The race is in the books

Race Day arrived yesterday, and the storms had indeed moved out.  Racers went down to the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi Rivers to find a warm sunny day with a pleasant southwest breeze.  The one annoyance left in the storm’s wake was a lot of floating logs and woody debris out in the main channel.

The gun went off, and I executed a good start, though maybe not a great one.  Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, rocketed into the lead, to no one’s surprise; I found myself alongside fellow Memphian Kata Dismukes in pursuit of South Carolinians Waylon Willis and Eric Mims.  Mims would normally be a factor in the fight for medals here, but this time he was “taking one for the team” as a rep for Epic Kayaks, paddling the company’s new V7 surf ski, a short, wide, polyethylene plastic model intended for novice ski enthusiasts.  He fell off the pace not long after we had entered the big river from the mouth of the Wolf.

After a few hundred meters I overtook Willis as well, and the competition began to take shape as I found Tony Short of Traverse City, Michigan, on my stern wake.  Over to our left Rick Carter of Eutawville, South Carolina, was opening a gap on Kata Dismukes, and knowing that he would be one of my main adversaries, I sidled over to get on his stern wake.

Rick and I and Tony paddled in single file, in that order, for the rest of the river leg, dodging plenty of flotsam along the way.  As we rounded the southern tip of Mud Island to enter the harbor, Rick took a tight line—too tight, I thought.  I tried to give the point a wider berth, but doing so required me to go around a floating log; Tony followed my lead.  Rick’s gamble paid off, and just like that he had a couple of boat lengths on us.  I had a feeling Rick had me beat: the only way I was going to overtake him was if he faded badly, and in my experience racing with him, he’s always been too strong to do that.  I put the hammer down anyway.  Tony was an unknown quantity to me, but I had to assume that he would have a fast finishing surge up his sleeve.  As it turned out, Rick and I and Tony would get a bit more strung out but otherwise finish in the same order we’d been in all along.

Mike Herbert finished first in 16 minutes, 58 seconds.  Recovering from a bout of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Mike was not at his best; but he didn’t need his best effort to win this one.  Kata Dismukes finished nine seconds behind Tony Short for fifth place overall and first place among the women.

My time was 18:32.  That’s quite a bit slower than I was last year and the year before, but I think it’s kind of a fool’s game to try to compare one year’s race with another.  Even though the river was slightly higher this year than last—18.8 feet on the Memphis gauge, compared with 18.5 feet last year—the debris in the river was a hindrance, and it seemed as though the times were a bit slower across the board.  The exception was Kata, who bettered last year’s time by six seconds.  I consider that a testament to the training she’s done this season.

As for Rick Carter, he’s now beaten me in two of our three meetings so far this year, and there’s no question the man is an improved racer.  Fellow South Carolinian Eric Mims told me he’s been working very hard on his stroke mechanics, and I think we’re seeing the results of that.  It sounds as though Rick is doing a lot of the things I try to advocate here in this blog.

Nearly two hundred boats participated in the race.  People in racing kayaks took the first nine places; the first non-race-boat finisher was Phil Capel of Sherwood, Arkansas, who paddled his “fast touring boat” to a time of 19:32.  Dale Burris and Don Walls, residents of the Lake Dardanelle area in Arkansas, added to their long list of tandem canoe titles in this race with a time of 19:58.

The results of the 34th Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race are posted here.  The second-place finisher, a Mr. "Spartacus Rabinowitz," is in fact Rick Carter.  Sometimes he likes to register under a fake name.  Be sure to note his "club name" over on the right.  He's an odd one, that Rick...