After the race where my time sucked because of the broken skeg, and the race where my time sucked because I was in a strange boat, today I didn’t have any excuses – I was back in my own boat. And who needs excuses when you improve your previous best time by 48 seconds!
The rain ended minutes before the race – the thunderstorm had been so intense that they’d announced at work that people should not wade through puddles because the intense rainfall had blown the tops of manholes and you might fall in one.
The creek was running pretty fast, and the bay was calm and flat. For me, that was perfect. I really enjoyed the strategy of trying to read the river and find the quieter parts on the way upstream and the faster bits for the way downstream. I was a little scared of breaking my skeg so I pulled it up long before I got to the channel off the bay. And then I paddled inside the “scum line” – a line of duckweed that showed you where there was a little back-eddy for some of the upstream, then it was cutting inside corners and trying to stay as close to the inner bank as I could and still make a good paddle stroke. After the turn, I paddled downstream in the fastest part of the stream, usually the outside of corners.
What a great evening. Worth missing watching the best stage of the Tour de France for, which is high praise indeed.