Category: Kayaking

Today I did the same paddle as I wrote about in Rants and Revelations » Blog Archive » Long Slow Distance training.

The bay was pretty calm, and I started off with a bit of a following swell and an almost imperceptible tail wind. At the one mile point, the wind started to turn to my face, and it was pretty much a side wind the whole time.

In spite of the new paddle, or maybe because of it, my total time wasn’t much better than the last time – about 1:05 instead of 1:12. Since adjusting my technique, I seem to be using a muscle in my shoulder that I haven’t been using before, so I get very sore up there and have to keep stopping and resting it. Here are my splits:

End of the channel (about 0.5 miles):	0:05.12
One Mile Point (about 1.0 miles)	0:12.21
Two Mile Point (about 1.8 miles)	0:22.24
Bridge (about 2.7 miles)	0:32.41
Two Mile Point (about 3.6 miles)	0:42.00
One Mile point (about 4.4 miles)	0:52.03
End of the channel (about 4.8)	0:59.41
Finish (about 5.3)	1:05.00

Tonight’s “B Team” workout was actually a paddle tryout. We had a representative from Brača-Sport with about a dozen different paddles, and both the rep and Dan were doing a pretty good job of matching us up with paddles that are good for us. In my case, they suggested I try the Brácsa II, the VI and the VIII, but they were sure I’d like the VIII the most. And I did. The VIII has a very long and narrow blade, and it gives me a very gentle catch. With my big fat wide Big Spoons paddle, paddling hard gives me a big hard jerk when I first put the blade in the water and start pulling, but this one seems to ramp up from less drag to more gradually.

Dan, Lars (the factory rep), and several of the other paddlers remarked on how much better my stroke was with this paddle. Being a wing paddle, it comes out of the water as it passes my body almost on its own. And it’s light as a feather.

I’m really excited about this paddle – as I’ve been ramping up the amount I paddle in preparation for the Long Lake race, I’ve been getting more elbow pain, and I think the more gentle catch will go a long way towards alleviating that pain.

Funny story: the company is called Brača-Sport, but the paddles are called Brácsa. That wasn’t intentional – but after they made their first lot of paddles, they sent them out to be silk screened, and they came back with this typo on them. They had spent all their money on the carbon fibre, and had none left to fix the problem, so they shrugged and changed the name of the paddles but not the company.

As in, “I should be”, I think.

I’ve been kicking around the idea of participating in the Long Lake Long Boat Regatta kayak race. It’s a 10 miler (Dan says it’s closer to 9 miles, but I’m not sure I believe him). I was doubtful about doing such a long race, but he said that if I tried 3 times a week between now and then, I could do it. I was torn between trying it this year, or waiting for a year and giving myself time to get used to such a long distance. And there was a Hugger’s Ski Club clambake that same day – Vicki and I were doing that sort of “well, if you want to do A, I don’t mind skipping B” dance, and again I was thinking the clambake would be a good excuse to miss the race this year.

But at the same time, Vicki and I have talked about taking a couple of weekends away at a nice hotel or B&B. And then I discovered that the start line for the regatta is on the beach in front of the “turn of the century” Adirondak Hotel. Suddenly it seemed like things were swinging the way of doing the race – Vicki and I can have a nice weekend away at a nice hotel, and I can have my race, and Sunday Vicki and I can go for a nice leisurely paddle together. And they have a vacancy with the room with the queen sized bed and the private bathroom. SOLD! I just hope they have a hot tub to recover.

I wonder if Frank will let me borrow the Looksha?

I think I overdid it a bit. I went kayaking, and because I left it so late, the parking lot at Bay Creek was full, forcing me to launch from the public park across the street. No dock, just a lot of very horrible sucky mud.
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