I was up bright and early yesterday morning so I could have some breakfast, get my boat to the race start at Grafton, drive my vehicle down to the finish at Alton, catch the shuttle bus back to Grafton, and attend to all the myriad details involved in being ready to race.
Finally I was in my boat, warming up in the mouth of the Illinois River, as the 9:30 AM start time approached. Soon enough the gun fired, and we were off.
As we paddled out of the Illinois and onto the Mississippi River, we found ourselves behind a downstream-moving barge rig. I moved over to try my luck on its wake, but while I got an occasional brief ride, my speed even shooting up over 15 kilometers per hour a couple of times, mostly it was a confused mess.
Meanwhile, over to my left Missouri resident Bryan Hopkins was starting to build a lead. Figuring he must be enjoying faster, smoother current over there, I edged that way. Over to the right two men in a tandem surfski were cruising out to an even bigger lead, and I knew it was wise to focus on the solo competition.
Over the next half-hour or so I ate into Bryan's lead, taking advantage of small waves coming off the barge rig that occasionally wandered our way. They weren't big enough to surf, but I could ride them the same way I could ride the wake of another paddler, and at times I was moving at more than 13 kph with minimal effort. I tried to stay relaxed and paddle as efficiently as I could as the mid-morning sun beat down.
As we moved into the middle third of the 15-mile (~24 km) race, I overtook Bryan and looked to press the advantage with subtle surges, using the little bumps whenever they presented themselves. This was the first time I'd ever raced Bryan head-to-head, and I was getting the impression that I had the edge on him in speed. However, he's long been one of the top athletes in the longer-distance races around the state of Missouri, and I knew he would be in his element if the race became a test of endurance--not unlikely on this warm, humid day.
As that middle third of the race wore on, I maintained a lead of a few boatlengths and I was starting to think I had Bryan and the other competitors where I wanted them. But, as if on cue, Bryan surged back into the picture over to my left. I edged over to get onto his right-side wake, and he didn't seem to like me doing that. A minute or so later I dropped back onto his stern wake, and I intended to stay there as long as I could. If I could keep it close enough for the race to come down to a sprint in the final few hundred meters, I liked my chances.
Unfortunately, as we moved past the Ameren Ue Sioux power plant on the Missouri side of the river, I could feel some deeper fatigue creeping in. Around that same time, I fell off Bryan's stern wake. I told myself not to panic: I'd reeled him in before, and hopefully I could do it again.
Just past the power plant the Mississippi makes a gradual bend to the right to reveal the town of Alton, and the Clark Bridge that carries U.S. 67 across the river. According to race director Craig Heaton in the pre-race meeting, it's about 5 miles (8 km) to the finish from here. The finish line is a short distance upstream of the bridge.
And so, I spent the final third of the race gazing at that bridge, which didn't seem to be drawing any closer no matter how much I paddled. And it was clear that Bryan had the edge on me in strength. As we entered the final straightaway toward the finish, he built his lead on me to over a minute. Once in a while I would take a noticeable chunk out of that lead--I seemed to be better than he at keeping my boat speed up in rough water from passing motorboats. But in general it seemed that Bryan was pretty safe where he was. I held out hope that I could inch close enough to make it a race in the closing meters, but at the same time I was feeling worse and worse, and just ready for the whole silly thing to be done with.
In the end, there were no miracles. Bryan kept me at bay and crossed the finish line maybe 90 seconds before I did. That tandem surfski had cruised to an easy overall victory, so Bryan and I settled for second and third overall and first and second in the solo competition.
At this time, I haven't seen the results posted online. I will update this post with a link whenever I do.
I do know that my time was just under two hours, four minutes--more than 17 minutes slower than what I clocked in last year's race. Ouch. Last year we had quite a bit more help from the current: I think last summer was wetter in the region than this summer has been, and also last year the lock and dam just below the Clark Bridge had it gates open, so we had good flow all the way through the finish. Yesterday we seemed to hit the pool above the dam with three or four thousand meters to go, and I watched helplessly as the speed reading on my G.P.S. device plummeted to under 11 kph. Meanwhile, though it wasn't the worst heat I've ever raced in, it was bad enough: I'm pretty sure we were pushing 90 degrees Fahrenheit by the time we finished, and I could feel the humidity sucking it right out of me. And of course there's no escape from the sun out on the Mississippi. The race distance was indeed the advertised 15 miles, and then some: my G.P.S. device measured it at about 24.5 kilometers, and that's almost fifteen and a quarter miles.
All told, the race yesterday kind of felt like a death march compared to last year's. Of course, I won the solo class in last year's race, and it's always easy to feel good after a win. Watching Bryan walk away from me in the final third of the race yesterday was a little disheartening. But, you know... he's a formidable competitor, and I haven't exactly been ramping up the training this year, for the reasons I've discussed in previous posts. So, in most respects things went the way they should have gone yesterday, and I should be glad to have finished as high as second place.
I put the boat back on the car and drove to my motel for a shower and a catnap. The awards were to take place at the Riverlands Migratory Bird Sanctuary across the river in West Alton, Missouri, and I thought I understood that they wouldn't be happening until around 3 o'clock, but when I got there around 2:30 I discovered that they'd already been given out. Fortunately I was able to collect my medal and, more importantly, shake Bryan's hand and congratulate him on his effort.
I'm having a somewhat leisurely morning here in my motel in Alton. In a little while I'll grind my gears into motion and head back to Memphis and resume life there.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment