Category: Kayaking

I was looking at Scott Stenberg’s Facebook post where he says he’s done 1370 miles in his boat so far this year, and looking at my Garmin Training Center which says I’ve done 490 miles in my boat so far. Ok, granted I didn’t have the GPS until the 5th of April, and I didn’t bring it on every single work-out, but I wasn’t doing much distance back in March, and I’m sure I brought it on all the big ones, so I’ve probably really done less than 525 miles anyway.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about a bit is someday doing the Adirondack Canoe Classic, aka “The 90 Miler”. In many ways, it reminds me of the Canadian Ski Marathon (CSM), which used to be the focal point of my cross country skiing season. The CSM was nominally 100 miles over two days, although the years I did it, it was more like 170 km. The 90 Miler is nominally 90 miles over three days, although I’m told it’s closer to 87. And hey, my Thunderbolt has done it already, so it knows the way!

I definitely don’t have the training base to do the 90 Miler yet, but if I try to do 650-700 miles next year, and 800+ the next, I might be ready. The race looks pretty daunting for a first timer. It’s not like the Canadian Ski Marathon where there were checkpoints every 15-25 km where you could quit and jump on a bus. At the 90 Miler, you’re expected to have a pit crew who meets you at certain road-accessible points – so I suppose if you need to quit, you have to wait for one of those points. One thing I might do to prepare is to join somebody’s pit crew and meet them on the portages to hand them water and food. That might give me some view of what it’s like without getting in over my head.

Another thing I’d like to look into is doing it in a K-2 with somebody on the team. I bet a couple of us in a West Side Boat Shop Bullitt could do pretty well for ourselves. The Bullitt is based on the EFT, which is the touring class boat that Mike likes. Too bad WSBS doesn’t make a K-2 based on one of their unlimited boats, like a Thunderbolt or Marauder.

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A couple of team members met up at Dan’s place in spite of the cold and wet weather. We worked on technique – mostly catch and rotation. Of course, as soon as we finished, it got sunny and started to warm up. Figures.

(Sorry, but as a paddler living near Irondequoit Bay, and a Great Big Sea fan, I realize I’ve probably used that title a few times already. Too bad.)

Today I met up with Doug, Bill and Steve at Baycreek Paddle Center for a paddle on Irondequoit Bay. I didn’t look at the weather beforehand, and just assumed it was going to be as horrible as it had been all week, so I dressed in my farmer john wet suit and long sleeve turtleneck. It turned out to be quite reasonable early fall weather, with temps in the mid 60s, and so I was boiling hot as we got ready. Bill, who was dressed very similar to me, just took off his shirt and paddled only in the farmer john. I, on the other hand, decided that since it was Baycreek’s annual sale, and since I’d been looking for something to wear for weather in between the running shorts and singlet of the summer and the farmer john and long sleeves of late fall, so I bought some better clothes.

It was my first time out on the bay, and my first significant waves, in the Thunderbolt. It wasn’t as wavy as it has been on hot days in the summer, but there were still a few boat wakes. And the consequences of a dump were probably a bit worse, so I’d call it even. There were places which required 100% concentration, with nothing spared for conversation or looking around. But overall, I feel that I wasn’t any shakier out there than I’d been in the early season in the Looksha.

Jim M caught up with us after about 25 minutes. He was as smooth as usual, and was talking about how much fun the waves were in places where I was concentrating on not dumping rather than having fun.

We went up to the bridge, and a little bit further. I’d forgotten my GPS, but the others told me it was about 7 1/4 miles. The first and last half mile were horrible “suck water” as the water level appears to have gone down quite a bit since the time trial season. But it was fun and I’m feeling a lot better about eventually getting comfortable in waves in this boat.

I found some Youtube video of the race. Unfortunately the camera person seems to mostly concentrate on people who’ve already finished rather than the people finishing, so I don’t get to see how my technique looked at the end of 10 miles.

You can see Mike and I for about 10 seconds towards the end, and the camera switches away seconds before the big seaplane wake hits us
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But here’s the finish of Mike and I, and Steve.
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