User Tools
Sidebar
Post Race Report - Re: La Conner
Reivers Dustin
02/04/17 #20580
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The channel was a ribbon of current through the jagged debris,
And the paddlers came riding,
-riding
-riding,
The paddlers came riding in twos and threes.
(apologies to Alfred Noyes). We were all a band of outlaws. Just like the highwayman from the old poem.
Two boats argued with rocks (Shane and Christian), but everyone finished ok. As far as I know no one went swimming. Lots of us picked up weeds. Tyler rowed himself halfway over a log in the water. Heckuva deal getting untangled from that. The flood through the channel made it buggerly to get out to the turn mark. Then at the turn, the current was blowing through so fast a lot of rowers gave away a lot of time. It was tough to make a clean turn. The light wind was from the North. It was cold in the parking lot so I overdressed. Overheated on the way out, then chilled on the way back in. My speeds on the way out were 5.5 to 6.0mph. On the way back once I was inside the channel steady 8.0mph. I was chasing Peter M. and kept looking for a slot in the channel, but never found a good advantage.
Heather was fastest surfski. She smoked down all the guys. I think Christian was next, then LB, then Dean. OC-2's were on fire. Sometimes I can hang on to an OC-2 for a bit of a ride. Not today. I was left on my own. I saw Dennis M. up ahead, but he kept pulling away the entire race. All my brilliant strategies made everything worse. So I just had myself a wonderful party and enjoyed the scenery.
Soup was over the top. La Conner post race is very classy. The chilli was muy macho: no beans, no starchies, no veggies, just lots of meat with some medium spice tang. I also sampled the wild rice w/ mushroom which was not like mine: from a can. Super earthy mushrooms with the rice thats got that crunchy feel in a cream type base. There were another four or five soups, but I had filled all extra space with cookies and blueberry cream-cheese crumble.
Awards went crisply. Greg announced that another race director will take over after this year. A great background story made the rounds about how when Greg and Kristen took this race on ten years ago: Greg proposed. Big banner hanging from the bridge, ring mounted on a little floaty thing, yadda yadda. Totally nailed it. Kristen had no idea. Also, their kid took her first steps at this race one year.
Just something special about the first one of the year. Extra nice to have some rather sweet history behind it.
See all you scalliwags at the next one.
rd
allipp01
02/04/17 #20581
https://www.webscorer.com/racedetails?raceid=91666
Nicholas Cryder
02/04/17 #20583
Congrats Heather! Hard work pays off!!!
