I use Garmin Connect to record and track my workouts. Since this is winter, mostly I’ve been doing workouts on the kayak ergometer (“erg”). Every now and then it gets warm and I can get out for a bike ride, but when it’s too cold I do three workouts a week on the erg. I put them into Garmin Connect as “Indoor Cardio”, because it’s the closest thing in their list of activity types to what I actually do. But Garmin Connect can’t seem to decide what to do with that. The list they present is semi-hierarchical – it shows “Running”, then a list of sub-categories of running (like “Street Running”, “Track Running”, etc., then a line, then “Cycling”, then a list of sub-categories of cycling, then a line, then “Fitness Equipment” and a list of sub-categories including “Indoor Cardio”, then other categories and sub-categories. Paddling is in the “Other” category.
On my dashboard, there is a graph called “Activity Time” that shows my daily activity time. And this is the thing that drives me up the wall. Because in spite of the fact that “Indoor Cardio” is in the “Fitness Equipment” category, if you look at this graph for any time up until the beginning of this month, my erg time shows up as “Other”:
And then for a couple of weeks, they seemed to have gotten it right and started labelling it “Fitness Equipment”:
But this week they suddenly just decided to break things entirely, and now my erging activities don’t show up on the “Total Activity Time” graph at all:
And strangely, not only does it show up in the “Active Calories” graph, it’s there as “Fitness Equipment”:
Last year, I posted my 2015 Racing Calendar and I ended up doing most of the races I’d predicted (I missed Ride The Bull and didn’t finish the Blackburn Challenge). So here is my idea for this year (ones I’m pretty sure I’m going to in bold, ones I’m not sure about in normal):
Last year I used my Thunderbolt for Round The Mountain (RTM) but then put it away and didn’t use it afterwards. I used the V10 Sport for most races, except for Armond Bassett where I used the V12. This year I’d like to try the V12 for RTM, but I need to be more comfortable in wind and waves with it first. Considering how much time I lost getting out of and back into the Thunderbolt on the carry, a ski would be a big advantage for me. I don’t want to risk the V10 Sport on RTM because there is a slippery downhill and I’ve dropped my boat at least twice on it, and the “ultra” layup is fragile as hell. But the V12 is the tougher “performance” layup and should be able to take it.
Since I’m sick I probably won’t paddle more than once more this year, here is my end of year summary.
This year:
Paddling distances:
Epic V10 Sport: 985.1 km
Epic V12: 469.5 km
WSBS Thunderbolt: 351.3 km
For a grand total of 1,805.9 km (1122.1 miles). I also managed to get in 1649.4 km on bikes, 19:21 on the erg, and 5:03 on a stationary bike. I don’t think I kept full stats in previous years but this seems a lot more than previous years. My plan for next year is to maybe slightly reduce the number of hours on cardio and work on muscle strength and speed more.
At the beginning of the year, I posted my racing goals for the year. I didn’t stick with it 100% – I missed Ride The Bull and Lighthouse to Lighthouse was cancelled.
Races:
This of course doesn’t include the Wednesday night time trail races at BayCreek. I didn’t beat my personal best at all this year, although I got pretty close once or twice. Surprisingly, I was faster in the V10 Sport than the V12, which just goes to prove that you can’t put down full power if you’re not feeling stable.
I’m actually a bit surprised at making 351 km on the Thunderbolt, because basically after Round The Mountain in May I put it away and didn’t use it again. Even in the cold fall weather I’ve been using a ski because I can remount a ski.
The highlight of the year of course was going to BC for the Canadians. I wasn’t quite last, but I wasn’t far off it – but then again I don’t get to train in the ocean much either. I did better against many of the same people on a flatter and shorter course the Tuesday before.
I was disappointed in DNFing at the Blackburn Challenge, but lots of people with a lot more experience than I also DNFed so I’ll try not to feel bad about it.
Next year I’m hoping to go to the Gorge Downwind Festival (recently renamed to “Gorge Downwind Champs”, which seems like a mistake to me because it’s de-emphasizing the 6 days of downwind shuttles and fun in favour of the two race days), and maybe manage to come a few days early to make the Canadian Champs again (providing I can find a rental car that allows you to cross the border). Unfortunately that would mean missing a chance to conquer the Blackburn under more normal conditions, but hey, 6 days of downwind shuttles!
I had to miss last years LLLBR because of other commitments which is a shame because this is always a good competitive race. Also when the weather is good (like it was this year) it’s a spectacularly beautiful venue. Unfortunately whatever wind there is tends to funnel straight down the lake, but it’s the same for everybody so no problem. This year it was sunny and cool, and with almost no wind at the beginning which built into a light breeze in the middle.
In previous years, it’s been a simple out and back, but evidently last year they changed it so we start at the same place, but go in the other direction under the bridge, go about 3.5 km into the lower part of the lake, come back under the bridge, then circle around an island and come back for a total of about 17km. Not only is it more interesting route but it’s more spectator friendly. This year there was actually cash prizes for the touring class kayaks, so there were a lot of people in touring class, meaning that the unlimited class looked like it was going to be a fight between John H, Pete G and myself. Todd, Roger, Doug and others were all fighting it out for the money.
Less than 100 meters after the start, Todd was leading, John was on this tail, Roger and I were side by side, and Pete was behind us. (Update after reviewing the video, it appears that it was Pete and I side by side and Roger was already on John’s wake.) Within another hundred meters, Roger had claimed John’s stern wake, I was glued to his stern, and Pete was glued to mine. The canoe wave had started a few minutes ahead of us, so we were passing the slower ones almost immediately. And Todd was not taking any prisoners. At the first canoe, he tried to scrape us all off – John didn’t lose the wake, but Roger ended up a little off John’s wake and I was a little off Roger’s, but we fought back on. At the next canoe, John lost a little distance, but clawed back on. At the next canoe, John ended up going the opposite side of the canoe from Todd, and Roger lost his wake as well. That was pretty much the way it stayed to the first turn – Todd alone, John alone, then Roger, me and Pete in a conga line. (Update: from the video it appears that John got back on Todd’s wake after the scrape, and stayed there around the turn.)
At the turn, I intended to follow Roger around, even though his boat doesn’t turn as well as mine. But Pete decided to turn as tight as he could and come around us on the inside. I took the bait and latched on his stern wake and Roger latched on mine. On the way back to the bridge we came up through some wakes of some of the faster c-2s and slower c-4s, as well as some boat wakes, but otherwise it was nice and flat. A couple of times Pete looked like he decided to try to catch John and put in a big dig for a few hundred meters. But we were nearly a minute behind John even after those digs and not really closing.
Now this whole way I’d been paddling way too hard. My heart rate was in the low 160s and I was sure Pete was going to blow me up, so at about the six kilometer mark I decided I needed to slow down, drop off Pete’s wake and paddle my own race and hope I could catch him later. But after I slowed down, he slowed down as well, so he ended up not getting more than two or three boat lengths ahead of me.
After the bridge, there was a strong head wind, and it seemed to be slowing down Pete more than me. I caught him not long after and almost immediately he wanted me to come through. He asked me if I thought we should follow Todd towards the left side of the lake or John towards the right. I didn’t think it made any difference because there didn’t appear to be any shelter on either side, so I just went straight towards the boat at the turn. Pete latched on my wake.
About half way from the bridge to the turn, I got passed by a stranger in my boat. That wasn’t a total surprise – I’d advertised my Think Legend and this guy Kurt had agreed to pick it up today at the race. But I hadn’t seen him before the race, so I wondered if he’d blown me off. But now he came steaming by. We introduced ourselves to each other and he went off to hunt down John and Todd.
As we got closer to the turn, I was starting to think that I was starting to close the gap on John. I timed the gap at around a minute back at the bridge, and now it was closer to forty seconds. Hope bloomed. And then as I’m turning, I sneak a look back and I’ve got a few second gap on Pete and Roger. Time to put the hammer down!
For the whole last four kilometers from the turn to the finish, I’m convinced that I’m getting closer and closer to John, but I just don’t have any gas left in the tank to put in a final sprint to catch him. I sneak glances behind and it appears I have a good gap on Pete and Roger, and it may be growing. As I cross the line about 10 or 20 seconds back on John, he appears completely surprised to see me there. He jokingly accused me of sneaking up on him like I had at Armond Bassett. There was nothing stealthy about my approach – I was wheezing like a steam engine, but he was probably working just as hard and just as loud. I looked back and it appeared that Roger had taken back the lead from Pete and Pete was latched onto his wake.
Results haven’t been posted yet, but Todd won touring class, followed by Roger and John won unlimited class followed by me and Pete. All in all a fantastic race and a very pleasing result for me. A great way to end the race season.
Update:Results are here. I was only 11 seconds behind John at the finish.
The third canoe that I mentioned above that Todd successfully scraped off Roger, Pete and I and nearly scraped off John posted his how video. You can see us at the 1:50 mark.
Today was the BayCreek race. The first time I wrote a long blog post about it. The second time I didn’t – I wrote a few lines on Facebook but that’s all.
Just like last time, the race got postponed because of the weather. This time the forecast was a bit crazy on the Saturday although the thunder didn’t show up. But no matter – Sunday was actually quite nice. It was partly cloudy which turned into sunny about the time the race started. There was a stiff breeze almost straight down the bay. During the warm up I determined that while the breeze slowed things down a bit on the way out and helped a bit on the way back, the waves didn’t really help on the way back because they were moving too slowly and you had to blast over them. Good thing they were small.
The other thing I did while warming up was verify that my new GPS was working right. Last weekend I left my old one on top of my car, and by the time I came back for it it had been run over by multiple cars,ruining it. I ordered the new Garmin Forerunner 920xt, and it arrived while I was out of town, so this is the first time I’ve paddled with it. It was fine, except just before the 1km mark it gave me some message I could not understand about heart rate recovery. I hoped that wouldn’t happen every kilometer in the race and decided it was good enough.
Ok, after checking out the conditions, next thing is to check out the competition. Jim won last year, but he is sidelined by an injury. The guy in the Stellar surf ski came again this year, but he wasn’t a threat. The one that had me worried was Pete – I’d beaten him last year but he’s gotten a lot faster this year. Not only is he in a faster boat, he’s just paddling better. He’s faster than me in the BayCreek Wednesday night time trials now, and he managed to complete Blackburn when Mike and I quit. Paul D and Dennis Moriarty were in touring class and weren’t going to be challenging me either, so I figured it would be me and Pete fighting for first and second place.
At the start, it very quickly sorted out as I’d expected. Pete and I were neck and neck going up the channel. I don’t envy the guys who had to stand there in the water up to their waists to take pictures but last year they got some really good shots so it’s worth it. At the one kilometer mark I got another one of those annoying message pop ups on my GPS although I’m pretty sure it was different.
After the channel Pete slipped back into my stern wake. A couple of times I snuck a look back and see we had a good gap. After 3km I pulled off to the side and made Pete take a pull. I’d intended to make him pull for at least 2km (because we’d been side by side for the first kilometer so it only seemed fair). My heart rate recovered a bit but our average speed also dropped. Also his speed didn’t seem all that steady – although that could be the wind. So I ended up tapping his stern a couple of times. After a few times l decided to pull through – my rest ended up only being 1.7 km. After the turn we got a good look at the other racers – the guy in the stellar was a few minutes back, and Dennis was pulling Paul D a few minutes behind him.
After they had all gone by, I made Pete take another pull. Once again, I got a bit of recovery, but once again I got impatient and pulled through after just a short while. But by now the short rests were starting to tell on me and it wasn’t very much longer before Pete pulled through without any prompting on my part. The entire final 4km I was either on Pete’s stern wake or beside him. At one point, we got hit by a gigantic side wake and I made the mistake of trying to get some surf from it. Pete didn’t – he just took it without altering course. By the time it was passed, I was a boat length behind him and 20 meters to his side. It was an effort to get back to him, and then we were in the shallow water just before the channel. I faded really badly, or maybe Pete put the hammer down early. The water there was so slow you couldn’t compare your speed in that area with the speed in the deep – we’d been making around 11 km/hr in the deep, now we were barely making 9.5 in spite of being in a sprint. Pete got at least two boat lengths on me. But as it got a bit deeper in the creek I started clawing it back. Pete said afterwards that he thinks he started his sprint early and faded – I don’t know, I must know I was sprinting as hard as I’ve ever sprinted. And the final result is that at the line I was about a foot behind him. Close but no cigar.
So what’s my take away?
It was nice to be in a strategic side by side battle again – most races I’m chasing one guy and trying not to get caught by the guy behind me. I think the last time it was like this was last year’s Long Lake race where I was in a pack with Mike Littlejohn and Roger Gocking.
I’ve got to be more patient when I’m riding wake and less generous when taking my pull. The third guy was well behind us, so there was no reason to kill myself to go fast. If I’d gone 10.3 km/hr instead of 10.6 into the wind, I might have had some more energy going down wind.
Pete is turning into a formidable opponent. I’m going to have to work hard to stay close to him.
By the way, other than that one notification at the one kilometer mark, the new GPS is great. I really like it.
