The fourth Sound Rowers race of the season was the Lake Whatcom Classic. It starts on the shores of Lake Whatcom at Bloedel Donovan Park, located on the east side of Bellingham, WA, heads some six miles down the lake to Reveille Island, goes around the island and returns to the park.
At 12 miles in length this would be the longest race so far this year. In addition, there was only a week between the previous race and this one. Some folks (who, me?) would prefer a little more time to recover.
Shortly after the nearly 2 hour drive from my house to the park I had my Open Water Cycling Cadence moved from the roof of my aging Neon and onto its dolly. I quickly loaded the boat with the seat pads, PFD, water and juice bottles, hat and cell phone and headed down to the registration area.
It was a cool, sunny morning. The temperature was in the 60's, with a forecast indicating it would reach the upper 70's - and maybe even the low 80's. That sounded pretty warm for this area at this time of year. The wind was pretty light, too.
After leaving the Cadence near the beach I went over to the registration area. This was located at a picnic table in an area reserved as a dog run until May 1st, the day of the race. Luckily, the ground was not infested with doggy doo, and the grass was nowhere near as soggy as it was last year.
There was a line of people waiting to fill out the registration forms, pay their fee and get their Coroplast race numbers. After passing out some blank forms and a pen or two I got in line.
Eventually I registered and received #43. Not quite the answer to "Life, the Universe and Everything", but close enough. Borrowing some duct tape I adhered it to the boat's rear hatch where it would be mostly out of the way.
While I was working on the boat a man came up to me. I recognized him from the Elk River race last year as a rower who finished before me and whose picture I took at the finish line. We exchanged greetings and he said that he was planning to beat me in this race, too.
I replied that lots of people will be beating me, so join the crowd!
You had to be there.
Anyway, after asking around I found someone to use my camcorder to take videos of the race. Kathy Furtado, the wife of one of the racers, agreed to do it. After an extremely short orientation she took the camcorder and tripod and set off to take videos. Thanks, Kathy!
Joost Zeegers, the race director, held the pre-race meeting near a sign at the water's edge. Everyone was to line up between some buoys near the end of the boat launch and wait for the signal. After the signal was given, they were to head around a bunch of semi-submerged deadheads and go to the southeastern end of the lake to Reveille Island. At the island everyone was supposed to go around it in a counterclockwise direction and head back. The finish line was between the starting line buoys and the shore.
After the meeting several people came over to talk to me about the Cadence. Unfortunately, this delayed getting the boat into the water. When I finally launched it at the boat ramp I ended up letting the beaching dolly drift away and maneuvered the boat too close to the shore trying to get it. Rats! I always seem to do something like this when I don't take along my spare paddle!
Anyway, with the help of some bystanders, including Kathy, everything shortly was back under control and I headed out to the starting line.
Shortly after arriving the starting signal was heard. We were off!
On my left side was a big canoe containing six paddlers. On my right was an OC-2 with two paddlers manned by Vern and Bill. I was getting a rather squishy feeling as the two boats began getting closer and closer. Since this was a rather long race, I decided to hang back a bit and let them go ahead. Besides, it would be an early opportunity to draft one or the other!
I decided to draft the OC-6.
While this was going on another big canoe was moving ahead with pretty incredible speed. I was certain that they were going to tire early in the race. After all, they were going as fast as some of the top double rowing shells.
A third big canoe started nosing up behind me, and right next to a guy in a lightweight racing canoe. Suddenly the guy let out a shout - and he was in the water! Immediately the big canoe stopped to provide assistance. I thought about stopping as well, but felt that the bigger boat would be able to do a much better job. Besides, I would have to turn around, and this would cause even more troubles.
With the photography and the capsized canoe I was now pretty far behind the OC-6. Vern's OC-2 was in the space between, so I decided to draft in Vern's wake for a while.
The OC-6 was going just a little faster than the OC-2. Of course, they had a longer boat and nearly three times the power! Hmm, if I wanted to finish this race with a better time I had better put forth the effort to catch them now, or it would be too late.
I started pedaling faster, and soon pulled alongside the OC-2.
"Hi Vern! Nice day for a race, isn't it?", I said.
Vern agreed, and mumbled something under his breath. ".... pedal boats ....".
Gradually I pulled ahead and began closing the gap between the Cadence and the OC-6.
Ahead and to the side in the distance I could see a line of high performance kayaks and surf skis. Those guys were fast! This race seemed to be going much faster than last year's.
Unfortunately, however, there was a tailwind this year. When combined with our speed through the water there was very little relative air movement to cool us. Sweat was dripping from my scalp into my eyes. My handkerchief was soon dripping as well from being used to wipe away the salt. At least the lake water was nice and cool on my hands!
About this time the man in the rowing shell who finished ahead of me at Elk River was now slightly ahead and to the side. He was going about the same speed as the OC-6, which I was slowly reaching. Hmm, there was a good chance that I might beat him this race after all!
To the other side (south) was another OC-2. This was manned by Shane and Bela, two other long time Sound Rowers racers. Shane had broken a rib recently and did not participate in the American Lake race, so I was rather surprised to see him at this event. He and Bela were going like gangbusters on the OC-2, and were keeping pace with the OC-6!
Eventually I was able to catch the OC-6 and rest in their wake. The GPS indicated our speed as approximately 7 mph.
While zigzagging in time with the OC-6 I noticed a young man (Ryler) in an HPK (high performance kayak) was drafting my boat. This was rather unusual as most people found the prop wash nullified the drafting effect. I guess he was able to get some assistance by traveling slightly off to the side. Good for him!
I could see Reveille Island in the distance - and some boats coming towards us. Could it be the leaders already?
Yes! Rob O'Brien and Jeff Knakal were in the lead in their two man rowing shell. The others were fairly far behind, so it looked like these guys had the race wrapped up!
As an aside, I was pleased that the new camera was able to zoom in pretty close. My old one would have scarcely caught anything in the image.
I guzzled half of the bottle of juice I was carrying. It was getting close to an hour into the race, and water was just not enough. My legs were working moderately hard and my lungs were fine. Perhaps regularly running up the hills in my neighborhood is a good thing after all. Now, if only there was a breeze to cool me off!
Several other rowing shells passed on their way back from the island.
As our little flotilla approached the island the wake from some ski or fishing boats hit us nearly broadside. The waves played havoc with our pace line, and some water came into the Cadence cockpit. I'm glad this boat has a self-draining seat!
I was able to do a little surfing, which was good as I had again become separated from the OC-6. Still, it took until we were half the way around the island before I finally caught back up with them.
Meanwhile, Ryler, the guy in the HPK decided to follow the rowing shell. I don't blame him. Following someone who was zigzagging behind a zigzagging OC-6 was like being at the tail end of a whip!
Shane and Bela's OC-2 was also ahead now by several boat lengths. Well, there was about 6 miles left in the race. There was plenty of time to make this up.
About this time the rower decided to stop and take a break. So long!
About this time I noticed that the digital camera was displaying the preview images highly over exposed. It turned out that somehow the program dial on the top of the camera was nudged by the glove of waterproof case from the "auto" setting to "shutter", and the shutter speed was set to 1/13 of a second. This happened when my hand was wriggled into the glove. The sweat of the hand coupled with the normal tackiness of warm vinyl made this a bit of a chore.
I changed the camera setting to "A", which means "auto", right? Well, um, as it turns out I was already suffering from exercise-induced stupidity. "A" on this camera means "aperture", not auto. While it didn't help that the word "auto" was in dark green letters I should have remembered it was different! Luckily, the previous "A" settings were reasonably good, and the LCD preview indicated that the images taken would be more or less properly exposed.
The way back was much better temperature-wise than the way out. We now had a head wind and the sky was turning hazy. The combination of the two reduced the effective temperature so much that I was barely sweating. Unfortunately, the wind also made wearing my big hat problematic so I tried stowing it behind me. This was only partially effective as it kept moving to one side or the other, creating a wind sock. Sigh...
With the head wind our speed fell slightly to about 6.5 mph. At one point I tried pedaling faster, but my right leg immediately began to cramp severely. Oops! I had better drink more water, and be more careful!
The race began to drag. I began day dreaming. The net effect was that each time I spaced my speed dropped, and a gap opened between me and the OC-6. This was not good!
Slowly we caught up to and passed the OC-2. Somewhat later we caught a guy in an HPK. He was rather aggressive and looked like he was going to try to get in the "day dreaming" gap that had opened between me and the OC-6, but I quickly closed the distance. He settled for the wake of the outrigger.
Eventually the other boat fell behind and off my radar.
I thought about the race last year, and how I was able to use leading boats as stepping stones to get ahead. There were no such boats ahead of me this year, except for rowing shells. Those boats have very little wake and would provide no rest to recover and build strength to move on to the next boat. It looked like I would be here for the duration.
As we neared the northwest end of the lake, at approximately the 11 mile mark, I decided to move a little closer to the northern shore. This would apparently be a slightly shorter distance than the course taken by the OC-6, though it would get fairly close to a bunch of dead heads sticking up from the water. Also, the OC-6 seemed to be slowing down (6.2 mph), and I was ready and able to go faster.
I encountered several other boats heading the opposite direction. These boats were rather unique craft, and appeared to include small wooden steamers and cruisers. I guessed that they were members of the Traditional Small Craft Association on one of their messing around in boats cruises.
I thought the better of abandoning the OC-6 and slowly headed back to it. Those dead heads looked more difficult to thread between than I wanted to try during a race!
Somehow the OC-6 crew managed to put on a last spurt of energy and pulled away during the final stretch. I took a couple of final photos and put the camera away. It was time to boogie!
With my last water bottle nearly drained I began pushing and pulling on the pedals. The bike shoes with the clipless pedals were working very well, and I was able to provide a nearly smooth flow of energy to the propeller. Slowly, slowly the gap between the Cadence and the OC-6 began to close. Would I be able to catch them before the finish?
All too soon the horn sounded, signifying that the OC-6 had crossed the finish line. A few seconds later the horn went off for me as well. Whew!
Circling back I took some additional photos of the incoming racers, cheering them on to the finish.
During a lull in the race I went over to the lagoon at the end of the lake just on the other side of the park. < ahref="http://www.wakekayak.org/">W.A.K.E. was holding a demo day and swap meet. Quite a few people and kayaks were lining the shore, with at least a dozen boats in the water being paddled about. I took a short cruise among them and headed back to the race finish area.
It was time to go in. As I tied up at the dock several people came over to try out the Cadence. "Sure - go ahead!" I said. I was ready to take a break!
Unfortunately for me, however, by this time just about all the apres-race snacks and goodies were gone. You would think that I would have learned from last week's race at American Lake to get in early and scarf down the munchies before doing demos. Oh, well. Anyway, there were still a few orange slices left to help slake my thirst. I'd have to find real food elsewhere - perhaps at Burger Me in Bellingham.
Since this was a rather long race (12.5 miles according to my GPS), it was a while before the awards ceremony was held.
The first boat across the line was a double rowing shell, manned by Jeff Knakal and Rob O'Brien, with a time of 1:27:32. This broke the previous record by several minutes!
As it turned out, the first four boats across the line were all double shells. It was a perfect day for them, too.
The one and only pedal boat (tada!) in this race came in 27th place out of a total field of 65 boats. The time of 1:55:16 also broke the previous record, though only by 21 seconds.
The last two boats came in with times of 2:49:52 and 3:38:50. Those times were close to what I would have seen had I been using my Escapade.
All in all, it was a fine day and an excellent race. Thank you, Joost, for organizing it!
Photos I took during the race can be found
here.
Other photos and videos can be found
here.
My route and statistics