Owasco Lake Challenge

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The Owasco Lake Challenge was a very different race than it probably could have been. Because it was only a week after I got back from England, I decided that I wouldn’t be ready to do the 12 mile long course. That lead to some other decisions – because I was only going to do the short course race and so I wouldn’t be racing for points, I decided that rather than doing everything I could to do the best I could at this race, I was going to make it part of my plan to get back into shape and try to get back some of the speed that I’d had in the early season races like Round the Mountain and Tupper Lake but which seemed to be missing in Armond Bassett.

So contrary to any logical tapering for a race, I went out and did the Bay Creek Time Trial twice on Wednesday, and on Thursday I did a slow 10 mile paddle. I did rest Saturday, but only because it was horribly stormy and rainy. Otherwise I probably would have gone out and done some more long slow distance.

The was a pretty good crowd at the race – Tom Murn, Stephen B and Matt and Julia T were all in the short course with me, and Jim M, Mike and Paul D all did the long course. As well as old familiar faces, there were a few I’d never seen before. Quite the biggest surprise was Roger Gocking, who is a bit of a legend of the 90 Miler as well races like the Mayor’s Cup. The guy is incredibly tall, skinny, and has a “wingspan” that looked like a foot longer than mine.

I brought both boats – I was planning to evaluate the conditions and decide right at the last possible minute which boat to take. But when Scott said that he was shortening the long course to 10 miles because there was a possibility of thunderstorms later in the day, I settled on the ski, just in case the wind whipped up the lake. In retrospect, I probably could have paddled the Thunderbolt, but I doubt it made all that much difference.

As I was getting the ski ready, I did something which in retrospect was pretty dumb – I figured that because there weren’t many waves yet, I’d tape over the venturi drain so I was sitting in tepid water at the start. I’d seen other ski paddlers do that, and it made sense to me. What I didn’t count on, however, was the amazing amount of splashing at the start of the race – before we had gotten out of the shallows at the beginning, I was swamped and thanks to that stupid piece of tape I wasn’t draining. If you watch the video, in the first part you can see me pause quickly and say “SHIT” – that’s because my first attempt at removing the tape was unsuccessful because my Camelbak had slipped over it. It’s not on the video, but a few minutes later I took a longer pause and got it off.

One thing I didn’t realize until afterwards is that Matt Tole had been riding my wake from the start, and on one of those pauses he’d tried to pass me. I’d started paddling, caught a nice boat wake, and dropped him and he never got close to me again.

Tom Murn was well ahead of me after the tape removal exercise, and I tried like hell to catch him. I was getting closer every time I got a good surf on a wake, and at the turn it looks on the video like he’s only 20 to 25 seconds ahead. But I lost too much time at the turn, and with just enough tail wind to make sure I wasn’t getting cooled off, but not enough to kick up any good surf, I faded fast. I ended up finishing several minutes behind him. Stephen B was also up there ahead – early on I’d seen him way off to the right with his son Erin, and I assumed he was paddling with Erin, but then he suddenly came back into my view right at the turn fairly close to Tom, and he stayed pretty even with Tom from my viewpoint all the way to the finish.

On the way back in Dan was yelling encouragement – he’d come, but decided not to paddle, so he was out on the course coaching us. He advised me to punch it hard just before the shallows at the last half mile, and then surf my own wake in. Nice plan, but I didn’t have the energy to punch it more than a tiny bit, and I didn’t feel any wake. I guess it’s good that even for a shorter race I managed to use up all my energy by the end, but man I wish I had a faster time to show for it.

After finishing I paddled around a bit to warm down, and watch the other finishers. And then I went to try out the Nelo surf ski that Janet the Nelo rep brought out to demo. It’s tippier than the V10 Sport, for sure, but after dumping it once I managed to keep it upright. I can’t extend the foot brace far enough forward for my tastes – my knees were quite high, probably higher than a sprinter would have. It seemed strange that you needed an allen key to adjust the foot brace, but then again I never adjust my foot brace after I got it right the first time, so I guess it wouldn’t be too big a deal. Anyway, I don’t see another surf ski in my immediate future.

While I was messing about in the Nelo ski, I got to see Jim Mallory win the long race, and Roger Gocking come only a few minutes behind. That was impressive. I think some C-2s came in between the two of them – three of them came in within a few seconds of each other.

Just about every participant got a “OLC” branded boat chamois, and a nice medal for top three finishers. As well, Jim and the two paddlers in the top C-2 got these really beautiful framed 1905(?) hydrological maps of Owasco Lake. Probably the nicest prizes I’ve ever seen at a paddle race.

Oh well, time to get serious and see about getting some speed back in time for Long Lake.

England

Vicki and I are back from England. Rampant paranoia meant I was cagey about saying we were gone until the house was re-occupied, so besides a few friends-only updates on Facebook, this is my first mention of it in a semi-public place.

Vicki is making a blog about the trip in minute detail, so I won’t go into the minute details here. A few highlights:

  • I love driving in England. The cars have very tight and responsive steering, people drive assertively so you can trust that the guy ahead of you isn’t going to do something boneheaded like brake when he should be accelerating into a gap, and as a lefty, I love having the shifter on the left hand.
  • Vicki and I both gravitated towards “old stuff”, so we spent much of the time looking at medieval cathedrals, Viking villages, and Roman forts. Very cool.
  • The Lake District is beautiful. Not the stark natural beauty of Banff or Yosemite, but sort of a softer, more muted version of the same. (At one point I saw a hill that looked like a smaller version of Half Dome.)
  • The ultimate nerdgasm confluence of all those things came together when we drove the road through Wrynose Pass and Hardnott Pass and came across Hardnott Fort, the best preserved Roman fort we’d seen in the entire trip.

What a great trip. I don’t understand why we don’t do this every year. (The bills haven’t come in yet, obviously.)

Armond Bassett Race, 2010


Today was the Armond Bassett race, right here in Rochester. I’ve been looking forward to this race because last year it was my first long distance race ever, and since I was coming back with a lot more base, a lot more hours of training, and a faster boat, I assumed I’d demolish my old time, and possibly the competition as well. Didn’t work out like that. As you can see, last year I was 1:36:12, and this year I was 1:33:05 (actually, I was a bit faster than that, because I started my GPS on one of the “x seconds to go” marks.) So in spite of having a boat that’s probably 30 seconds to a minute per mile faster, I only gained 4 minutes. That’s disappointing.

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They started the kayaks in one wave this year, with no canoes around. That certainly reduced the pile up problem we had last year – most people didn’t even come up to the line until 30 seconds to go, and there wasn’t as much back-paddling. Immediately on the start, Jim Mallory was off like a shot like we expected. Bill Feeney did one of his awesomely quick starts, and I tried to stay with the group with him and Doug. Pretty quickly, though, we dropped Bill and so it was me, Doug, a guy with a mullet in a greenish EFT (I mentioned him in the blog at last year’s race – I think his name is Jim but I’m going to call him Mullet Man) and a guy with short greyish hair in a Thunderbolt or Marauder (I’m going to call him GHG), all trying to catch Mike Littlejohn who had a phenomenal start. We did catch his wake, and so it was GHG to his left, Doug on his stern wash, and me trying to ride Littlejohn’s. I couldn’t hold it, though, and dropped back to his stern wash. I’m not sure where Mullet Man was at this point. I was going way to fast, and my pulse rate was up around 170.

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At the turn, they all gapped me, including Mullet Man. I pulled hard to try to catch them back up, or at least catch Littlejohn who was starting to drop off from them. Scott Stenberg was around me, on one side or the other, and somebody (who I eventually discovered was Paul D) was bumping into my stern as he rode my stern wake. Scott started talking to Paul D, and then just before the railway bridge, as I’d been pulling them along for 2 miles, he suggested I drop onto their stern wakes and take a breather so we could work together. Paul D took the lead, Scott took second, and I was in the best seat in the house behind them, trying to recover from that way too hard start and that long pull.

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As we passed the start line, Scott was trying to tell Paul what line to take around a C-4. They ended up getting so close to them that their paddles clashed, and then as I passed them they did a perfect “pit turn” and turned me out 90 degrees from my line. I swore at them, and then sprinted to get back on Paul D’s wake, but the sprint was just too much and I soon lost them. Looking back on the video, I can see now that the C-4 wasn’t really to blame for pitting me – I think they actually weren’t all that good, and I crossed too close in front of them trying to stay on Scott and Paul. So whoever you are, sorry I called you bastards.

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The rest of the way was just one long hot grind. I didn’t pass any kayakers, and no kayakers passed me. I kept thinking I was getting closer to Paul D (who’d been dropped by Scott) but I never actually did. Jim and I crossed (him downstream and me upstream) quite a bit higher upstream than last year, which I think might indicate some improvement on my part, at least.

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And the return downstream was so hot and airless that I couldn’t maintain anywhere near the speed I had on the first downstream portion after the start. A few times I could get a respite behind a C-2 or C-1 stock boat before I’d go blasting past it, and once as Holly Reynold’s C-2 pro boat came by I was able to hold her wake for a tenth of a mile or so. But most of the C-2 pros came by in groups, which made it too hard for me to get on their wake for any length of time.

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On the way down, I knew I had about 30 seconds to a minute on Mike F, and so while I was mad at myself for not being able to catch Paul D, I could at least take comfort that so far Mike hadn’t caught me. And that’s about how it stayed to the end – the video shows him finishing less than a minute behind me, which would put him about a minute slower than last year (1:32:13 last year).

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I don’t know what it’s going to take to get the speed increase I should have gotten with this faster boat. Cooler weather, I guess, and maybe not wearing dark blue on a brilliantly sunny day. And man, I wish I had the self discipline to lose weight. That’s what it’s going to take to improve, but I just can’t seem to do it.

Undecided, but leaning…

As of right now, I’m about 75% sure that I’m not going to do the long race in the Open Water Challenge tomorrow. The weather forecast is for winds around 7mph from the WSW, which might favour my lack of wave skills by giving some protection from the wind near the shore, but Dan thinks that Ken might go to a “go straight downwind to a buoy a few miles out in the lake, turn and come back and repeat” format if the wind isn’t blowing into shore. If the swells are anything like they were today, I’m definitely doing the short course on the bay.

I think I’ve given it a good try to get ready for open water racing these last few weeks, but I’ve got a bit of a way to go before I’m ready to race it. Definitely next year, though.

After tomorrow, my focus will be back on the Thunderbolt as I get ready for Armond Basset (10 miles on the river) and then (maybe) the 90.

Getting there…

My IP block has been delisted by SpamHaus. Unfortunately, in spite of the “R” in “RBL” standing for “Real-time”, apparently some ISPs cache their copy of the SpamHaus RBL and are still blocking me. Hopefully normal service will be restored eventually. My outgoing mail queue has gone from 120 to 85, so I guess some ISPs are updating their caches.

I also discovered that evidently you can’t just rsync your whole mail spool area over to a new system because postfix somehow ties the spool file names to the inodes they’re on or something. I was getting strange errors like fatal: lock file defer B99792602A5: Resource temporarily unavailable until I did a “postfix check”, and it said something about renaming files, and now everything is happy again.