The 12-mile North Shore Cup took place this morning on Lake Marion near Summerton, South Carolina. I am now exhausted and haven't had a chance to process my post-race thoughts; I have only glanced at the results and they are not yet posted on the Internet. But I'll just say it was quite a different event from any other I've entered this year.
First, there was a high-caliber field, featuring arguably the three best racers in the U.S. right now in Austin Kieffer, Reid Hyle, and Jesse Lischuk. It was my first race this year in which I wasn't expecting to be in the hunt for a podium finish and I had to formulate a different kind of strategy.
Second, there was the course that would take us across the heart of a large lake, and the northeast breeze that would make the conditions rough in a way I haven't encountered in a race in a long time.
The first several miles went well enough: though I was farther back in the field than I'd hoped, I figured at least some of the guys in front of me had gone out too hard and I told myself to relax and use the middle part of the race to start reeling some of them in. Three miles into the race we reached a buoy turn that would send us into the crossing across the heart of the lake. For the next mile or so after the turn, I felt good about my competitive chances because there were a lot of little waves that I was able to catch and ride for several seconds without paddling. This was the closest I came to having some pure, unadulterated fun in this entire race.
Alas, as I advanced deeper into the middle of the reservoir, those waves disappeared and were gradually replaced by right-to-left beam waves seasoned with a mess of confused haystacks. As time went on, I thought less and less about running down this guy or that guy and more and more about simply keeping myself upright. I was soon expending an alarming amount of energy on things other than the forward propulsion of my boat.
In the distance sat a buoy marking a turn in the course to follow along the Interstate 95 bridge. As it drew nearer with infuriating indolence, I kept my eyes on it in the hope that the water conditions in the next section of the course would be better than I was in now.
Finally I reached the buoy, and the conditions beyond it were indeed better, but I was so exhausted from fighting the water in the previous section that my motor control was practically nil. Several dozen meters after the turn, over I went. I climbed back on my ski, took a few more strokes, and flipped again.
During the long crossing I had managed to overtake several racers. One of them was Ted Burnell of Chattanooga, whom I had narrowly beaten at Baton Rouge back in August. I had somehow achieved a fairly commanding lead on him, but my flips threw the door right back open for him. Soon enough, he and another guy overtook me, and it was clear he had a lot more left than I did because my attempt to hop on his stern wake proved feeble and futile.
By now there was less than two miles left to the finish, and I spent it watching Ted and the other guy pull away from me and trying to keep my own boat moving as efficiently as possible. I ambled across the line an hour and 48 minutes and a few seconds after I had started.
I will post a link to the results once they are posted. All I know at the moment is that I was the fourteenth fastest paddler in the field. That, and the results of the race up front: Austin Kieffer of Asheville, North Carolina, claimed a convincing victory over Reid Hyle of Rockledge, Florida, and Jesse Lischuk of Lock Haven, Pennsylvania.
No comments:
Post a Comment