I got up bright and early yesterday morning to hit the road. My destination was the kind of race I wish we could have a few more of. The "Spring Time Sprint" was just two and a half hours away at Batesville, Arkansas. The registration fee was 20 dollars. For a price like that there would be no live music or beer garden or racers on the podium posing for the cameras with oversized novelty checks, but we would be served hot dogs for lunch after the race. Not every canoe and kayak race has to be a big splashy production with a rockin' afterparty. After all, the main thing we racers are interested in is the race... Right?
The attendance wasn't more than 25 or 30 racers, primarily because the event wasn't heavily advertised. There was no website or online registration. I learned of it through the grapevine, having raced for years with the Ozark-region paddlers who were "in the loop."
The race course would start and finish where Poke Bayou flows into the White River. Racers would paddle up the White for four miles, round a buoy, and come back downriver to the finish. As I said in my last post, I wanted to use the race to work on some specific things, especially the speed I'll need in the big race I'm going to next month. And so once the race had started I found myself sharing the lead with a USCA-style "pro boat" C2 paddled by Don Walls and Dale Burris. Don and Dale have piled up an impressive collection of national titles over the years, most recently the Masters title at the USCA Nationals up at Dubuque, Iowa, last summer.
My plan was to spend the upstream leg of the race saving energy by riding Don and Dale's wake as much as possible. Of course, I did take a few pulls myself, because that's what a gentleman does. I hope their big old canoe was able to get as good a draft on my wake as I was on theirs.
We climbed upriver first on the river-left side, then on the river-right, staying toward the insides of bends to avoid the strongest current. I began to open a gap on Don and Dale about 500 meters shy of the buoy turn, and when I reached the buoy I was maybe 40 meters ahead of them. Now it was time for my workout: I began to do a series of 20-stroke sprints, with recovery intervals in between of 40 strokes; I tried to keep this recovery interval as close to a normal race pace as I could. I was hoping to extend my lead on Dale and Don, but every time I looked over my shoulder they were holding steady within less than a hundred meters. I could still hear Dale every time he yelled "Hut!" to switch paddling sides.
Down the river we went. As fatigue set in for real I lengthened my recovery interval to 50 strokes, then 60. But I maintained my lead and got back to Poke Bayou for the overall win. Dale and Don finished a short time later, and it was then that I learned that they were throwing in sprints of their own. I wasn't the only one using this event for some training.
We enjoyed our hot dog lunch and got our awards, and then I headed back to Memphis. The weather had been pleasant, if humid, in the morning, but by the time I was driving home the oppressive heat was beating down. The temperature display in my car said it was as high as 97 degrees Fahrenheit as I crossed the Arkansas delta.
A front moved through overnight and today promised to be cooler and much less humid. Having done two substantial workouts in the previous three days, I was ready for a recovery paddle. I went down to the riverfront and paddled pretty easy for 60 minutes. A stiff north breeze was blowing, but at this time of year that's mostly a nice thing. Anytime I was paddling into the wind I tried to relax and not fight it.
Now it's time to settle into a few weeks of good consistent training. I plan to get a new strength routine going this week, work on my speed and lactic endurance a couple of times a week, observe a healthy diet, and get good rest.
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