Josh Billings Triathlon: Ups and Downs

As one of the oldest multisport events in the country, the Josh Billings Triathlon has achieved legendary status in New England.  Cyclists, paddlers, and runners have been joining one another since 1976 to compete in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts in mid-September.  While most people race as part of a 2, 3, or 4 person team, a growing percentage compete in the "iron" category as solo racers.  The Josh had been on my radar for years, as some paddling friends race every year.  I long had a secret desire to compete as an iron, but was able to use a scheduling conflict with a long-standing paddling race to avoid confronting this masochistic urge.  The cancellation of the paddling race, combined with prodding from my friend, Janda Ricci-Munn, finally convinced me to take the plunge.  A former national-caliber triathlete, Janda won the Josh iron race in 2021, establishing a new solo course record in the process.  If he thought I could do the race, despite having no multisport experience and knowing nothing about cycling, who was I to argue?

The 27 mile cycling route starts in Great Barrington and ends at Stockbridge Bowl boat launch via a circuitous hilly route that includes around 1,900 feet of ascent in five significant climbs.  Unlike most triathlons, drafting is allowed (and, in fact, essential) on the bike leg.  The 5 mile paddling course takes you 1.75 times around the circumference of the small lake, ending at the Camp Mah-Kee-Nac beach.  And the 6.4 mile run loops around the lake back to the Camp entrance, with around 500 feet of climbing.  Both the ride and run include net ascents, which is just plain mean-spirited.  I suppose we should be thankful the organizers couldn't find any rapids for us to paddle up.  Most of the 300 or so teams (and individuals) finish somewhere between 2.5 and 4.5 hours, although there are outliers on either end.  My goal was to wrap things up in under 3 hours, which would likely put me comfortably in the top 50.

Under Janda's patient tutelage, I started multisport training in the spring.  Lots of easy volume across disciplines (which I was fairly conscientious about) combined with much briefer gut-busting high intensity workouts (which I'd seize upon the lamest excuses to avoid).  Despite spending drastically fewer hours paddling than in past years, under this new regimen I was still performing comparably in my surfski races.  In the spirit of preparedness, I crashed my bike in June so I'd have the appropriate sense of dread of the riding leg come race day.  I didn't think that through fully, however, as the resulting sore hip sidelined me from run training for a couple of weeks.  Even with this setback, I was feeling pretty good about my fitness level.

In early August, I dipped a toe in the water via a short run-ride-paddle triathlon in central New York.  I discovered that rubbery legs weren't conducive to stability in my skinny boat, but performed well enough overall.  At roughly half the distance of the Josh, my misery level at this race fell just below the threshold that would have contractually permitted me to abandon plans for the longer race.  There would be no escape from the suffering.

If you were prone to understatement, you might describe the logistics of the Josh as "challenging".  With different sites for the start, both transitions, the finish, and parking - not to mention closures on roads linking them - your planning requirements make the Apollo program and the D-Day landing seem like child's play.  Without a helper, you finish the race with equipment strewn across the Berkshires and must then embark on a tedious treasure hunt to find and retrieve it.  Of course, it's difficult to find such a dupe locally since the helper role is widely known to be more exhausting than the triathlon itself.  I had to reach well out-of-state to find a chump - my old college housemate and former business partner, Bryan.  After weeks of unsuccessful cajoling, I suspect what finally convinced him to make the 4.5 hour drive were the 1989 house party photos that I innocently reminded him weren't yet posted on Instagram.  If all went as planned, he'd leave home pre-dawn to arrive in time to meet me at the bike-to-boat transition.  I should note that Mary Beth probably would have agreed to help, purely out of brand loyalty, but was out of town.

Bryan was so proud of his bib, he's taken to wearing it around town.  (Photo courtesy of Helper)

I arrived in the Berkshires a day earlier.  I picked up my race packet at the Arcadian (a sporting goods store in Lenox), where I ran into several paddling buddies who were members of canoe or kayak teams.  I was also surprised by a somewhat less familiar face - Michigander endurance athlete, Denny Paull - along with his daughter, Mandy.  Denny and I met at the Lighthouse to Lighthouse race, where we finished within a minute of each other in 2016 and 2017.  The pair had driven 1,000 miles to race as iron competitors.  As fellow neophytes to group bike racing, we eagerly shared tips garnered from various sources.  Later, I checked into a hotel in nearby Lee, where Janda and his family would also be staying.

Early the next morning, Janda and I ran our surfskis over to the boat launch, laid out our paddling gear in the transition zone, and dropped off my car at the finish area parking lot.  We'd be carrying our running paraphernalia in dry bags on our boats, so there was no need to also visit the second transition area.  We returned to the hotel for a breakfast that I hoped wouldn't be making a showy reappearance later in the day.  I had kept my pre-race jitters under control thus far, but while subsequently shuttling down to the start with Janda and his family, I struggled to refrain from diving out of the moving car to safety.  Once we arrived at the staging area, at least I had the mechanical distraction of gear prep and warm-up to keep apprehension from suffocating me.  I soon found myself perched expectantly at the starting line on Route 7 with 275 other riders.

Janda's a true pro.  Prepared for any eventuality on race day, he wore his headlamp in case of an unexpected eclipse.

As a nervous Josh greenhorn, I had asked a number of veteran racers for advice on cycling strategy.  They were happy to comply.  And then, to calm my anxieties, they'd invariably show me their crash scars or tell me about some guy who hit a pothole in Stockbridge and was thrown under a steamroller.  In any event, the two things everyone agreed on was that I should (a) go out fast with the field on the flat stretch through town and then kill myself on the initial climb to establish myself in a fast pack and (b) watch out for yahoos who went out too fast and were now making a nuisance of themselves by dying on the initial climb.  They apparently failed to see the irony.

Pre-race picture included for contrast with photo at end of report.

Starting amongst a pack of several hundred riders along the flat village roads, I'd been told that I'd be sucked along at a breakneck pace with scarcely any effort.  It took a moment for the field to get moving as cyclists clipped in and found their rhythm, but soon enough we were flying along.  With the exhilarating whir of the multitude echoing in my ears, I enjoyed the sensation of flowing with the current.  Perhaps a little too much.  As the riders ahead encountered a small incline, I could finally see the sheer number of bikes in front of me.  I was mid-field at best.  Despite concerns about soon becoming an object lesson in yahoo-hood, I ramped up my effort to improve my position prior to hitting the first climb.  Working conservatively to avoid being Rider Zero of a cascading twenty bike pile-up, I managed to get into the first third of the field by the foot of the hill.

To experienced cyclists the climbs of the Josh are doubtless humdrum, but to a novice rider from an area with no significant hills to train on, they are imposing.  As advised, I attacked the first ascent with more vigor than seemed wise.  The painful effort paid off, however, as I moved past many competitors and, at the top, found myself riding with what I estimated (based on an embarrassing amount of time spent analyzing past Strava results and YouTube race videos) to be the pack that would finish between 1:10 and 1:15.  I got my first real taste of cooperative cycling as a dozen of us absorbed smaller groups up ahead.  Our group stabilized at around 25 people, including Denny and a couple of extroverts who enthusiastically narrated their upcoming tactical moves to one another.

I felt uncomfortable riding in such a large group, worried that out of ignorance or incompetence, I'd cause an accident.  I had expected there to be more structure with the pack - a line of riders in an orderly rotation from front to back.  While that occasionally happened, we'd quickly revert to an unpredictable and amorphous blob.  This felt more inefficient than it did dangerous, though.  Hills were particularly vexing, as there was such variation in climbing style.  I invariably found myself moving to the front of the pack at the start of an incline, then falling back as riders with a more measured approach caught me.  At around mile 12, this would prove disastrous.  Frustrated by the pace starting up a gentle hill, I accelerated and took the pull.  The grade steepened slightly, but I foolishly kept the power going, much as I would during a solo ride.  As I tired, the pack inevitably began to pass me.  I tried fruitlessly to slot in, but couldn't find an opening until the end.  Falling a few lengths behind the last rider, I didn't panic until it was too late.  Having lost the benefits of the draft, I now lacked the power to catch up.

My erstwhile companions in the pack ahead would ultimately finish 4+ minutes before me, meaning that by the end they were well over a mile ahead.  But it took only a few moments for them to disappear from view on the winding course.  I had been told that if you lose your pack, the smart move is to pedal easy until the next gravy train comes along.  You're going to get caught anyway - why waste the effort by pushing when solo?  That's fine in theory, but it felt like a ridiculous option in practice.  I was in a race, dammit!  Maybe I could stay ahead of this hypothetical chase pack.

The fact that I was having to expend much more energy than I would have in a pack was galling, to say the least, but it didn't keep me from appreciating the perks of cycling solo.  Most importantly, unless I went off-piste and took out a guy mowing his lawn, I no longer had to worry about my mistake ruining anyone else's day (or skeletal integrity).  Another benefit was that I could absorb 100% of the support from roadside spectators (and there were a surprising number of them) - those cheers weren't being diluted within a pool of riders.  And finally, there was the police motorcycle escort along the busier roads.  Presumably each officer was assigned a zone and would loop back to accompany successive packs.  As a pack of one, I was eligible for the same treatment.  For a few moments, I could imagine being a lone breakaway in the Tour de France.  Or the guest of honor at a funeral procession.

At the start of my solo journey, I didn't seriously expect to keep ahead of the next pack.  I anticipated their arrival at any moment.  But apparently my original group had been faster than I realized, giving me quite a substantial buffer.  Passing through Stockbridge and starting the penultimate climb, I began to wonder if I might just make it on my own.  On the subsequent flat, however, I started to notice how the fickle spectators would focus behind me immediately after I passed.  How much longer could I hold their allegiance as the plucky solo rider?  During the final climb, I could clearly hear shouts of encouragement directed at someone other than me.  Humph.  Fair-weather fans.  And then, just after the final turn, with less than a mile to go, I was caught.  This hurt my soul, but I took some solace in seeing a friendly face - Mandy - leading the charge.  Resigned to finishing as just another cog in the machinery of the 1:17 pack, I nestled into a mid-pack draft position for the final descent.

Following Mandy into T1.  Just one of the gang.  (Photo courtesy of Bryan Moulton)

Pulling into the transition area, I was relieved to find that helper Bryan had indeed arrived.  As we had agreed upon, in exchange for the negatives (it was 1989, after all) he released my paddling equipment to me.  I had half-heartedly practiced some transitions earlier in the week, but these leisurely exercises had virtually nothing in common with the race-day experience.  All I had to do was exchange my helmet for a hat, cycling shoes for water shoes, and put on a PFD - tasks that wouldn't tax the facilities of, say, your average raccoon.  And yet I now stood motionless, at a complete loss as to how to proceed.  Remove helmet?  Maybe.  Shoes?  Could be.  But what if instead I put on my PFD like pants?  The combination of fatigue and stress had mentally incapacitated me.  Turns out that a more effective transition training program would have consisted of reducing myself to a state of exhaustion and then solving Wordle and some Sudokus.

Bryan was probably on the verge of calling over emergency personnel when I groggily emerged from my paralysis of indecision.  I got prepared for the paddle stage with clumsy inefficiency and waddled down to the water (because of cycling legs - I had the PFD on correctly).  My hands were so sweaty that I had trouble getting a grip on the boat, but I managed to launch it and get underway.  I was now theoretically in my element, prepared to chase down the fleet of watercraft with head starts provided by their bikers.

In anticipation of having fatigue-induced balance issues, I brought a wide enough surfski that I wouldn't have to worry about toppling over or sacrificing stroke power to instability.  Heading into a brisk headwind on the first lap around Stockbridge Bowl, I started to pick off slower paddlers.  In many cases, this was because they were in inherently slower boats - recreational plastic kayaks, heavy metal canoes, or stand-up paddleboards.  For the most part, these craft were helmed by competent paddlers, so passing them simply involved providing a little clearance.  The two-man crew of one particular canoe, however, had not only apparently never paddled a boat before, but appeared also to be suffering from a severe case of vertigo and/or inebriation.  They were moving vaguely in the direction of the course via a sequence of comically exaggerated zigzag corrections.  I calculated a safe lateral passing margin, doubled that after witnessing a couple of particularly erratic deviations, and they still managed to collide with me as I overtook them.  I suspect it was neither the first nor last such close encounter they had.

Although I was passing people, I wasn't going very fast.  I initially attributed my disappointing speed to the headwind, but halfway through the first lap I could no longer maintain that useful fiction.  My downwind speed was roughly what I had targeted for the entire paddling leg, so I was clearly falling short of my goal.  Despite recognizing this, I lacked the mental fortitude to increase the intensity.  A growing malaise was soon compounded by minor leg cramps.  By the end of the first lap, I had begun the insidious psychic shift from race mode to survival mode.

I can't blame the boat assistants for holding back - I was emanating a lethal miasma by this point.  (Photo courtesy of Bryan Moulton)

Since paddling is my specialty (and, let's remember, was in a fast boat), I managed to do fairly well on the leg in objective terms, even though I felt subjectively sluggish.  I was 66th after the bike leg, but emerged 22nd coming off the water.  Bryan was waiting on the beach, talking me through the most basic transition steps while watching warily for renewed signs of dementia.  After a lethargic T2 that couldn't have been any slower without also incorporating a nap (denied, unjustly I think, by my helper), I burst onto the running course with the zeal of the condemned heading to the gallows.

I had long since thrown any "plan" out the window, but to raise my spirits I reviewed the ludicrously optimistic running goals I had established.  With two second-half hills responsible for most of the climbing, I'd burn through the first 3 miles with a 7:15 to 7:30 pace, then try to hold on through the uphill sections to finish at an average pace of 7:30 to 7:45.  I chuckled grimly as my pace on the flat leg settled in at the upper end of the overall average target range.  Fortunately, my growing sense of apathy helped blunt the disappointment.  It wasn't really doing anything for the discomfort and fatigue, but at least it kept me from diving any deeper into suffering.

I was surprised at how lonely it was on the course.  I passed a couple of people early on, but then could see nobody else ahead.  I had expected to be overtaken by a continuous stream of faster runners, but as the miles slowly accumulated only a handful streaked past.  I made it through the flat portion maintaining my languid pace.  While struggling to find a lower gear that wasn't neutral during the first climb, I was caught by Ryan Smith - previously unknown to me, but now heir to half my estate and kidneys (should that eventuality prove necessary).  We hardly talked while running side-by-side over the next couple of undulating miles, but nevertheless established a lifelong pinned-down-in-a-foxhole kind of bond.  I'm pretty sure I would have slid backwards on a couple of hills without Ryan pacing me.  When we came to the final climb, however, I urged him to save himself.  I was a goner.  With tears in my eyes, Ryan finally moved ahead.  Shortly afterward, my right hamstring began cramping and I ignominiously had to revert to a limping walk. 

I rallied (to the extent that resuming a running gait in a race qualifies as rallying) before the summit of the hill and entered the final half-mile with renewed fervor.  Hmm.  "Renewed fervor" may be overstating it a bit.  Let's say instead that I now had "slightly less disinterest in racing".  This didn't translate to an accelerated pace, mind you, but I did start looking back to determine if my overall place was assured.  Nope.  A particularly spiteful runner was rapidly gaining ground, even though I had done absolutely nothing to provoke him.  You can probably figure out who he was from the official results, but I'll spare his family the shame of naming him here.  Turning into the steep downhill entrance to Camp Mah-Kee-Nac, I enjoyed a modest lead over the fleet-footed scoundrel.  By the final turn into the grass timing chute, my nemesis had pulled even.  The final sprint was a laugher.  The ne'er-do-well had cravenly held enough power in reserve to accomplish a genuine finishing kick, whereas I barely managed to stagger drunkenly across the line.

I don't remember being punched repeatedly in the face during the run, but I can't deny the photographic evidence.  (Photo courtesy of Bryan Moulton)

Janda and Denny discuss their races while I try to imagine a time when everything no longer hurts.  (Photo courtesy of Bryan Moulton)

I had managed to finish in just under three hours (2:58:29).  Remarkably, I had only dropped 5 places during my anemic run, allowing me to finish 27th overall.  Among iron competitors, Janda finished first (4th overall at 2:31:45) and Denny second (13th overall at 2:44:14).  I was fourth.  Mandy was the first iron finisher among women (39th overall at 3:04:43).  You can find full results here, and official race photos here.

I'm extremely glad I competed in the Josh.  I genuinely enjoyed about 23 minutes of the 3 hours I was out there.  That's not a bad ratio, even for life in general, so it may be enough to lure me back for another shot 2023.  Thanks to Janda for the many weeks he spent guiding me through training and prepping me for the race.  And also, I suppose, to slacker Bryan for those few measly hours he also sacrificed for the cause.

Nahant Bay Race: Debronzed

The Nahant Bay Race was once a shining star in the constellation of New England races.  It hasn't lost any of its inherent luster, but with a couple of years off for the pandemic and some unfortunate fog-bound appearances prior to that, it's admittedly been a little difficult to see the sparkle of late.  Granted sweeping new meteorological powers over airborne pathogens and humidity levels by the Swampscott town council, however, director Mike McDonough has pledged to restore 100% of the dazzle to the race.  Based on the beautiful late summer day he had arranged, we were off to an excellent start.

The course of the race has always been malleable - adapted to the prevailing conditions.  With a 7-10 mph north wind forecast to swing around to the northeast during the race, Mike dug through the archives for some moments, muttering quietly to himself.  He emerged dramatically holding aloft a faded chart of the 2014 course.  From Fisherman's Beach, we'd pass by Dread Ledge at the northern cusp of Nahant Bay, proceed on a northeast course to Ram Island, where we'd turn east towards the Roaring Bull day marker.  After reaching the marker, we'd fly directly downwind back to Nahant Bay with a running (or hobbling - racer's preference) finish on the beach.

All I can say is that Mike's damned lucky that we weren't zombies.  (Photo courtesy of Francisco Urena)

In an odd twist for an ocean race, Timmy had to be treated for altitude sickness.

The course change left Mike in a bit of a quandary.  Famed (in no small part due to this blog, I'm proud to say) for his deft pointing skills during the captains meeting, he would now have to somehow illustrate a route for which none of the landmarks were actually visible from the shore!  I could sense his growing fear and confusion as he vainly scanned the vista in search of a viable target.  And then - in what I imagine it must have been like to witness Einstein finally crack the riddle of general relativity - you could see a wave of transcendent insight wash across his visage.  Starting with slow movements, but rapidly gaining momentum until his arms were a blur, Mike began pointing over the buildings of Swampscott to distant ocean way points discernible only to his mind's eye.  Bewildered paddlers whirled around in a panic, attempting to identify whatever aerial attackers were being indicated.  True genius is always misunderstood.

If Michelangelo had Mike for a hand model, maybe the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel wouldn't be such crap.

Despite Rob's grandiose claims, he has yet to foil a single crime.

Fifteen boats would be racing, including 3 tandem skis and an OC-2.  Rob Jehn, Matt Drayer, and Janda Ricci-Munn would be my principal antagonists, but I wasn't optimistic about my chances against them.  Rob, of course, has been beating me with a percussive regularity all season.  Matt, who I narrowly bested in the Blackburn Challenge, has won each of our Tuesday night league match-ups since.  And in a recent time trial on our local lake, Judge Janda had recently sentenced me to solitary confinement twenty lengths behind him - despite the fact that my V14 was ostensibly two notches faster than his Falcon and I was cutting corners with abandon.  As the "joke" Magic Eight Ball my parents gave me for my sixth birthday might have responded when asked if I'd podium at Nahant, "Nobody loves you" (or, alternatively, "Signs point to... you being an idiot").  Not directly responsive to the question, but illuminating nonetheless.  Don't get me started on the gag Ouija board.

We lined up off the end of the Fisherman's Beach pier to await the start.  You can count on Chris Chappell to launch himself violently off the line, but you're never quite sure if he's going to flame out after a few moments or continue to arc gracefully over the horizon.  With hard-charging Rob to my right and Catapult Chris (I guess this is something I'm doing now) to my left, I likely wouldn't have to paddle for the first couple minutes of the race.  Janda apparently had a similar plan, but Matt graciously self-handicapped himself to neutralize his home field advantage - positioning himself well off to the side behind some slower paddlers.  He was in the middle of strapping resistance bands to his hull when the starting horn sounded.

The race unfurled as expected, with Janda and me being towed to planing speed by Chris and Rob, while Matt bitterly regretted his better nature.  I soon found myself in a compromising position with my nose lodged between the sterns of the leaders.  Trouble loomed.  Before anyone could snap a blackmail photo, however, Chris suddenly lost combustion pressure and initiated emergency reentry protocol.  While he would have been well within his rights to shift onto Rob's port draft during this deceleration phase, thereby squeezing me out, Chris instead stayed on his ballistic trajectory, allowing me to maintain my own side draft.  This was a generous gesture, but ultimately fruitless as I quickly fell back to Rob's stern draft, with Janda quartered behind me.

During the cruise out to Dread Ledge, Janda fell back a few lengths and rendezvoused with Matt.  Nearing the scattered outcroppings that marked the visible part of the shoal, Rob veered wide to proceed through the so-called Inner Gut - a known safe passage at the current tide level.  Seeing my chance to out-maneuver the leader, I held my breath and, taking a more direct line, dove head-first into the uncharted bowels of Dread Ledge.  I saw barnacle-covered protrusions and weedy bulges in that nether region that I'll never unsee, but emerged unscathed on the other side, in the lead of the race.  My smirking glory lasted approximately 8 seconds, as Rob quickly relegated me to his side draft, then with a smirk of his own, dropped me back to his stern.

Of the three video frames in which I'm in the lead, this one best captures my joie de vivre.

Fortunately, I was spared actually seeing the self-satisfied expressions Rob manifested as he subsequently put a couple of his wakes between us on the 2 mile crossing to Ram Island.  I instead was subjected to Matt's steely look of resolve, chasing from some lengths back, but positioned on a wider line so that with just a slight turn of my head, his relentless determination was clearly visible.

I dropped a few additional lengths behind Rob on the trip from Ram to Roaring Bull.  Before this leg I would characterize myself as being "in contact" with the leader.  By Roaring Bull, however, Rob had blocked my number and filed a restraining order.  I had just about given up any hope of a reconciliation when I received a call.  Neglecting to check Caller ID before answering (I'm not saying the miles of telephone line spooling out behind was slowing me down, but I'm thinking it may be time to abandon the land line), I breathlessly answered.  You can imagine my shock and disappointment when I was greeted by Matt's voice instead of Rob's.  Turns out he was in the neighborhood and wondering if he could drop by.  Throwing a glance backwards as I completed the turn around the marker, I realized that the call was coming from inside the house - Matt was only three lengths behind.

The antithesis of "Never let them see you sweat."

Let's put aside our relative skills for a moment and concentrate on the tools we were working with.  Me in an V10, Matt in a V12.  Given paddlers of equal abilities, over a 3 mile downwind leg with moderate wave size you'd expect the V12 to have at best a 30 second advantage.  Given this, I call on the race stewards to conduct a thorough investigation as to how Matt gained over a minute on me in this stretch.  Without challenging any of the indisputable baseline assumptions!  I held off my pursuer for perhaps a mile before conceding to the inevitable.  At least I was still safely in a podium position.

At Roaring Bull, I had spotted Janda perhaps 45 seconds behind.  With relatively little downwind experience and in a new boat, I figured he had roughly zero chance of catching me.  Nevertheless, you underestimate Janda at your own peril.  Keeping this in mind, several times during the downwind leg and upon reentering Nahant Bay, I did a thorough scan for pursuers.  Crickets.  I was alone and could thus focus my efforts on getting beaten by Rob and Matt.

Before the race, in an attempt to straighten the backwards-facing GoPro mounted on my bow, I gave it a few injudicious whacks with my paddle.  Although I didn't know it at the time, this heavy-handed adjustment cracked the mounting mechanism in several places.  It was just dumb luck that the camera didn't tumble into the water at some point of the race.  And by this, of course, I mean dumb bad luck that the ignominy of my race was preserved.

As clever readers might have already surmised, Janda would soon be passing me.  It happened with a half-mile left in the race.  The GoPro video tells the tale - one moment he didn't exist, the next he was motoring by me on an inside line.  A close frame-by-frame analysis reveals that he didn't quite teleport, but his closing speed still defies the laws of conventional physics.  Once he had safely debronzed me, Janda must have disabled his quantum inverter, since I was able to track him to the finish.

Rob successfully held onto his lead, claiming his fourth New England title of 2022 with a time of 1:12:41.  Matt and Janda finished at roughly half-minute intervals behind to fill out the podium.  Kirk Olsen & Bill Kuklinski were the fastest tandem surfski at 1:19:22.  They had the overall doubles' crown all but locked up, but let the cagy OC-2 of Marc Lessard & Paul Dyka slip by in the final leg.  Mary Beth Gangloff was the sole women racer, but still brought some drama to that competition by threatening to paddle clean by the finish.

I just can't shake the feeling that they're laughing at me.

Many thanks to Mike and his family for a wonderful day, complete with a gratis post-race meal.  Next up on the calendar is the Great Stone Dam Classic, which returns on September 11 (a Sunday) to the Abe Bashara Boathouse in Lawrence, MA.  Registration is onsite.  And, on behalf of the Salem League, I'm happy to announce the new Salem Sound Spectacular, to be held at West Beach in Beverly, MA on September 24 (a Saturday).  It's free, but please pre-register on PaddleGuru.

Blackburn Challenge: Showing Up

After retreating into seclusion in 2020 citing "public health reasons" (as if we knew nothing about the sordid affair with Chattajack), the Blackburn Challenge unexpectedly turned up last year in Gloucester as a "semi-organized group paddle" - a ridiculous disguise about as effective as a stack of kids wearing a trench coat.  With the release of a recent tell-all memoir ("Currents of Passion"), however, the Blackburn embraced the scandal and was in full promotional mode for 2022.  Not everyone has forgiven the 35 year old race its indiscretions (as evidenced by lower attendance), but I think it's safe to say that after the excitement of this year's surfski competition, the public will see the past in a more forgiving light.

As is my habit (or pathological mania, Mary Beth might say), I pored over tthe registration list to generate a handicap sheet that the Vegas bookies would have killed for.  Or perhaps the Atlantic City odds makers would have been more interested, given that the top two prospects hailed from New Jersey.  I'm referring, of course, to thoroughbreds Rob Jehn and Craig Impens.  Both are previous Blackburn champions.  Rob has been trampling my ego all season, but now Craig would finally have a chance to get in a few kicks of his own.  At the recent Toms River Race, Craig edged out Rob by less than a minute - the only time they've been head-to-head in the last 4 years.

With the blasted border open again, Canadians Brian Heath (12 top-ten finishes, including two silver medals) and Jack Van Dorp (Mr. Consistency - placing between 4th and 7th in each of his seven appearances) would again be lapping on our shores.  Area favorite Matt Drayer would be trying to improve on last year's second place, while local pariah (hey... what the hell?) Greg Lesher would be latching on to the draft of whomever wasn't quick enough to swat me off.  So it would be a battle between New England, New Jersey, and New Brunswick.  Jack and Brian are actually Ontarians, but I poetic licensed them a couple of provinces east for symmetry.  With his usual mind-boggling fitness level but very limited bucket time - Gloucester native Janda Ricci-Munn opted for the SS20+ class, hoping to be the first ever to break the 3 hour mark in such a craft.  The slower among the contenders hoped that he wouldn't also break us in the process.

Matt was so focused on the upcoming race that he struggled with even the simplest tasks.

Obsessing over Saturday's weather, Matt, Janda, and I had been keeping a dedicated team of meteorologists employed.  Netflix only wishes it could have a streaming hit that garnered the kind of binge watching that WindFinder.com enjoyed over the past two weeks.  Despite offering little in the way of plot or character development, we'd gather every couple of hours to gossip about the latest twists of our Blackburn fate and debate how scripted our favorite reality show actually was.  Despite our write-in campaign to influence the outcome, the weather eventually unspooled exactly like it had to.

Let's get this out of the way.  The race between Craig and Rob has been branded as an instant classic - one of the greatest head-to-head match-ups in the annals of New England racing.  Strategic maneuvering.  Attacks and parries.  Feints and dodges.  It was legendary!  Maybe.  I mean, sure, we saw them jockeying for the lead at the start and a few people watched Craig surge to the victory in a final sprint.  And there are a few photos of them "dueling" at Halibut Point.  But they were so far ahead of the field that the majority of their race was conveniently witness-free.  For all we know, Rob and Craig flipped a coin before the race and spent the majority of the Blackburn tour getting their stories straight.  They couldn't fake blowing everyone else off the water (unless... could we all have been in on it?), but the evidence for a GOAT race is circumstantial at best.  Nice try, chumps.

As usual, my starting strategy was to sidle up to Rob and try to cadge a ride off the line.  I've got a little "Reserved" placard that I set on his rear deck to prevent other moochers from horning in on my turf.  Over the years I've developed a preference for Rob's port draft.  His paddle release on the left provides a gentle spray of fine droplets, while the right has a chunkier consistency more likely to induce draftee spluttering.  In retrospect, I should have worried a little less about exhaust streams and more about relative paddler positioning.  Craig started to the left of us, with Brian and Jack between.  Given that Rob and Craig would most certainly converge while fighting for the lead, in hindsight it seems obvious that any bystanders between the two would be the hapless victims of an unintended pincer movement.  Within seconds of the start, I found myself interlacing strokes with Jack as we were forced to share an increasingly narrow lane of international water.  On his other side, he and Brian were similarly squeezed, although in their case I sensed some internecine rivalry as paddles clashed and jaunty repartee followed (they are Canadian, after all).  While fine-tuning my stroke synchronization mechanism, I slipped off of Rob's side draft.

Number 34 was a worthy competitor, but Jack and I eventually were able to drop him. 

Rob soon pulled into the lead, with Craig nonchalantly brushing off my placard to claim my port draft exemption.  We unfortunate three teetered for a moment on the razor's edge of a stern draft before tumbling into an abyss of despair and regret.  The lead pair opened a gap of a couple of lengths, with Rob making erratic course changes in an attempt to either avoid being torpedoed or to shake Craig off his draft.  I pulled slightly ahead of Jack to move briefly into third, but after taking a wider line around a river bend found myself again by his side, with Brian and Matt in close proximity.  While I'll admit that I was morbidly fascinated by Jack's eclectic garb (signature floppy hat, floral compression shorts, knee socks, and epaulets), by avoiding staring directly at his outlandish costume I was able to focus enough to pull ahead again, this time opening a decent gap on Jack, Brian, and Matt.  The lead pair continued to extend their lead through the winding Annisquam, while we four pursuers wove independent paths along markedly different lines - fruitlessly trying navigational tricks to gain some advantage.  A superposition of our GPS tracks would resemble nothing more than a spirograph trace.

I took a hard look at my situation as I passed Annisquam Light at the mouth of the river.  Craig and Rob were each demonstrably faster than me on their own.  Having one another for drafting and motivation would only widen that performance gap.  If inspirational sports movies are to be believed, sometimes it's more about heart than strength, ability, or stamina. But in that regard I found myself lacking as well.  I'd be happy to win this thing, but I was too fundamentally lazy to do anything as taxing as bursting the shackles of physical limitations.  All that wasn't quite enough to cause me to abandon all hope, so I devised a couple of fictitious reasons to nudge me over that line - my rudder was jammed at full right deflection and I was born without any ribs.  Mission accomplished!  I could now coast around the remainder of the course (clockwise, luckily) with a clear conscience.  And little to impede torso rotation.

Would the leaders have been so poised and confident if they knew that... (Photo courtesy of Mike Sachs)

... this guy was watching them steadily pull away? (Photo courtesy of Mike Sachs)

A few minutes after arriving at this happy conclusion, the beaver of doubt began gnawing at my resolve.  Weren't there, at some previous point, surfskis in this race other than Craig, Rob, and me?  And if by some chance there were, mightn't some of these wispy memories be endeavoring to overtake me?  By following this impeccable chain of reasoning, I reached a terrible conclusion.  My race was not yet run.  Suffering and woe lay ahead.

While the fear of being overtaken by faceless pursuers was enough to kick me back into high gear (having been a recurring nightmare since hearing an old-timey radio horror show as a child that featured an antagonist with no mouth, nose, or eyes), I soon chanced upon a more concrete form of motivation that might be sufficient to keep me pushing through the finish.  Passing the double ski of Robin Francis & Igor Yeremeev (mercifully,with faces intact), I remembered that there were 3 more such doubles up ahead.  With a 5 minute head start (or even without), I might not catch them all, but at least I'd have specific targets to shoot for.

You know, it's not like I grew up in the 40s.  I need to have a talk with my parents about why I was listening to antiquated (and wholly kid-inappropriate) AM radio shows rather than playing Atari or grooming my pet rock.

Operation Treble Double was a success of sorts, although it developed at the same leisurely pace that ultimately put Kodak out of business.  I would invariably spot the next double from quite some distance behind, but given that my pace was at best a fraction of a mile per hour faster, it took some imagination to convince myself that I was actually in the process of overtaking them.  And inevitably, I'd become their motivational fodder when I appeared alongside,  As a result, I'd be unable to complete the passing operation until they achieved motivation-fatigue equilibrium.  I caught Ed Duggan & Bruce Deltorchio just before Halibut Point, Erin & Alan Lamb at Straitsmouth gap, and Bernie Romanowski & Andrew Metz without a nameable landmark in sight.  I passed so much time overtaking the Lambs that I'm now to be the proud godfather of their unwitting third passenger.

Actually, I already know the answer to the question.  I wasn't playing Atari because we didn't have one.  I asked for the game on my 11th birthday, but instead got a mustard-colored knock-off Pong console (made in Bhutan, if I'm not mistaken) with sliders rather than knobs.  And as for the Pet Rock, well, it was "too dangerous".  So I suppose old-timey radio was really my only entertainment option.

The next time I'm struggling to get out of bed for a morning workout, I'm going to remember Craig's savage grin at the finish.  And, realizing that I'm never going to match that intensity, hit the snooze button.  (Photo courtesy of John Costello)

By the time I had inched by Bernie & Andrew, roughly 5 miles remained in the race - a short enough distance for a go-getter like me to self-motivate through.  Water conditions had been neutral in the Annisquam, favorable to Straitsmouth, and mildly irksome since - a light headwind and current working against us.  Making landfall near Brace Cove, however, reflected waves and tidal eddies reformed the ocean surface into a nubbled canvas.  Some quirk of the wind then applied a glossy sheen, making it difficult to discern the irregular hills and valleys.  I found the experience to be much like attending an experimental theater production - you didn't really understand what was going on, you felt a little nauseous, and you were terrified that the next scene might include nudity and/or audience participation.  So I adopted a similar coping strategy - I kept my head down and repeated "it will soon be over" to myself until I emerged on the other side of the confusion, fully clothed and with a new appreciation for the avant-garde.

Needless to say, I was disappointed to discover that hang time wasn't factored into your final score.  (Photo courtesy of John Costello)

Approaching the final leg of the race, the ocean remained disgruntled, but in a more predictable way.  I kept well off the Dog Bar, fearing: instability-induced slowdown in the confused waters, catching my rudder on a stray fishing line, and being dashed to a pulp against the ragged granite (in no particular order).  I was able to catch a few decent waves out there, but marveled at how effectively an OC-1 I had previously been overtaking was now exploiting the rebound close to the rocks.  Clearing the end of the Bar and turning into the harbor, I finally took a good look behind to confirm that I could safely phone in the last leg.  Seeing nobody, I had just cracked open a Mai Tai (everything comes in a can these days) when I heard a little voice in my head saying "Greg... I'm gonna catch you."  That didn't make much sense since I generally refer to myself in third-person internal dialog as "Your Grace" (or "Melon Head" if I'm in a playful mood).  I glanced around again, this time catching the barest suggestion of a dark V12 moving silently along the Dog Bar.  The bright orange person sitting on top of it definitely helped.  Whether Matt had actually yelled out that taunt or my subconscious had generated it in response to some tickle of recognition after the first glance, only Matt can say.  And he says "You're an idiot, Melon Head."  Which I believe leaves some room for interpretation.

Matt, who I had assumed had been lost at sea a couple of hours ago, was actually perhaps only 15 boat lengths back.  Quickly chugging the remainder of my citrus cocktail to calm my nerves, I girded my loins (I'll let you know in a couple of days if duct tape was the smart approach) and pointed my bow towards home.  Although the tide was against us, there was a slight wind at our back and some incoming swell.  In a conversation I once had with Sean Rice, he said that every wave you miss in a downwind run is one your competition won't.  He was also somehow Foghorn Leghorn at the time, which makes me wonder if maybe this didn't occur in a dream.  Nevertheless... it rings true.  I took the giant rooster's axiom to heart, adding my own corollary - every wave I was on, my competition wasn't.  This doesn't make any sense, but I can't say that logic was a high priority at this point.  Doubly prompted, I drove myself to catch every little bump.  Thankfully, the girding held up under the strain.

Andrew struggled to disguise his grimace as a smile, but piteous moaning betrayed his fundamental misery.  (Photo courtesy of John Costello)

It's reassuring to know that Janda wasn't handed that sub-3 hour SS20+ time on a silver platter.  (Photo courtesy of John Costello)

Craig told me after the race that whenever Rob threw a look over his shoulder in the final stretch to check his lead, it fueled Craig's confidence that he could overtake Rob.  If that were likewise the case for Matt, he would have wagered his children against a fiver that he'd end up ahead of me. Halfway across the harbor, I figured it made more sense to stop glancing backward, and instead start glancing forward.  Even with near-constant surveillance of Matt, I oscillated between imagining (A) myself congratulating Matt for pushing me to the limit and expressing sympathy for just missing a medal and (B) Matt spitting contemptuously on me from the podium.  It was good to know that, regardless of the outcome, I would have been the more gracious winner.  As the finish line grew closer, however, option A seemed increasingly likely.  Or at least the part about me earning bronze.  I coasted in 30 seconds ahead.  Fortunately for Matt, I was too dehydrated to work up any condescending contempt.

As I alluded to above, after a spirited mano-a-mano brawl (alleged), Craig passed Rob in the final few hundred feet to take his third Blackburn title in 2:40:46.  The nine second gap between gold and silver was the narrowest margin of victory ever in a full-course Blackburn.  I finished nearly 5 minutes behind the leaders, but as a "fellow" podium dweller I was shielded by tradition from spittle.  Janda was successful in his bid to break the 3 hour mark in the SS20+ class, finishing 7th overall in a time of 2:55:46.  The top 6 have already conspired to exaggerate expected ocean conditions for the 2023 race in an effort to keep him in a fat boat.  On the women's side, Mary Beth chalked up her third HPK Blackburn title, but in a Janda-esque effort Beatrice Weinberger notched the fastest women's surfski time in winning the SS20+ class in 3:33:23.  Bernie & Andrew claimed double's gold in 2:53:58.

As in the race itself, I was asked to keep my distance from the leaders in the podium photo.

Thanks to the many volunteers from the Cape Ann Rowing Club and beyond who resuscitated the Blackburn.  To relive the excitement, check out the stunning photos of the race by John Costello, Mike Sachs, and Granite State Race Services.  As a bonus, if you step through John's 1,800+ pics at 24 frames per second, you can essentially watch a video of the event.

A slight pause in the New England ocean racing schedule will give us all plenty of time to formally withdraw our post-Blackburn renunciations of paddling.  Next up is the Paddle for Access in Newport, RI on August 20th (register at PaddleGuru), followed by the Nahant Bay Cup in Swampscott, MA on August 27th (watch for details).  If you'd like to decompress on some flatwater prior to those efforts, try NECKRA's New England Paddlesports Championship (register at PaddleGuru) on August 7th in Hinsdale, NH.

Ride the Bull: Crash Course

By now we're all familiar with the origin story of Ride the Bull.  Concerned that surfski races were just too sedate to land a lucrative ESPN live coverage contract, Tim Dwyer and Wesley Echols devised a treacherous coastline course guaranteed to have viewers slavering at the carnage.  Taking a cue from Big Tobacco, they figured that with all the youngsters recruited via the sexy publicity, they could afford to gradually kill off their best customers.  It took them a few years of tinkering with the course, but they finally arrived at a sustainable attrition rate.  Although Wesley had taken over sole directorship some years back, his conscience finally got the better of him.  He handed the reigns over to Tim and myself this year.  Proud to carry on the tradition, we summoned paddlers to Fort Wetherill for the annual Narragansett Bay culling extravaganza.

Before getting down to the race itself, let's take a quick detour to discuss my 2022 fitness strategy.  I've started to incorporate more cross training this season, folding in healthy doses of cycling and running to my time on the water.  In general, athletes might adopt such an approach to promote sport-specific recovery, enhance motivation, or avoid overuse injuries.  My principle motivation, however, was to extend the life of the 20 year old neoprene shorts I paddle in.  If I didn't seriously curtail my bucket time, a mid-race disintegration (think Thanos finger snap) was all but inevitable.  As part of the preservation effort, I bought a new road bike this spring.

While I enjoyed riding a couple of times a week, I recently realized that although I was getting an aerobic benefit from this cross training, I should also be looking to enhance skills that would also be useful on a surfski.  With this in mind, the day before the race I found a flat and straight section on a country road to practice my remounts.  Moments later as I lay sprawled in the ditch alongside that road, I couldn't help but think that there should have been more planning on the dismount phase of the drill.  First off, a bed of poison ivy probably wasn't the ideal landing zone.  In my defense, though, even had I identified a more suitable target area beforehand, it would have been difficult to navigate to it while rag dolling along the shoulder.  Which brings me to the second major deficiency in my dismount maneuver.  In retrospect, decelerating to a stop while on the bike would have made a lot more sense.  There's a reason (perhaps a few) they don't make brake pads out of human skin.  My third and final planning faux pas was not alerting area residents that a drill was in progress.  To an unknowing observer - say an elderly woman on her mid-morning walk - it can be difficult to differentiate between a true 911 emergency (like a cyclist wiping out and disappearing off the side of the road) and a minor training snafu (same).  Next thing you know, you might be asking the EMTs if they have anything for acute embarrassment.

I'm in excruciating itchiness, but otherwise fine - my body absorbed most of the impact.  Just some minor scrapes and bruises.  Also snapped off part of my shifter assembly, but I'm told it will grow back.

Paddlers are easing back into the intimate camaraderie we had before COVID, but we're not quite there with the traditional pre-race huddle.

I'm not exactly sure why we were roasting Chris, but Tim had some of the best oceanographer-related zingers I'd ever heard.  I'm never going to hear "Woods Hole" again without laughing.

Back to Rhode Island.  Lest we get too big for our britches (that's assuming they're still in one piece), every year we order a world-class paddler from the ICF to compete in at least one of our New England races.  You never know if you'll get a Sean Rice, an Austin Kieffer, or a Nate Humberston, but we've never been anything less than completely humiliated at our relative incompetence.  Hold on.  I take that back.  One year they had a shortage and pawned a Jan Lupinski off on us.  Oh sure, he probably won, but nobody wanted to quit the sport afterwards.  This year we got the Sean Brennan model - a real bargain since we only had to pay freight charges from New Jersey.  We last saw Sean at the 2021 Sakonnet Surfski Race, immediately after which the local used surfski market crashed due to the glut of sellers.

Although it seemed improbable that Sean would be seriously challenged, if anyone could be forgiven for dreaming above their station, it'd be fellow out-of-towners Rob Jehn and Ed Joy.  Rob has been repeatedly kicking the beloved local favorite in the groin this season and yet for some reason we keep letting him come back.  Although Ed has some mileage on him (including serious off-road ventures while a younger man, as he told us at lunch), he's got a rebuilt drive train and the best rough-water navigation system money can buy.  And as the two-time defending champion, he wasn't about to let a "candy-ass teenager" like Rob beat him on this course.  I figured.

We're not even halfway through the list of outside barbarians that stormed the gates of Fort Wetherill.  For weeks, Rob had been frightening me with tales of Anthony Colasurdo's ferocity from shared NJ training sessions.  New York's John Hair is always a wily competitor, but this year he's taken things to a new level - creating a bogus Strava feed designed to make it look like he hasn't been training much.  Finally, Epic Kayaks muckety-muck Bruce Poacher would be paddling a double with Eric Costanzo (yet another Jersey boy).  Bruce flew his parents over from South Africa and then drove them up from Tennessee so that they'd have a chance to apologize for the cold-hearted manner in which their other son (Ross) had eviscerated me in the 2019 Blackburn.  That's the kind of thoughtful gesture that makes everyone love the (non-Ross) Poachers.  Also, Bruce brought snappy Epic hats for everyone.

I just found out about the "Psychedelic" setting on my GoPro.  Groovy.

The area we use at the park also serves as a base for scuba diving certification, so for once we weren't the silliest looking bunch of weirdos in the parking lot.  We were however, the baldest, with nearly half the paddling crew opting to redirect our supply of testosterone to, uh... more critical areas.  Eyebrows, ears, noses, etc.  Behind more than a few diving masks, I noticed the distinct glint of envy.

With an assist from Sean's encyclopedic knowledge of the navigational markers of Narragansett Bay (get that guy on Jeopardy!), Tim deftly guided us through the 8.8 mile course at the captains meeting.  Starting from West Cove, we'd motor west to round a rocky island just inside Mackerel Cove, head out into the bay to turn on bell buoy G7 (recently refitted with a state-of-the-art Hayes-Kendall "Monsoon IV" free-swinging clapper, as Sean helpfully informed us), continue northeast past West Cove and the House on the Rock to G11 (criminally outdated with a Maritime East "Flop-About" dangler), and return to the mouth of West Cove.  Just to make sure we got it right, Tim asked that we then repeat the loop a second time.  After that, we'd be rewarded with an extra leg that would take us directly back to G7 for one more glorious bell recital before returning to the finish. 

The launch area was congested with floating weeds and scuba students (almost always grounds for an automatic failure), so once we picked our way through to open water, we carefully checked each other's rudders for tangles of regulator hoses.  We soon made our way next door to West Cove and lined up for the countdown start.  Tim's gotten so good at counting backwards that he earns a little extra dough on the side as a test subject for anesthesiologist training.  Based on general demeanor I suspect he may have taken a few too many hits of ether over the years, but on the brighter side he never has to worry about his tonsils, appendix, or gall bladder giving him any problems.  He was in fine form today, though.  We were underway exactly 54 seconds after the one minute warning.

Knowing we'd soon be making a hard right turn around a particularly solid looking rock at the mouth of the cove, I had lined up on the left side of the pack to avoid any temptation to heroically cut things close.  Struggling to get by Tim on the outside, I couldn't lend much attention to what was happening in the thick of things over to the right.  Based on what I saw after clearing the turn (and Tim) and angling towards the point marking the entrance to Mackerel Cove, however, I can only assume that what had been happening was a whole lot of cheating.  That's the only rational explanation for the fact that scarcely a minute into the race I had already lost contact with the first 5 boats.  Sean, Ed, Rob, Bruce & Eric, and Anthony were well out in front.

Once clear of the well-protected start cove, the true nature of the race conditions were revealed.  Between the brisk northwest wind, swells from the south, boat traffic, and refraction from the rocky coastline, there were waves traveling in pretty much any direction you wanted.  Conanicut Island was blocking most of the 12-15 mph wind, so none of the legs would be an upwind slog.  Technical conditions, but not overly demanding.  I figured it would give competitors with years of varied ocean paddling (like Sean, Ed, and Tim) the benefit.  I have more than a decade of open water experience under my belt (and, quite often, over my head), but by stubbornly refusing to learn much from this exposure, I remain mid-pack in my abilities.  Perhaps by waterlogged osmosis I had absorbed skills enough to catch newcomer Anthony, however.

Amazingly, there seemed to be some merit to this hypothesis.  Anthony had dragged me around most of the Narrow River Race a couple of months earlier, but in livelier conditions I was rapidly closing his early lead.  Being in a more stable boat doubtless helped.  Turning around Southwest Point into Mackerel Cove, I took a tight line inside him (only semi-heroically close to the rocks) and moved safely into 5th place.  Now all I had to do was linger close enough to the pursuit group (Ed, Rob, and the double) to pick off any exhausted stragglers.

You'd never have expected it from him, but as we passed in opposite directions at turns I heard a steady stream of motivational obscenities directed at the "gutless maggot" up front by drill sergeant Bruce.

At the completion of the first lap, the pack ahead extended their gap while demonstrating an uncommon degree of cohesion.  The two smaller boats and the larger double appeared to be atomically linked - the H2O of the paddling world, so to speak.  I'm working towards a spectacularly tortured metaphor/pun here, so bear with me.  Here's the premise.  Water is known as the "universal solvent" because almost everything dissolves in it.  But "solvent" also means "having sufficient funds to pay one debts".  So if the group is universally solvent, they have unlimited resources.  Which explains why they were showing no signs of fatigue!  I spent about an hour unsuccessfully trying to craft this harebrained premise into a Shakespearean turn of phrase that would at best elicit a collective groan, and would more probably elicit a collective "Close Tab".  I mostly write to amuse myself, and I failed at even that.  I did come up with the hilarious-to-me phrase "pithy apothegm" while brainstorming, however, so it wasn't a complete loss.

Enough self-indulgence.  Let's get back to the actual topic of this report.  The advantages of liquidity!  The inseparable Fluid Crew were nimble and flexible, while I plodded behind, all of my assets frozen in stodgy long-term investments (like life insurance, which I might well dip into sooner rather than later).  Sorry.  I could've sworn there'd be a payoff in doggedly pursuing this angle.

The remainder of my race overflowed with adventure and excitement (look for the Netflix miniseries in October), but since I've wasted so much space on tangents, I'll distill it to the essentials.  Periodic checks on Anthony after each turn revealed that I was maintaining a solid grasp on 5th place.  As the pursuit pack pulled further head of me, it became difficult to tell how close-knit they remained, but at the final discordant turn on G11, I could see that Rob and Ed had dissociated themselves from Bruce & Eric.  The singles would struggle for supremacy over the final couple of miles, with Rob out-sprinting Ed for the silver.  In winning 4 minutes earlier, Sean had established a new course record of 1:11:56.  Finishing 4th overall about a minute behind Ed, Bruce & Eric were forced to share the doubles crown, leading to quite the fracas in the parking lot.  We had a couple of fatigue-based DNFs, but a 100% survival rate.  We'll have to try harder next year.

I guarantee you that in reality, the field wasn't nearly this photogenic.

For a final ocean tune-up before the Blackburn Challenge, you have two options.  If you just can't seem to kick the Rhode Island habit, head back down for the Jamestown Double Beaver on July 9th (register at PaddleGuru).  For those looking for a different kind of fix, you can see what kind of thrills New Jersey has to offer at Toms River Paddle Race on July 10th (register at PaddleGuru).

Sakonnet Surfski Race: Becalmed

The Sakonnet Surfski Race celebrated its 15th installment this past weekend.  This is the longest continuously operating surfski race in New England.  The youngest competitor this year, Sam Duffield, wasn't even born when the gun first fired on the Sakonnet.  Oops.  Might just have blown his cover with the Navy.  When Wesley Echols started the race way back 2008, who could have guessed that any of the competitors in that inaugural race would still be paddling today?  Now well into their twilight years, four such elder statesmen showed up this year, although only Wesley seemed to know exactly where he was.  

Several years back, Wesley and his neighbors convinced their town to restrict access to their local beach at McCorrie Point to only those with resident permits.  Unfortunately, not all paddlers got the memo that they were now persona non grata at the ancestral home of the Sakonnet race.  As a result, in early June of every year, the town constabulary has to extract neoprene-clad geezers stuck firmly in the razor wire and rake up the detritus left by those who made it as far as the mine field.  We probably have a few more years of safe access to the new venue at Island Park Beach before the inevitable lock-down on invasive species, but if you notice a red dot on your chest or a billowing yellow cloud of noxious gas heading your way - maybe just drop your boat and start running.

Tim's attempts to recruit new members to the Narragansett Paddle Drill Team were, once again, unsuccessful.

You can thank me later for cropping this photo in such a way that exactly what Igor just realized he forgot isn't explicit.

Although there was historically a "standard" course for the Sakonnet, varying weather conditions (and now the venue change) have necessitated frequent ad hoc changes.  At times, these revised directions have had the distinct feel of a scavenger hunt.  One year, the winner was the first paddler to return to the start after finding (1) a Clorox jug inscribed with the Sanskrit word for "fellowship", (2) a bobbing flock of Buffleheads ducks, and (3) a patch of floating seaweed in the shape of Poland.  So naturally I was suspicious when Wesley instead described this year's course with clinical precision.  We'd proceed 4.63 miles towards the mouth of the Sakonnet, turn on navigation buoy RN6, and return to the start.  I kept waiting for him to add "... and also circumnavigate the completely submerged wreck of the trawler Glory B", but he kept silent.  Doubtless he'd wait until just before the start to spring that course addendum on us.

With just a few days left until the race, it appeared that the entire field might earn spots on the podium.  By Saturday, however, our ranks had been swelled by procrastinators, impulse registrants, and parolees assigned to the paddle release program.  Twenty-one paddlers showed up, but since there were only 18 boats we played musical buckets to decide who had to double up.  We can't seem to move our races far enough from New Jersey to keep Rob Jehn from attending.  As winner of the last couple of races, he was naturally the favorite.  Matt Drayer was also competing.  I had recently beaten Matt in consecutive races in our Tuesday night league, but my margin of victory had shrunk alarmingly between the two.  Another 4 days worth of whatever super-soldier serum he's been taking might well make the difference here.

Since discovering that tattoo removal isn't covered by his insurance, Timmy has taken to passing the hat.

In our previous two races, I had clung desperately on Rob's draft until my grip gave way, then faded gradually behind in quiet despair.  I'd only been 15 to 20 seconds back at the finish, but the gap seemed so insurmountable it might as well have been 18 to 23.  Those earlier races had been contested in dead flat conditions, but any hope (unwarranted, granted) that the rougher water of the Sakonnet would mix things up were dashed by the forecast - a whispered breeze from the north at race start, dying to a preternatural calm (weird for the National Weather Service to phrase it that way, but whatever) midway through.  I therefore decided to just make a couple of tweaks to my tried-and-true "draft, fade, despair" strategy.  As we lined up for the start, I could barely contain my excitement at implementing the improved "draft longer, implode, despair" approach.

To maximize drafting time, I maneuvered to set myself up on Rob's port side as Wesley counted us down to the start.  He must of forgotten about the course adjustments.  The usual suspects - Chris Chappell, Tim Dwyer, Matt, and Rob - shot off the line, but this time I was dragged along with them.  Unaccustomed to the g-forces associated with such sudden acceleration, I blacked out briefly.  When I came to, I was still safely ensconced in the warm embrace of Rob's generosity, pulling away from the rest of the field.  It might have been a little warmer if I wasn't catching a paddle-scoop of water in the face every few seconds, but after the race I was happy to provide Rob with a few tips for maximizing my future comfort.

We continued peacefully in this mutually satisfactory manner.  The sea was so smooth that we'd occasionally see stripers finning at the surface ahead, darting away in a confused swirl at the last moment.  Rob made perfunctory efforts to shake me from time to time, but it was obvious that he wasn't seriously committed to these attack intervals.  He could hardly maintain his delusion of being in a competitive race if he dropped me so early.  I wish he would have made a little more effort to sell these break-out attempts, however.  Checking email while ostensibly sprinting?  Come on. On my part, I didn't bother with even a token show of trying to seize the lead (or take a turn pulling, as Rob might have worded it) - the most credulous audience would hardly have bought such a fiction. 

Halfway to the turn buoy, I sensed we had established an uneasy truce.  I'd keep on his draft so that Rob didn't have to admit to himself that he drove 5 hours for a cake walk, and he'd let me stay on that draft because he sensed the looming darkness of competitive irrelevance that lay in my future.  We'd carry on this pitiful charade until the buoy, at which point Rob would break our wispy bond of mutual deception.  And that's pretty much what happened.  Rob's Nelo gave him superior turning agility and his strength gave him superior acceleration.  There's no way I could keep with him.  At least, that was the rationalization I used for not gutting it out and fighting back to his draft immediately after being dropped.  

I took some solace in surveying the oncoming field as we headed back towards the start.  Rob had pulled me well clear of Matt, who in turn had opened up a solid lead on Tim.  For the first couple miles of the return trip, I managed to keep within a half-dozen lengths of Rob.  My planned implosion was disappointingly fade-like - my end came not with a fffwoomp, but with a whimper.  As I fell further back, I resorted to increasingly wild-eyed tactics.  I weaved to and fro searching for non-existent waves or tidal currents I could exploit to negate Rob's advantage.  I'm ashamed to admit that I grew so desperate that at one point I resorted to trying to paddle really hard.  Not my finest moment.

With a half-mile to go, I heard a tremendous splash just behind the bucket on the starboard side.  Despite any corroborating evidence from my other senses, and perhaps a little addled by lack of oxygen to the brain, I suspected that I had fallen out of the boat.  And on my weak remount side!  Fortunately, a quick head count revealed that all the crew were accounted for.  Apparently a large striper had taken offense at my trespassing through his domain and decided that retribution was in order.  The worst thing about being a fish, however, is that you lack convenient access to the judicial system.  That and gill worms.  Lacking any legal remedy against my incursion, he settled for a startling splash.

The capsize scare failed to quicken my heart rate - I am, after all, still around to write this - but it did provide a sufficient boost of adrenaline to see me through to the finish.  Rob had crossed the line 35 seconds earlier at 1:15:58.  Matt came in a few minutes later to claim the final podium spot, with Tim and John Redos taking 4th and 5th shortly after.  Leslie Chappell earned the women's title, while Bill Kuklinski & Kirk Olsen were the double's champions.

Bill placed 14th in the first Sakonnet race, but even while carrying a passenger, improved all the way to 5th this year!

Having survived the Great Kumquat Deluge of 2012, the odd banana peel doesn't phase Matt at all.

Thanks to Wesley for having us down for a fantastic day on the water.  We'll be back in Rhode Island on June 18th for Ride the Bull (no charge, but please register at PaddleGuru).  Some paddlers were disappointed that this year's calm Sakonnet didn't provide a suitable warm-up for the notoriously lively conditions at the Bull, but I think it'll make for a better consumer experience.  Would Friday the 13th have been any good if Jason made his first appearance skulking around basket weaving class in broad daylight?  No!  In his initial reveal, he's gotta be stabbing a counselor in the eye.  So buck up little campers!  You're in for a treat.