Starting off with a bang in the Columbia Gorge

I landed in Portland just before midnight Saturday, and yesterday morning I joined up with Michiganers Marie MacNee, Michael Meredith, and Ulli Sherer for the hour-long drive east to the town of Hood River.  The four of us are sharing a rental house not far from the race site down on the bank of the Columbia River.  Also in our house are Ulli's daughter Brie Sherer; Kristina Meskauskaite of Melbourne, Australia; and Sally Wallick of Kelowna, British Columbia.

It was warm and sunny yesterday afternoon, but this morning we started the week with cool, sort of rainy conditions.  Having watched the weather forecast all last week, I believe that not-so-hot temperatures might be the norm while I'm here.  I'm generally okay with that, having just left triple-digit (Fahrenheit) heat index conditions back in the Mid South.

There's definitely a social aspect to this week's activities, and I'm looking forward to visiting with friends old and new, many of whom I likely won't see again the rest of the year.  But I also want this to be a good week for paddling.  What I don't want is to look back on this week later and think, "I could have gotten in one or two more good downwind runs if I hadn't stayed up past midnight drinking beer," or "I might have raced better if I'd stayed a little more focused," and so on.  So, I'll be balancing the fun stuff with the athletic stuff, and I hope I'll do a good job of getting my rest and resisting some of the FOMO ("fear of missing out") impulses on the social side.

As if reading my mind, the Mocke Paddling Company of Fish Hoek, South Africa, posted the following message on their Face Book page this morning:

Race Happy!  What does it mean to race happy?  When one lines up to compete it's natural to run through all factors that could influence your performance.  Unfortunately, many of these factors are variables beyond your control--i.e. weather conditions, other competitors, official decisions.  It's easy to get our minds bogged down by these.  Then, of course, there is the psychological need to perform well which, when done for the wrong reasons like searching for significance, can actually be a negative driver.
But to Race Happy means to adopt an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness.  You are privileged to be able to line up and compete, you are on the start line and so much went into getting there.  Now show up, give your best, and enjoy it!  Be grateful for it.
RACE HAPPY!

So... that was my attitude as I embarked on this first full day in the Columbia Gorge.  And a busy day it would be.  Job One was to walk down to the riverfront and go through the check-in process for the race.  Job Two was to pick up my rental boat from the Epic Kayaks personnel on duty.  Only then could I go about the business of paddling.  My plan was to do two downwind runs from Viento State Park to Hood River, and I wanted to get the first one in sooner rather than later, because I was signed up for a four o'clock session in a tandem surf ski with--speaking of the Mocke Paddling Company--world-class racer Dawid Mocke.

For the first run I got together with a couple of friends who had flown out from New England: Greg Lesher of South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and Tim Dwyer of Jamestown, Rhode Island.  We rode the shuttle to Viento and were on the water a little after one o'clock.  My boat for this week is a V10 Sport ski, and I believe I have made the right decision to go with a more stable boat than what I use back home, even if it is supposedly a touch slower.  Last year, paddling the V10L I'd brought on top of my car, I was frequently sitting on braces when I should have been paddling.  But today I hardly had to brace at all.  I still have volumes to learn in downwind racing skill--there still seems to be so much going on out there in the waves that I can't really express in writing at this point--but that extra bit of stability liberated me to be aggressive and keep trying to advance from one run to the next.  Greg and Tim are both strong paddlers and I was able to keep them in sight, and sometimes even lead, all the way to the finish.

I was a bit fatigued after this first run but I felt I had enough still in the tank for my session with Dawid.  I walked back up to the house for a quick snack and then got back down to the race site just in time for our four o'clock meeting.

Dawid Mocke is among the top surf ski racers in the world.  There were a few years a decade or so ago when it seemed that he was unbeatable.  Since then a handful of other racers have caught up to him, but he remains an athlete whom nobody counts out.

I'm not going to get too specific about the things Dawid told me today because he offers several online video courses to which each of us can subscribe and study on his or her own (I intend to subscribe myself to solidify my understanding of what we covered today).  But I will say that he provided some articulation of some of the concepts I'd been sensing intuitively, and pointed out many things I hadn't yet thought of as well.

Furthermore, Dawid is--how else can I put it?--a beast.  When he puts the hammer down, he really puts it down.  Paddling in the bow seat, the South African would occasionally spot a run that I, paddling solo, would have no hope of catching, and throw down a savage sprint that made me reach into reserves I didn't know I had to keep up with.  By the time we reached the finish at Hood River I was practically catatonic, and I've spent this evening slowly recovering.

Oh well... with the race possibly happening as early as Thursday, today was the day to blow myself out.  With any luck I'll get a good night's sleep and have a more flexible schedule to pace myself into race day.


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