Bayou racing, Part 3: racing solo

When I got in my boat to warm up for the solo race, I was definitely feeling some strain in my shoulders from the tandem race.  My "top gear," for sprinting off the starting line and so on, was diminished as well.  There was nothing I could do but make the best of it.

I found a place at the start alongside nine other racers, and at eleven o'clock sharp we took off.  Brad Pennington and Andrew Korompay were considered the class of the field, and as expected they sprinted into the lead immediately.  I attempted to maintain contact, first on the "diamond" wake between their boats, and then on one of them's stern, but they steadily began to pull away.  Jeff Schnelle, my partner in the tandem race, was just over my left shoulder.  I settled in and tried to determine just how quick a pace I could maintain for the full six miles.  I was beginning to open a gap on Jeff, but I didn't want to get over-enthusiastic about it.

Up ahead Brad and Andrew were increasing their lead ever more: at each buoy turn I checked my watch to measure their lead, and from buoy to buoy their 30-second lead became 60 seconds, and then 60 seconds became 90 seconds, and so on.  It looked like my best hope was to stay alone in third place and hope I didn't die.  The wind, blowing from upstream, had picked up since the first race, and that didn't help.

I spent the next half-hour paddling as hard, yet as efficiently, as I could.  At each buoy turn I could see that I'd added a bit to my lead over Jeff and the rest of the field, and that was encouraging.  And so it went until I made the last buoy turn.  With a half-mile to go I knew I could surge as hard as I could, for even if I bonked completely I would still make it to the finish line.

Brad and Andrew had spent the entire race together, trading wake rides.  When the finish line came into their sights, it was Andrew who sprinted away for the victory and the $500 first prize with a time of 50 minutes, 13 seconds.  Brad took second, and $250, three seconds later.  Nearly three minutes later I finally moved my boat across the line for third place and a hundred bucks... not bad for less than an hour of work.  Jeff finished a respectable fourth.

Janet Perry of Saint Charles, Illinois, was the female winner with a time of one hour, four minutes, 22 seconds.  Denise D'Abundo of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, came in second about three minutes later.

The complete results are posted here.  It would appear that Denise Dugal of Lafayette, Louisiana, schooled us all, and on some level perhaps she did.  But she was the lone entrant in the two-mile "recreational" race, and was lumped together with us six-milers by the Web Scorer computer algorithm.