Opening with a win

The 2014 Battle On The Bayou race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, is in the books, and I took first place overall.  The complete results are available here.

Entering the race I figured my toughest competition would come from Mr. Christian Maßow (pronounced "massow"), a German native now living in the Houston, Texas, area.  In this race two years ago, Christian took the pace out hard and just about had me beat by the end of the first mile.  Last year, I kept pace with Christian and the tandem of Phil Capel and Brad Rex for much of the race, but got dropped with two or three miles to go.  Today, with a stiff northwest wind creating some mild chaos in the first mile of the race in the Back Bay of Biloxi, Christian handled the conditions in his flatwater K1 without much trouble, and I was afraid the race might be a repeat of two years ago.  But once we were up in the protected waters of Old Fort Bayou, I had managed to stay with Christian and we settled into a steady pace for the next few miles.

I knew that if I let the race come down to a sprint in the final fifty meters, Christian would win that with his superior power and faster boat, so as the race went on I tried to push the pace, leading more often than riding Christian's wake.  Time after time I would throw in a surge, and each time Christian covered the move and stayed on my starboard wake.  Every time I stole a glance in his direction, his stroke looked smooth and comfortable, and as we moved deep into the second half of the race, I began to despair that the outcome would indeed be determined by a final sprint.  But then I threw in one more surge, and this time Christian could not respond.  I continued to pile on some hard strokes to put some distance between us.  At that point I calculated that I had about twenty minutes of race left, so I paddled the strongest pace I felt I could sustain for that long.

All told, I'm pleased with how it went, and it was a nice affirmation of the training I've been doing.  I felt I had much more power throughout the race than I've had in the past.