Nahant Bay Cup: Sprintacular

By shifting the Nahant Bay Cup from its traditional slot in August, director Mike McDonough imbued his race with a certain late-season wistfulness.  Although there a couple more New England races this fall, another paddling year is winding down.  Unless you happened to think back in April that it'd be a good idea to register for a 31 mile end-of-October race, in which case you have five more weeks of training to suffer through.  What I'd give to be wistful!

As a general rule, an article about an event shouldn't be longer than the actual event.  While there are allowable exceptions - it's tough to summarize the first action-packed femtosecond of the Big Bang in less than a quadrillionth of a word, for example - I'm told that a 26.5 minute surfski race doesn't qualify (despite being of comparable importance).  In short, I'll be brief.

Hurricane Humberto had passed offshore a couple of days earlier, leaving behind a significant lingering swell.  From Fisherman's Beach in Swampscott, we could see that in Nahant Bay itself the impact of the swell was negligible (outside of the well-behaved rollers sweeping into the beaches deeper in the bay).  However, from a couple of miles away we could see the waves exploding on the rocky shores of Egg Rock and East Point - waypoints along the typical open-ocean course.  Wary of losing some of the valuable 50+ demographic, Mike decided to change the race format to something more palatable to his core audience.

The calm waters of Nahant Bay belie the tempest thrashing in the hearts of the paddlers.  Except for Mary Beth.  She was pretty chill.

Unfortunately, Mike neglected to take into account the cantankerous nature of his constituency.  Rather than laying down the law on an alternative course, he opened the floor for discussion.   Some wanted to run the traditional course, others wanted to incorporate the beach surf, while a few just packed their gear and headed home.   At one point Matt Drayer was arguing for a "Last Man Standing" scheme in which we'd tightly circle Egg Rock until there was but a lone survivor.  Paddlers regularly stormed away from the debate muttering in disgust, only to rejoin the exuberant fray a few moments later.  Actually, that was mostly just Bill Kuklinski.

Eventually we settled on a lap course in front of the beach that would have us rounding a red nun at one end and a dedicated turn buoy on the other.  The plan was for Mike to drop that buoy close enough to Kings Beach that we'd be able to surf into it for that turn.  The field paddled together to the beach to reconnoiter, but lost our focus upon arriving - gleefully doing out-and-back runs on the eminently rideable waves.  Mike was probably getting increasingly aggravated at our lack of discipline in getting the race started, but that's just a guess.  Every time he'd try to get my attention I'd pretend I didn't see him and launch out after another ride.  After a half hour of frolicking, we eventually tired enough for Mike to corral the herd.

The shallow slope of the beach and the notable discrepancy in the size of the incoming sets meant the location of the surf zone varied wildly.  Mike ultimately decided to drop the buoy well outside any possible breakers, which meant that we probably wouldn't do much surfing to the turn.  It would essentially be a flatwater paddle.  We lined up for what would consist of two-and-a-half laps followed by a final spur over to Fisherman's Beach (up-back-up-back-up-side).  Mike counted us down to the start.

When I belatedly realized that I hadn't gotten a pre-race shot of Mike pointing dramatically, I took matters into my own hand.

Since the field consisted mostly of paddlers from our Tuesday night Salem League, I had a pretty good sense for the competition.  For example, it was a safe bet that Matt would try to win.  And sure enough, my prediction was spot on.  He took the immediate lead off the line, but I managed to keep on his port draft as we separated from the other paddlers.  We maintained this formation until the first turn, where we jointly demonstrated a lack of maneuverability generally seen only in monorails.

After completing the first leg to the red nun, my GPS was indicating that the race would be much shorter than we had anticipated.  By my math, it would come in around 26 furlongs.   I knew I shouldn't have bought that cheap Garmin knock-off.  The only other unit settings are angstroms, parsecs, and kilometers (the most unfathomable of them all).  At my current pace - somewhere between a trot and a canter - the whole thing would be over in less than a half-hour.

On the way back to the start buoy, I took the lead from Matt with an ease that suggested he wasn't that reluctant to yield it.  For the short-term, at least.  I suspected his long-range goals weren't as generous.  I thought I gapped him over the next few minutes, but at the buoy turn he pulled stubbornly back into view.  For the next few legs, he would never fall back more than a length or two, inevitably nosing into my periphery at each broad turn.  At the final buoy turn (with only a half-turn at the nun towards the beach remaining), Matt executed a masterful move, driving past me on the momentum of a small ride to retake the lead.

With 16 trillion angstroms (damned GPS) remaining in the race, it was now clear that the remainder of that distance would be spent in extreme discomfort.  We were both all-in for the pudding.  Not sure that's actually a saying, but you get the gist.  Matt and I paddled side-by-side toward the nun, pushing progressively harder but holding just shy of red-lining.  Matt helpfully reminded me that I would be on the outside of the final turn, gradually pushing us both wide to amplify his advantage.   Finally rounding the nun with a 0.0000209 nanoparsec (oh for Pete's sake) sprint ahead of us, I found myself behind by a half-length.

In the past, a justifiable fear of expiring has kept me from starting my final sprint too early in a race.  But if Matt was going to beat me today, at least my kinfolk would have the satisfaction of knowing that he'd feel so guilty over my demise that he couldn't truly savor the win.  I punched in the override codes to disable all safety mechanisms and set off in reckless pursuit.  Pulling alongside Matt once again, I tried to maintain a demeanor of steely-eyed determination.  Difficult to pull off with those eyes threatening to bulge free of your head, but I think he bought it.

Skirting the shallows off Lincoln House Point, we were both able to catch some small runners that were wrapping around towards the finish.  Largely by happenstance, I happened to get on a slightly more productive bump and moved a few feet ahead.  I maintained this slight lead as the waves tapered off, leaving us to fend for ourselves in flat water for the final 200 meters (having given up on the GPS, I was eyeballing it).  Perhaps not realizing that I was teetering on the verge of catastrophic system failure, Matt seemed to concede the victory.  I hit the beach a boat length ahead and stumbled across the finish line at 26:31.  In a cruel twist of fate, I had missed the record for fastest time in any New England surfski race by a mere second.  Two years earlier, Jan Lupinski had edged me out at 26:30 on a very similar course.  A proficient nemesis finds a way to antagonize you even when he's not present.

Shortly after Matt and I finished, the age-before-beauty tandem team of Bill and Mary Beth pulled in to take the third overall spot, with Kirk Olsen pocketing the solo bronze.  Afterwards, we finished a delightful day with a lunch spread supplied by Carol and Mike.  Many thanks to the McDonoughs and to timer Bill Baumann.

We're down to our final two ocean races of the season, so make 'em count.  In Maine on October 5 we have the Glicker Downwinder (register at PaddleGuru).  And on October 19 is Rhode Island's Plum Beach Lighthouse Race (register at PaddleGuru).  See you there.  And there.