I made it over to the greater Bryson City area Thursday evening and set up housekeeping at the campground for the Tsali mountain bike trail complex. The six-mile Paddle Grapple race would take place Saturday morning just down the road near where Lemmons Branch flows into Fontana Reservoir.
Saturday morning arrived soon enough, and when I got down to the race site the parking lot was teeming with vehicles bearing boats. Some 100 athletes in all had entered to race in numerous boat classes. My own class, "K1 High Performance" for surf skis, flatwater K1s, and the like, was pretty loaded. The most "elite" paddler entered was Morgan House of Gainesville, Georgia, a fixture on the U.S. flatwater team a decade ago who would have gone to the Olympics once or twice if not for the IOC's stingy cap on the number of athletes allowed to compete in our under-appreciated sport.
He was the least of my worries as I looked around the parking lot and saw at least ten paddlers all of whom I could beat or all of whom could beat me. As soon as race director Chris Hipgrave concluded the competitors' meeting, we walked down to the water and got in our boats to see how it would all shake out.
In the race's early stages I might have been in tenth or fifteenth place overall. Morgan House went out fast as expected, as did the boat considered most likely to beat House, a tandem surf ski paddled by Chris Hipgrave and Bruce Poacher. Many other boats went out fast as well--too fast, in the case of some of them.
My plan was similar to what it had been in last year's race: work my way up in the pack until I found the fastest paddlers I could possibly hang with, and try to stay there. With so many paddlers in front of me I had to paddle in confused waters, and that took a lot of energy and concentration. Little by little I moved up, while some of the overenthusiastic starters began to drop back. In the first 2000 meters or so I saw many familiar competitors: Rick Carter of Eutawville, South Carolina; Joseph DiChiacchio of Rising Fawn, Georgia; Scott Cummins (my nemesis in Nashville last week) of Louisville, Kentucky; Cory Hall of Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Up ahead were Pete Greene of Beaufort, South Carolina, and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, and I knew that if I could get on their wakes I would have a good chance to distance myself from the rest of the field. For what seemed like an eternity I sat on the second wake back from them; at least four or five times I tried to sprint up and over the crest of that first wake, but to no avail. After each attempt I had to sit back and catch my breath. Finally, digging in as hard as I could, I attained that first wake, and I hoped I would have enough energy to stay competitive for the remaining 70% or so of the race after expending all that energy.
The six-mile race would take us through two laps of a three-mile loop. I settled in behind Pete and Terry and as we moved into the second half of that first lap, the competition finally began to take shape. Poacher/Hipgrave and House were far enough out in front that it was hard to tell what was happening up there. Sven Jonsson of Brevard, North Carolina, and Kurt Smithgall of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, paddled side-by-side in third and fourth place just a couple of boat lengths ahead of Pete and Terry and me. I figured people like Scott Cummins and Rick Carter couldn't be too far back.
We worked our way back into the cove where the race had started as the leaders were making the buoy turn to begin the second lap. Poacher/Hipgrave appeared to have a lead of four or five boatlengths on House. A minute or so later Sven and Kurt reached the buoy, and Sven, whose flatwater K1 is capable of tighter turns than Kurt's surf ski, opened a gap. Pete and Terry and I were in single file as we approached the buoy, and that had not changed once we had rounded the buoy. As we embarked on the second lap I estimated that Scott Cummins was maybe 30 seconds behind us as he approached the buoy.
My priority now was to maintain contact with Pete and Terry while conserving as much energy as I could. As the course looped around a big island our pack reeled in Kurt, a former U.S. wildwater team member whose torrid first-lap pace seemed to be catching up to him. By the time we had rounded the island we had overtaken Kurt, and I experienced a feeling of deja vu as I evaluated my position: in last year's race Sven had held second place behind a distant leader, while Pete and Terry and I had worked as a pack to close the gap.
This time that gap wasn't closing at all, as Sven had pulled away a bit after the buoy turn. Pete and Terry and I continued along in single file and I was pretty sure we were racing for fourth place overall. With around 1500 meters to go I moved up onto Terry's left-side wake, hoping to improve my position for the final sprint to the finish. Terry responded by moving up onto Pete's right-side wake, and I realized that the move I'd just made might be the last thing I had in me. My arms and shoulders starting to throb, I dropped back behind my two competitors and tried to hang on as the course wound its way back into the cove where the finish line awaited.
By this time the team of Poacher and Hipgrave was bringing home the overall win, with Morgan House comfortably taking first among single paddlers. Sven cruised to the finish in sole possession of third place overall. Our pack was next, and with 400 meters to go Terry had grabbed the lead with Pete trying to hold his side wake and a chance to sprint by him in the final meters. I continued to fight to maintain contact, feeling beleaguered but ever hopeful of a stroke of luck. With 50 meters left, Terry threw down a devastating surge and opened a little gap, earning himself fourth place. I made a brave final attempt, but Pete's lead on me was too solid.
And that's when I got my stroke of luck: the actual finish line lay some ten meters beyond the line we had started from. Chris had mentioned this fact during the pre-race meeting, but one could argue that he had not stated it as emphatically as he should have. And the line was marked with a single traffic cone at the water's edge; a pair of large bright-colored buoys and a big banner saying something like "The finish line is RIGHT HERE!!!!!!!!!" probably would have been more appropriate.
The upshot is that while I had heard what Chris said during the meeting (I'm a good little boy who always pays attention, after all), it had escaped Terry and Pete's notice. Both of them stopped paddling once they had crossed the line we had started from. Spectators on the bank shouted at them to keep going until they had passed the cone, but they didn't realize what was going on until I had slipped by Pete. And so the official finish order was Terry in fourth, me in fifth, and Pete in sixth.
For me it was sort of a bland victory, for Pete had definitely had me beat. He accepted the result with his usual sportsmanship and good humor. Fortunately, the result had no impact on who got what during the awards ceremony because Pete and I were entered in different age groups (Pete is in his 50s, while my 50th birthday is still three weeks away). For his part, Chris acknowledged that he hadn't made the finish line location as clear as he should have and promised to do better next year.
As of this writing the complete results have not been posted; I will link to them whenever they get put up. I do know that the top overall female finisher was Lindsey O'Shea of Gainesville, Georgia. I'm still sort of processing the whole event in my head and I'll probably have some more insights to share later.
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