I decamped from Fisherman's Island State Park in a stubborn rain Friday morning and headed for Suttons Bay, the site of this weekend's race. I would be camping there as well, and there was a lot more rain in the forecast. I arrived at my new accommodations and found it to be fairly typical of privately-owned campgrounds in that the owners seemed to put most of their effort into the RV sites while the tent sites looked like an afterthought. But it was a marginally nicer spot than where I'd been at Fisherman's Island. The bugs were not nearly as bad.
Friday afternoon I got an e-mail from the race director calling off the downwind race because of both lack of wind and the likelihood of severe weather Saturday afternoon, when the downwinder was to have taken place. My registration was reassigned to the 10-kilometer race Saturday morning in a sheltered portion of Suttons Bay. I wasn't really surprised; I'd known when I signed up that there was a pretty good chance that no downwind race would happen. I turned in Friday night hoping to be rested for an ordinary flatwater race.
Yesterday morning I reported to Sutton Park, site of the 45 North Solstice canoe and kayak race. (The name of the race is a reference both to the summer solstice that happened on Thursday and to the fact that Suttons Bay sits at 45 degrees north latitude--halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.) The 10K race was supposed to commence at 10 o'clock, but the race organizers pushed it up to 9 AM due to imminent heavy rain. We got in our boats, warmed up, eased up to the starting line, and we were off. The course was an obtuse triangle of buoys, and we would make three laps, meaning that each lap was, presumably, three and a third kilometers.
Rob Hartman of Holland, Michigan, whom I'd just seen thumping his big bass fiddle in Grand Rapids last Monday, is quite an accomplished paddler as well, and he wasted little time opening a lead on the pack. Nick Murray and Jonathan Sanborn gave chase, while I found myself a few boatlengths back with Greg Hintz. I'd sprinted pretty hard off the line and it took some work to move myself up onto Greg's stern wake, but once there I felt that I could hang there comfortably for a while. Pretty soon Jonathan got dropped from the lead pack, and I thought if I stuck like glue to Greg's stern we might be able to run him down. At that point any one of us could end up with the third-place medal. Up front, meanwhile, Rob opened a gap on Nick around the second buoy turn of the first lap.
Greg and I hit some shallow water with terrible bottom-drag near the end of the first lap. Up to that point I'd been feeling reasonably good, but the extra effort I expended to stay on Greg's wake was a shock to the system. Before I knew it, Greg had opened a boatlength on me. I hung back on the third wave behind his boat, thinking a couple of sprints would get me back in the position I wanted to be in. Instead, Greg kept on pulling away and soon had bridged up to Jonathan.
I've mentioned in previous posts that I've gone light on the training this spring. Going into this race I wondered how I would perform under those circumstances, and now I had my answer. I didn't like it, but I couldn't really complain.
The second lap was the worst for me, largely because my right wrist had started to hurt. I tried to relax it and will some blood to flow there. I was struggling to maintain 10.5 kilometers per hour--not even 7 mph--and it was a little depressing to realize that maybe I'm just not in very good shape these days.
As I entered the third lap I started to feel something of a second wind. Maybe it was the mental boost of having just a lap to go; I'm not sure. My wrist was feeling better, and that helped a lot. At this point it was clear that I would be finishing no better than fifth, and I was motivated by the desire not to be caught from behind.
Rob had built a commanding lead by the final buoy turn heading into the home stretch to the finish line. Nick was solidly in second, so the only question was whether Greg or Jonathan would nab the last podium spot. I tried my best to keep my boat gliding, and with about 2000 meters to go I raised the stroke rate a little in the hope of finishing strong. I was several hundred meters out when Jonathan and Greg reached the finish: Jonathan appeared to have the lead, but there was still a sprint up the beach to the official finish line.
Rob won convincingly in 42 minutes, 40 seconds. I've admired Rob's ability for a number of years, and he didn't disappoint with his effort this weekend. Nick finished a little over three minutes back to take second. As it turned out, Greg did indeed outsprint Jonathan on the beach to claim third. They were both not quite two minutes behind Nick. And then it was my turn to finish: I was fifth across the line with a time of 49:11. If the course had been a full 10K, I would have been ecstatic with such a time. But my G.P.S. device measured the distance at only 8.95 kilometers.
Kelsey Lewis was the fastest female, clocking an hour plus 21 seconds. The complete results are posted here (click on "10K Race").
The rain moved in just a short while later, and it was pretty heavy at times as we huddled under the park's one pavilion for the awards. I ate a modest lunch from the provisions I had in my car; after that, there wasn't much for me to do but go back to my campsite and take a long afternoon nap in my tent while the rain poured down.
This morning I broke camp in the rain again. It just will not stop raining around here. I was motivated to get up and out early because at the race yesterday there had been talk of a group downwind paddle this morning from Lee Point to Traverse City. The conditions were expected to be modest at best, but I would have enjoyed working even some small bumps. The latest plan I heard was to meet at Lee Point between 8:00 and 8:30, but when I arrived there at 8 o'clock sharp I didn't see a soul. I drove around the area a bit just to make sure I had the right meeting spot, but nowhere did I see any vehicles with surfskis on them. I texted the guy who was supposed to be one of the leaders of the group, but I never got a reply. There was no more than a light breeze blowing, and the bay looked pretty flat as far as I could see, so I figured the people who'd been talking about paddling had abandoned the idea. I hung around until 8:45, and left.
It would have been fun to paddle, but I wasn't heartbroken, seeing as how I've got about a five-hour drive to my next destination, Lake Superior Provincial Park on the eastern shore of--you guessed it--Lake Superior. It'll be good to get there sooner rather than later to get my bearings.
My plan is to camp tonight, and I sure hope it won't be raining. Tomorrow night I have a reservation in the lap of luxury: a motel room! In any case, I'm ready for a change of scenery. Both Charlevoix and Suttons Bay are tourist-oriented towns, and that means all the local services are targeted toward tourists rather than the locals (read: overpriced). For example, I stopped in a bookstore on the main drag of Suttons Bay, and instead of a store with rows of dusty shelves where a book-lover could browse for hours, it was a boutique-ish kind of place that carried only the most famous titles while devoting a lot of store space to coffee mugs and similar gift items. It didn't take but a couple of minutes for me to realize it wasn't my kind of place. I sure hope to find some more down-to-earth places in the second week of my trip.
So, as soon as I finish typing all this here in a Traverse City coffee shop, farther north I will go. I sure hope our neighbors up there will let me in; as crazy as my nation has become, I won't blame them if they don't. But I'll give it a shot.
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