any closer.

It was along the final stretch of river that we encountered a guide boat that had been in on a dock and suddenly decided to blunder out into out path. Doug yelled at them and they slowed, but I still had to swing out around them.

We started passing the c-2s who had started in an earlier wave, and it was nice – you could pull in to thier stern wake, recover a bit, lower your heart rate and breathing, get a drink, then sprint like hell for the next one or one a few canoes up. I did most of the sixth and seventh miles like that. Doug wasn’t doing that, so he was pulling away even more. Doug was closing on three boats just tantalizingly out of reach – the old guy in the 1985 sprint boat, Kent O-J, and a guy in a light yellow Kayak Pro boat. The top two, Jim Mallory and that French Canadian guy, had finished before I was in site of the line.

I was exhausted at the end. I’d gone out a lot faster than I had at Round The Mountain, and I had nothing in the tank at the end. I ended up being third in under 50, behind the Canadian guy who’d outsprinted Jim and Doug. Jim won over 50. Mike Finear was about a minute behind me and won Touring class. Mike Littlejohn is evidently calling his boat Unlimited class now, and he finished somewhere between me and Mike F. Bill was not too far behind Mike, doing well in spite of the fact that he doesn’t paddle as much as the rest of us.

Compared to last year, this year I did 6.75 miles in 1:02, for an average speed of 6.5 mph. Last year, in a slower boat with less conditioning, I did 7.21 miles in 1:07, for an average speed of …. 6.5 mph. Hmmm. The only thing I can say in my favour is that this year, the first three miles were upstream and the last 3.75 miles were downstream, and last year the whole distance was downstream.

Update: Official results are up. Evidently as well as the three guys Doug was closing in on, there was another guy in a Marauder and a Canadian woman (so probably in a sprint boat) about a minute ahead of them. So while I was third in Men’s Under 50 Unlimited, I was actually about 9th fastest kayak. Sigh.

I ended up into a place that has been a problem in every boat I’ve been in. There is a long stretch of break-wall with some docks and boat lifts, and the break walls act as perfect reflectors, making sure that you’re getting every boat wake at least twice with very little attenuation. I dumped of course. No worries, Stephen had already dumped several times, and he gets back into his boat in no time at all. But I’ve only remounted twice, and those were in calm conditions where I could touch the ground if I needed to. So it took me a few attempts, and a little help from Jim, but I got back in. And paddled a few metres until I got hit by another nasty set of wakes and dumped again.

This time, as I was kicking to get in, one of my knees went pop. This is a particular type of pop I’m all too familiar with. It means that the normal level of pain in my knees, which is bad enough, is about to get 100 times worse, and it’s going to be sensitive to kicking and pushing and weight bearing. I got in, but I immediately dumped again at least partly because I couldn’t push easily with that leg, and this time I didn’t want to get back in. Instead, I climbed out on one of the docks and crashed a pool party next door to borrow a phone to call Vicki.

I feel bad about quitting for the second time in two days. And I worry about whether I’ve got what it takes to paddle in the surf. But I had problems last year in a much more stable boat and got better with it, so I’m hoping I’ll get used to the ski as well.