Month: September 2013

Erie Canal Regatta 2013

Today was the Erie Canal Regatta. It wasn’t as well attended as the other races this month, but after three weekends in a row, I think people have other calls on their time. I signed up for the 7.5 mile race. As well as me, there was Jim M, a colleague of my wife’s and the best local kayak racer, my coach Dan, Dan’s son Tom, Steve B, who I haven’t seen since 2010, two people in a canoe, and Chris, who was my only competition at the Armond Basset 5km race this summer.

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At the start, everybody went out hard. I was in my Think Legend which I’m still not stable in, and initially I had problems with the wakes, especially under the lift bridge where the concrete walls bounce them off and back at you. Half way through the village, however, Dan relaxed a bit and I caught him. Steve was riding Dan’s stern wake. I took a turn leading for about a kilometer and a bit, and then Dan signalled he was ready to take a turn. I’m afraid I was concentrating more on trying to find the right place on his wake because of the new-ish boat, and not noticing that my paddle stroke had gotten out of phase with his, and at about the 2km mark my paddle clashed with his, mine lifted his hand up and unbalanced him, and he fell in. In the confusion, Steve lost a paddle stroke or two asking Dan if he was all right, and so now I was on my own.

For the whole rest of the race, I tried to set my own pace, well aware of the presence of Steve practically breathing down my neck. I couldn’t actually see him except at the two turns, but every now and then I’d hear him shouting at somebody (like when Jim and Tom came in the other direction) or somebody shouting at him, and in between I was absolutely sure he was catching up and would soon be riding my wake and getting ready to pounce. This was especially true while navigating all the boat wakes – it was such a beautiful day, I swear every boat owner on the canal decided to go through that particular stretch of the canal at that particular time, mostly going in the wrong direction to be any help to me. And each boat wake cost me some time, sometimes because I actually had to stop paddling to brace, sometimes just because it would throw off my stroke a bit. I remember when Steve went through similar issues when he first got his V12, but that was back in 2009 and he is probably really used to it by now, so I figured he must be gaining on me.

As we approached the first turn, Tom and Jim were coming in the other direction, and very close behind them was a boat making a very large wake. I tried to warn them of the approaching boat so they wouldn’t be surprised by it, but I don’t know if they heard me. I could hear Steve very close behind me.

At the first turn, I found him about two boat lengths behind me and he did the turn better than I did, so if he wasn’t on my wake he was probably less than a boat length off it, so I hammered for a bit to try to shake him. Ok, looking back at the video, “hammered” is a bit of an overstatement. I went a tiny bit harder. I have no idea if it worked, because I was too unstable in the boat to look over my shoulder.

A bit later we passed Dan still coming down stream. He’d obviously lost a lot of time when he dumped, far more than you’d expect for a simple dump and jump back in. He tried to yell something but there was a freight train going through and I couldn’t hear anything. On the video I can hear the word “tangle”, which I discovered afterwards was because he’d gotten tangled up in his drinking hose when he remounted and had lost a lot of time trying to sort that out, and afterwards had decided he was never going to catch us. Steve yelled something to Dan, and again I couldn’t hear it, but I could tell that he was still close.

Further up the canal, I could hear little squeaks – at first I thought they were something on Steve’s boat rubbing, then I thought it was birds, and then I realized it was my hands against the bike tape on the grips of my paddle. I wasn’t sure if they were all mine, though. I still thought Steve was breathing down my neck.

As we came into Fairport, there was a steady stream of boats, mostly heading at us, but one or two going the same way as us. On the video, you can see me passing a packet boat that’s going the same way as us, and then dealing with multiple boats coming in the other direction. As we passed the start/finish line heading up to the second turn, I again got an indication that Steve was pretty close, but not as close as he’d been before. I must have pulled away in spite of the boat wakes and other problems.

At the turn at the top, I got another view of Steve. Now I could see that in spite of my lousy turn, I had at least 5 or 6 boat lengths on him. That’s good, because I was fading fast. My left arm was getting wet, which I’ve discovered is due to me “rushing my catch” (ie. pulling back on the paddle before it’s fully plunged into the water) on that side when I get tired. As we passed Dan’s place, which is about 1.5 km from the finish, Dan was sitting on his dock looking nonchalant, which surprised me. How did he get there so fast? He yelled something I didn’t quite catch about my technique, but I took the hint and tried to fix my catch. I also tried to put on a bit more speed, knowing that the end wasn’t that far away. My speed was surging up and down as I tried to squeeze out every ounce of speed, but then the exhaustion took over, and then I’d remember that Steve was probably not fading, and I’d try to pull out another effort.

In the end, I finished in 1:10:54, and Steve finished in 1:11:08. Not bad. I regret terribly Dan’s and my accident. It would have been a lot more fun if the three of us had managed to hang together for the whole race.
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Long Lake Long Boat Regatta

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Today was the race I thought about all the time I was rehabilitating my shoulder and losing weight. This was the real test if I was back or not. Ten miles, in the Adirondacks, with all the uncertainty of weather that might entail.

Yesterday, the forecast for today kind of sucked. Winds of up to 20 miles per hour, 80% probability of precipitation, and thunderstorm in the early afternoon. But this morning the forecast was quite improved – the rain was supposed to hold off until afternoon, and the wind was supposed to be lower. Well, one out of two aren’t bad – as start time approached it was clear that the skies were going to stay clear, but the wind was moderately strong whipping straight down the lake, with stronger gusts and building.

At the start, I lined up next to Roger Gocking with the idea of maybe trying to hold his wake – he’s always been faster than me, but I thought maybe with my improvements, I could hold him. But almost as soon as the start gun went off, Roger was fouled by some idiot in a guide boat. The guide boat guy put his oar right over Roger’s boat, and both of them had to stop dead. Honestly, guys, you know those things are slower than kayaks, and you’re not facing forwards, so you’ve got no right to be trying to mix it up with the kayaks on the front line. Line up behind us and wait your freaking turn. Roger is a better man than I am and didn’t yell at the guy, just proceeded to quietly untangle, but I needed a new strategy.

I latched onto Mike Littlejohn’s stern wake. He was going gang-busters. Jim M was ahead of us, as expected, and Todd F was coming up past us, but otherwise it was just us up front. Now in the past I’ve beaten Mike a few times, and he’s beaten me a few times. I don’t know what the difference is, except I know that he’s got two boats that he made himself and I can’t tell the difference between them, and one is unlimited class and one is touring class – and today he was in his unlimited class boat. But he’s also a big guy and his technique sucks, so I had an idea that maybe I could ride his wake on the way down, and then gap him at the turn, and extend my lead on the way back. Certainly that’s pretty much how it worked in 2010 – I increased my lead on everybody except Dave Wiltie into the wind on the way back, but I’d been on Wiltie’s stern wake then, and at this point there was nobody I could see likely to come through and drag me away from Mike.

My heart rate was really high – in the mid 160s. I didn’t think I could sustain that. By the 4 km mark, I was feeling it, and I wasn’t seeing any sign of weakness from Mike. The idea that he would fade and I’d be able to take the lead was kind of seaming like a pipe dream. And worse, the wind was coming hard from the right side, and my boat wanted to weathervane into the wind. I was wasting effort applying hard left rudder just to stay pointing straight ahead. I had a momentary bobble, and caught a glimpse over my shoulder and realized that Roger was caught up to us and riding my wake. That spurred me on a bit, and I tried to pass Mike. I was a little upwind, partly by choice, partly because my boat was weathervaning into the wind. Roger stayed on my wake, but I never managed to get more than half a boat length ahead of Mike. Even getting a better angle on the waves towards the turn bouy didn’t help.

But as I was cutting towards the turn bouy, I got a massive stroke of good luck – the war canoe “Dog Breath” came roaring by. At first, they clashed paddles with me and I said “Thanks, I really needed that” and one of them said sorry. But then I managed to get on their side wake. It was great – I had to sweep on the side towards them because I was getting sucked into them, but the speed was incredible. I put some serious distance into Roger and Mike. I yelled to the guys on Dog Breath “All is forgiven”. But we were close to the turn bouy and when they turned I couldn’t stay with them – I might have been able to if I was inside the turn, but I was on the outside. After the turn I tried to get onto one of their stern wakes, but it just wasn’t happening. And the wind was horrible – it was coming from the front, then from the side, then from the front. A couple of kilometers after the turn, there was an island and I was trying to get into the wind shadow of it as had Jim and Todd and the war canoe, but the weathervaning of my boat was making it really hard.

I eventually did it get into the wind shadow, but by the time I did, Mike and Roger were back on my tail, and soon afterwards Mike came up even with me, with Roger still on his tail. I still had the feeling I might be able to get past them in the end. The wind was now in our face, and it was strong. Some of the gusts were as strong as any I’ve ever encountered in the boat, and I had to switch to a low paddling style. But it was hard hard hard. Now it was all three of us side by side. I tried Mike’s side wake, I tried Roger’s side wake, I tried to get into the V between then, but nothing helped. Neither of them were showing any signs of fading, but I was. I was side by side with them with a kilometer to go, but in that last kilometer I fell off behind. By the end, Roger had a boat length on Mike, and Mike had a boat length on me.

Roger, Mike and I at the finish.
Roger, Mike and I at the finish.

It wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it was probably the best result I’ve had. I’ve never finished anywhere near Roger before, and he’s doesn’t look like he’s slowed down any. But I was disappointed not to beat Mike. He’s beaten me in the past, but I’ve also beaten him. I was hoping I’d get him this time. Oh well, maybe next year. I just wish I could find a solution to the weathervaning on this boat. It’s a good boat otherwise.

Baycreek Kayak and SUP Cup 2013

[dciframe]http://connect.garmin.com:80/activity/embed/375634626,465,548,0,auto,border:1px solid blue;align:left;[/dciframe]Today was the first long race I’ve done since coming back from my surgery. BayCreek Paddling Center sponsored a race up and down Irondequoit Bay, starting and ending at their dock. Mostly I avoid the bay because its usually a horrendous mess of conflicting boat wakes, and the first kilometer and a half from BayCreek is shallow, which is very slow if you’re in a long boat, especially if you’re heavier than the average paddler like I am – we call it suck water because it feels like its sucking the boat down. Fortunately today the cold and the lateness of the season kept most of the power boaters away except the fishermen, so the wakes weren’t a problem. This allowed me to paddle my Thunderbolt, which is a tiny bit faster and lighter than my v10 Sport, which is what I’d use if waves were going to be an issue.

We lined up in front of the dock. I took the far left because almost as soon as you start you go under the Empire Blvd bridge which is low and dark and in the darkness under the bridge there is a hidden obstacle just below the water on the right side. Bill was to my immediate right. Bill always starts really fast and fades in a km or so. To his right were my coach, Dan, and then his son Tom, and a couple of others.

At the start, Jim M and Tom took off incredibly fast, as expected, followed by the Canadian guy (sorry, forgot his name, but he drove down from Toronto today) who was being tailed by Matt, then Dan with Bill and I tailing him. Half way through the suck water Bill starts to drop off, and Dan decides to leave the channel for a direct route. Gutsy move considering its even worse suck water out of the channel. I put in a huge effort to get onto his tail wake and latch on. It’s cost me – by pulse is up to 163, which is my max and not sustainable for very long. After I caught his wake I tried to recover a bit but he was pushing pretty hard and I think I got it barely under 160. By about the third kilometer or so I was feeling a bit better so I came up into his side wake. By the fourth kilometer I was actually able to take a turn in front. By that point Jim had put a big gap over Tom, and Matt had dropped behind so we really only had to think about trying to catch the Canadian guy if we could. The great thing about Dan and I is we didn’t really need to talk things over, but Dan said I should pull to the Bay Bridge, and then he’d pull to the marker. But I was fading again and he had to take over before we reached it. He led to the turn, and then at the turn he held off accelerating out of the turn until he knew I was with him, which was a really nice thing for him to do since he could have gapped me there.

At the turn you get a chance to assess where you are in relation to the people behind you. Matt was about the only person behind us we had to worry about, and he was pretty far back. We weren’t catching the Canadian guy either.

Soon after passing the Bay Bridge, the Canadian guy seemed to turn to parallel a moving fishing boat, and then cut in front of him. After the race he’d said he’d yelled at them to slack off their speed so he could go in front of them because they were trailing long lines so he couldn’t go behind them, but at first they’d just stared at him stupidly and not cut their speed but he managed to make himself understood after he turned alongside them. That problem made me think we had a chance of catching him, but he was just too strong and he continued going fast as we got more tired and slowed down.

Both us were slowing down a bit, but I felt like Dan was fading faster than me. For one thing, he seemed to have a slight problem with a couple of boat wakes, and then he dropped onto my stern wake and then went off to the leeward side into what he said was some faster water. He came back up to me after a few hundred meters and we resumed switching leads. He said to switch leads every thirty seconds or so, but it felt like when it was my turn to lead I accelerated to the front but when it was his turn to lead I’d have to slack off and let him come up. From about the 9 kilometer mark I decided not to bother letting him come through and just lead. That lasted up until the 10 kilometer mark where the suck water started. Both of us were totally in the bag, and trying to put down power in the suck was hurting my shoulder. Dan said to take it easy, we weren’t going to catch the Canadian and nobody behind was going to catch us, so we should just relax and get home. 500 meters from the finish, Jim, who is out warming down, says hi to us then yells just behind us saying “Come on Matt, only 500 meters to go”, and sure enough Matt comes by over my right shoulder. Where the hell did he come from? He powers by, Dan and I both try to hold on to him but he shakes us and finishes a couple of boat lengths ahead. Dan and I don’t sprint, but I make sure to finish a few centimeters ahead of him just so I can say I finally beat him. Back in 2009 Steve B challenged me to some day beat Dan, and today I did. He helped me on various spots on the course, and I helped him on a few spots, but overall I felt like we were incredibly evenly matched.