The second night of the Salem League dawned clear and pleasant, although after my warm-up the temperature suddenly dropped to single digits. In addition to most of last week's attendees, we were joined by grizzled (but not yet drooling) veterans Mike McDonough and Kirk Olsen. The field was: me, Mary Beth, Francisco, Mike, Kirk, Bill, Matt, Ken, Bruce, and Ciro. Bill showed up with a new (er) life vest which proudly bears a label stating that "no rodents were harmed in the manufacture of this article".
We'd be running course 2 this evening, which would take us out of the harbor, around the granite pylon marking Bowditch Ledge 2.8 miles out, and back to the beach. With a ESE breeze somewhere S of 10 mph, we'd be heading almost directly into the wind and waves (small, but well behaved) on the first leg, then downwind after the turn-around.
In an effort to improve my Le Mans starts, I've been visualizing the process, like a downhill skier might. I close my eyes and picture the entire operation in vivid detail: the gazelle-like run down the beach, the effortless lift and carry, the elegant slide into the boat, and the powerful initial strokes. That's how I visualize the visualization, at least. In practice, even my mental imagery is plagued with false starts, face-first falls into the shallow muck, the crunch of smashed carbon fibers, and, in one instance, an indictment for tax fraud.
Perhaps having flushed out the worst case scenarios in my head, I managed a solid start. Coming out of the gate, I stood in second, four or five lengths behind Francisco. Taking advantage of the more protected waters near the start, I made up as much of that ground as possible before the rougher conditions of the open sound slowed me down. I managed to catch Francisco several minutes into the race, with Mike close on our tails.
In our previous flatwater races this year, Francisco started out considerably faster than me, but I managed to catch and pass him after about ten minutes into the contest. Unfortunately, the water wasn't flat. And, more importantly, Francisco always gets much faster as the season progresses. I pulled alongside, trying my best to ignore these two factors, but after struggling for five minutes to pass, I fell back onto his wash.
The remainder of the race to the Bowditch pylon was divided into a half-dozen cycles of me attempting to pass Francisco, and Francisco unilaterally decreeing that this wasn't going to happen. After each failure, I'd return dejectedly to drafting. I could only hope that the struggle was wearing out the big fish. The one positive outcome of this duel was that with each attempt to pass, we would put more distance between ourselves and Mike.
With a quarter mile to Bowditch, I resigned myself to staying on Francisco's wash until we turned downwind, after which I would, uh, try to go faster than him. The wind-driven waves weren't large enough to hook into any solid rides, but they were significant enough that when some help was offered, you'd feel like an ingrate if you turned it down. My trip back to the beach was therefore a series of desperate five second sprints to wring every drop of support from the sea, punctuated by groans of protest from my overtaxed (and underpaid) cardiovascular system.
Although Francisco was generally ahead of me during this stretch, I'd occasionally catch a wave just right and ever-so-briefly take the lead. As we neared the final point before the beach, however, I slid back, fingernails clawing at the cliff's edge to maintain contact. Heading in towards the beach I was trailing by a couple of boat lengths.
At this point, we entered the half-marathon phase of the duathlon. Francisco aced the transition and was halfway up the beach before I had changed into my running shoes. Although the run to the finish was probably about 200 yards, it felt more like 50 people standing on my chest. When I eventually arrived at the finish, I vowed to myself to stop procrastinating and finally do something about low tide. Watch this blog for details on how you can help.
With a solid inaugural race, Mike came in 3rd, followed by Matt and Ken. Here are the results for the evening (skis only):
With back to back wins, Francisco has established himself as the guy to trick into missing a couple of weeks. Sakonnet River* Race up next, with plenty of warmth on the schedule.
* Product contains no actual river.
We'd be running course 2 this evening, which would take us out of the harbor, around the granite pylon marking Bowditch Ledge 2.8 miles out, and back to the beach. With a ESE breeze somewhere S of 10 mph, we'd be heading almost directly into the wind and waves (small, but well behaved) on the first leg, then downwind after the turn-around.
In an effort to improve my Le Mans starts, I've been visualizing the process, like a downhill skier might. I close my eyes and picture the entire operation in vivid detail: the gazelle-like run down the beach, the effortless lift and carry, the elegant slide into the boat, and the powerful initial strokes. That's how I visualize the visualization, at least. In practice, even my mental imagery is plagued with false starts, face-first falls into the shallow muck, the crunch of smashed carbon fibers, and, in one instance, an indictment for tax fraud.
Perhaps having flushed out the worst case scenarios in my head, I managed a solid start. Coming out of the gate, I stood in second, four or five lengths behind Francisco. Taking advantage of the more protected waters near the start, I made up as much of that ground as possible before the rougher conditions of the open sound slowed me down. I managed to catch Francisco several minutes into the race, with Mike close on our tails.
In our previous flatwater races this year, Francisco started out considerably faster than me, but I managed to catch and pass him after about ten minutes into the contest. Unfortunately, the water wasn't flat. And, more importantly, Francisco always gets much faster as the season progresses. I pulled alongside, trying my best to ignore these two factors, but after struggling for five minutes to pass, I fell back onto his wash.
The remainder of the race to the Bowditch pylon was divided into a half-dozen cycles of me attempting to pass Francisco, and Francisco unilaterally decreeing that this wasn't going to happen. After each failure, I'd return dejectedly to drafting. I could only hope that the struggle was wearing out the big fish. The one positive outcome of this duel was that with each attempt to pass, we would put more distance between ourselves and Mike.
With a quarter mile to Bowditch, I resigned myself to staying on Francisco's wash until we turned downwind, after which I would, uh, try to go faster than him. The wind-driven waves weren't large enough to hook into any solid rides, but they were significant enough that when some help was offered, you'd feel like an ingrate if you turned it down. My trip back to the beach was therefore a series of desperate five second sprints to wring every drop of support from the sea, punctuated by groans of protest from my overtaxed (and underpaid) cardiovascular system.
At this point, we entered the half-marathon phase of the duathlon. Francisco aced the transition and was halfway up the beach before I had changed into my running shoes. Although the run to the finish was probably about 200 yards, it felt more like 50 people standing on my chest. When I eventually arrived at the finish, I vowed to myself to stop procrastinating and finally do something about low tide. Watch this blog for details on how you can help.
With a solid inaugural race, Mike came in 3rd, followed by Matt and Ken. Here are the results for the evening (skis only):
| Francisco Urena | Stellar SE | 0:48:39 | 12 |
| Greg Lesher | Epic V12 | 0:48:46 | 11 |
| Mike McDonough | Huki S1-X | 0:51:12 | 10 |
| Matt Drayer | Epic V8 | 0:52:17 | 9 |
| Ken Cooper | Epic V8 | 0:52:23 | 8 |
| Kirk Olsen | Epic V12 | 0:52:47 | 7 |
| Bruce Deltorchio | Epic V8 | 0:53:13 | 6 |
| Bill Kuklinski | Epic V8 | 0:54:12 | 5 |
| Mary Beth Gangloff | Huki S1-R | 1:08:00 | 12 |
With back to back wins, Francisco has established himself as the guy to trick into missing a couple of weeks. Sakonnet River* Race up next, with plenty of warmth on the schedule.
* Product contains no actual river.
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