The third Sound Rowers race of the season this year was the Lake Whatcom Classic. It starts near the west end of Lake Whatcom at Bloedel Donovan Park, located on the east side of Bellingham, WA, heads southwest some six miles down the lake to Reveille Island, goes around the island in a counterclockwise direction and returns to the park.

This 12.5 mile event would be the longest race for me so far this year. In addition, with my directing the Lake Sammamish race I had not actually been out on the water (racing or not) for over a month!

This year not only was my Open Water Cycling Cadence on the roof of my car, but also a Maas Aero rowing shell. Inside the car was a shelter, large sack of inflatable marine buoys, a case of anchors, boxes of race director stuff, my racing gear and that of Deb who was car pooling with me. There was not a whole lot of room remaining!

At the boat ramp Deb and I quickly unloaded the boats and other stuff, causing the car to rise about 2 or 3 inches on its suspension. No wonder the needle of the gas gauge dropped like a stone on the trip up here!

It was very chilly and overcast, with a strong breeze coming off the lake. The temperature was in the upper 40's or low 50's, with a forecast indicating it might reach the upper 50's. I was glad I was wearing lots of layers of warm clothes.

I left the Cadence on its beaching dolly along the rail separating the parking lot from the grassy picnic/dog run area and went over to the registration table. Apparently someone did a good job of cleaning up after the dogs as it was not infested with doggy doo this year, either. However, with the recent rains the ground was pretty soggy in places and one still had to watch their step.

Joost, the race director, decided to not use the coroplast numbers I brought with me. Rather, he was handing out tyvek (runner style) sheets with numbers on them, and duct tape to affix them to the hulls of the boats. I placed my number on the bow. Hopefully it wouldn't cause too much drag!

Nearby where my boat was parked Zeke had his boat being prepared. It looked rather different than it had previously, so I walked over and took a closer look. Sure enough, Zeke was installing a Front Rower unit in it. I took a couple of pictures and we talked a little about it before I ran off to take more photos.

Joost Zeegers, the race director, held the pre-race meeting on the grassy area near a sign at the water's edge. The racers were to line up between some buoys near the pilings somewhat north of the end of the boat launch and wait for the starting signal. After the signal was given, they were to head around a bunch of semi-submerged deadheads and go toward 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 nearest starting line buoy and the shore.

Without further ado the meeting dispersed and people began launching their boats.

I decided to keep on my winter bicycling tights, nylon shell, nylon long sleeved shirt, cool-max long sleeved shirt and bike shorts, along with my Kokotat PFD and Sound Rowers baseball cap and a sweatband. This would keep me adequately warm until my muscles started putting out some work pedaling.

I launched the Cadence without much trouble off the upwind side of one of the docks. A spectator assisted by taking the dolly back to the grassy area. Thanks!

Backing away from the dock (I knew I should have launched the other way!) I snapped a couple of shots of Zeke and some other boats leaving the area.

The wind and moderately light chop made it a little interesting to maneuver around the northwestern end of the lake. Most people opted to head into the wind for their warmup runs, and have it at their backs for short speed runs to the finish/starting area. I followed suit.

It appeared that the chain tensioners I made and installed the previous week were functioning properly. They were a bit noisier than desired, but when the pulleys get replaced with real sprockets (as opposed to sliding door pulleys), the noise should decrease considerably. Also, they created quite a bit more vibration through the pedals than expected. Hopefully this wouldn't cause much of a problem. We would soon find out!

The boats lined up and were ready to go. I made a final pass in front, snapping more photos and then getting in line.

After what seemed to be an interminable delay the starting signal was heard. We were off!

Headwind or not, a bunch of HPK's seemed to jump off the starting line. I followed suit, with the GPS indicating a speed over 7.5 mph. I managed to catch the tail of one of the HPK's and followed in his wake. These guys were fast! Would they be able to maintain this effort for 12 miles?

As I was pedaling I realized that the drive tower was adjusted a bit too far away. I'd have to stop and readjust it. Glancing to the side it appeared to be fairly safe, so I stopped pedaling for two seconds and adjusted it.

Crash! Oh, no! A rower had come along the starboard side and managed to entangle his port oar in between the hull and prop shaft of the Cadence!

After a few false starts we managed to extricate ourselves and continue on our way.

I was getting a bit warmer, so I unzipped my jacket to let in some of the headwind to cool me off. Ahead some of the HPK's had formed into a loose cluster drafting in each other's wake. They made a tempting target. If I could reach them and draft it would be a bit easier to maintain a high speed for the duration of the race.

Adjacent to me I saw Shane Baker. He is normally a bit faster than me, especially in his new Black Pearl HPK. Today, however, he was going about the same speed, probably due to the headwind and incoming waves. I decided to follow in his wake while rebuilding my muscles for an attempt to reach the cluster.

With the bow of the Cadence only inches from the stern of the Black Pearl I was careful not to have the waves cause my boat to crash onto his. We came awful close several times, and I had to either veer to one side or slow my pedaling in order to prevent colliding.

After a while I decided Shane was going too slow. After all, we were only going at about 6.5 mph. It was time to catch the cluster!

It took a few minutes, but I did finally catch them. I was sweating profusely, and had removed my baseball cap to help cool off. The jacket was the next thing to go, though it meant I now dropped behind again.

Due to the headwind and waves another racer who normally would be far ahead was Steve Wells. He and I were traveling about the same speed through this section and decided to travel a bit closer to the more protected south shore to stay out of the wind and waves. This meant dodging the docks, pilings and buoys, but it seemed to be an improvement.

I was much too warm. The tights had to go.

While removing them my legs started to cramp. Yoww! - and here I had been frequently drinking water, too.

The cramps subsided when I began pedaling again. There goes Shane!

I kept thinking that the clump of trees on the horizon were the ones on Reveille Island. Unfortunately, they were not. The island was another half mile away. Still, I could see a double shell approaching from the distance - probably Rainer and Adrian Storb.

Hmmm, perhaps instead of going counterclockwise around the island I could get shots of many of the other racers by going clockwise. Yes!

After taking a few shots of the Storb's and cheering them on I began heading away from shore and towards the oncoming racers. Click, click.

This worked out quite well. I was able to get lots of photos of the faces of the racers and still maintain a fair amount of speed in the race. Pausing a moment to compose each shot did slow my progress, however.

After rounding the island I continued to snap photos of the slower racers as I headed back to the finish line. Canoes, sea kayaks, a rowing shell and finally Zeke and his Front Rower passed by along with Vadim in his Pygmy kayak.

The return leg was considerably warmer, now that the wind was at my back. Going at 7 mph there were still some cooling effects, so the wind must have been at least 10 to 15 mph. The waves were no longer crashing into my bow, either. Instead, the boat would overrun the waves, surfing down one for a second or two followed by climbing up another.

It was not going to be quite as fast a return as I had hoped.

In addition, the vibration from the chain tensioner pulley had been draining energy from my legs. Ok, I can't place all the blame there. I should have brought along something besides water to drink, and probably could have paced myself better, but my muscles were completely exhausted. My brain was pretty exhausted, too.

I removed the driven side tensioner, which seemed to help a little with the vibration. The other really couldn't as easily be removed, and was left in place.

Traci passed by in her new boat. Rats! I normally leave her far behind!

When a double sea kayak passed I knew I was completely exhausted. I took a few moments rest, finished my water and began pedaling.

For a short while I was much better; then the fatigue set in. I needed food and drink. It had been 6 hours since I last ate anything! :-(

The sound of the OC-6 approaching finally gave me motivation for the final quarter mile. I pedaled as fast as I could and crossed the finish line with a time of 2:10:13, 15 minutes slower than the previous two years. I definitely need to take along some form of sports drink or juice for this race!

Rather than sit out on the water taking photos I immediately headed into shore. Once at the dock I pulled the Cadence from the water, headed to the registration shelter and scarfed down a Gatorade and half a muffin. Ahhh, junk food! Momentarily satiated I went to the car and changed into dry clothes.

I was starting to feel a little more like normal.

A few more goodies from the table, a handful of M&M's with peanuts and I was ready to start packing the car for the return trip.

The awards ceremony was started before the last of the racers made it from the course. Even so, with the cold wind many of the racers chose to depart early and head home.

The first boat across the line was the double shell rowed by Rainer and Adrian. They had a time of 1:40:43. The second boat was another double shell, with a time of 1:41:10. The third boat was a single HPK paddled by the race director, with a time of 1:43:48.

The one and only pedal boat (tada!) in this race came in 38th place out of a total field of 61 boats, with a time of 2:10:13. Not a stellar time, but perhaps not all that bad.

All in all, given that this race was held a month earlier than normal it was a fine day and an excellent race. Thank you, Joost, for organizing it!