I made it down to the riverfront Friday morning for a quick 30 minutes in the boat. I warmed up, did four 12-stroke sprints, and cooled back down.
I went back home, put my gear in the car, loaded my boat, and headed for Interstate 55 south just before lunchtime (I ate my lunch in the car). I was determined to make this race trip a quick down-and-back affair even though I knew it would be an exhausting one, the race site located at least seven hours away.
Andre Pellerin, whose triplet sons Carson, Conrad, and Peyton are growing up in the same universe of canoe and kayak racing in which I find myself, had invited me to spend the night at their house in Breaux Bridge. I arrived there around seven o'clock, and for the next 12 hours or so I'd be immersed in their world. We drove the 16-year-old boys to their high school's football game, and then Andre and I went out to eat. I was hungry and I eagerly wolfed down a 10-inch sausage pizza at a place called Buck & Johnny's. It was utterly yummy but it left my digestive system with a formidable overnight chore.
After supper we retrieved the boys (Breaux Bridge High had been denied victory on the gridiron, sadly). We went back to the Pellerin compound and got ready for bed. Conrad and Peyton went to sleep in their grandparent's house a few dozen yards away so that we'd have room for several house guests. Brad Pennington, Andrew Korompay, and Brian Poda, strong racers from the Houston area, were due to arrive in the early morning hours. I quickly fell asleep myself and though I think I woke up briefly when the Texans arrived, I got a pretty solid night's sleep.
That was a good thing because we were up and at 'em before six the next morning. The race site was more than an hour away in the little village of Patterson, and we were breakfasting on the run. I'm normally persnickety about my race-morning routine and it was a challenge to give myself over to the Pellerins' more hectic schedule, but that's typically the price when you accept an offer of a free place to stay. We stopped at a doughnut shop and I got myself a simple doughnut and a cup of coffee that I supplemented with some fruit I'd brought along. The drive down to Patterson went smoothly enough even though Andre had a habit of barreling his truck-and-boat-trailer rig through intersections with a half-second of yellow light left, meaning I had to run a seconds-old red light to keep up with him. All I need is a moving violation on my record.
But we arrived in Patterson without any blue-light detentions. The first person to greet us was race director Ray Pellerin, Andre's father and the triplets' grandfather. "Mister Ray" is one of the true workhorses in our sport: he is the founder and organizer of the Tour du Teche series of races that take place throughout the year in the Louisiana Bayou country, culminating in the multi-day ultra-marathon Tour de la Riviere Rouge, Tour du Teche 135, and 410 de Louisiane events in October. I honestly can't think of a finer pillar of his community than Mister Ray: he recognizes what an asset canoe and kayak racing can be to a region, and he has taken it upon himself to bring paddlers to the Bayou country to celebrate the beauty and culture one can find there. As a shorter-distance athlete I haven't made it to many of these races, sadly, but there is a 7.7-mile race (the "Top of the Teche") in the spring that I've done once and would like to do again, and when this new 6-mile "sprint" event was announced earlier this year I put it on my calendar right away.
And so here I was, ready to get down to business. Task One was to find the restroom, and happily there was no line at the lone port-a-let on the race site. A while later I emerged feeling that I just might be race-ready.
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