I woke up yesterday morning after a poor night of sleep thanks to some particularly obnoxious neighbors in the campground at Morgan City. There must have been a yahoo convention in town. I'd set my alarm for 5 AM but woke up around 4:20, and I decided to go ahead and get out of that place. The race site was still about 40 miles up the road, and along the way I stopped at a gas station for a cup of coffee. I sat on my truck's tailgate in the parking lot and had some cereal and some fruit as dawn broke in the eastern sky.
I reached the town of Jeanerette, where the race was to start, just before 7 o'clock. The registration list was small but full of familiar faces, and gradually they began to trickle in. The race organizers had arranged a shuttle van, so we unloaded our boats and gear on the banks of Bayou Teche at Jeanerette and then moved our vehicles down to the finish at Charenton.
My neck and back were stiff after my unrestful night, and I stretched my entire body and did my best to work out the kinks. Race directors Ray Pellerin and Scott Moore welcomed the participants in a ceremony that included the mayor of Jeanerette and other local officials. (Longtime racing friend Tave Lamperez was originally the race director, but sadly was not present as he attended the funeral of his mother.) As 10 o'clock approached we were in our boats drifting toward the starting line for the 10-mile (16-kilometer) journey down the bayou to Charenton. From what I could tell, the river seemed to be flowing at about 0.9 mile per hour.
At 10 AM sharp the mayor blew a loud air horn, and off we went. I sprinted into the lead and checked my peripheral vision to see who would give chase. 200 meters in it was clear that my main competition was just who I'd expected it would be, Christian Massow of Cypress, Texas. A native Hamburger who now works as an engineer in the Houston area, Christian was a member of the German national team several decades ago. In more recent years he has been taking masters titles at the 200-, 500-, and 1000-meter distances at the U.S. national flatwater sprint regatta. In short, he's a formidable adversary.
I led with Christian on my starboard wake for the first two kilometers. Then I backed off and let him take the lead. I was feeling good in the boat and boldly I made a plan to control the plot line of the race: I would draft for a kilometer, then lead for a kilometer, then draft for a kilometer, and so on.
But not long after I retook the lead at the 3-kilometer mark, the unexpected happened: Christian dropped off the pace, leaving me all alone. Sure, it was a lucky break for me in a way, but now I had the challenge of staying focused and keeping my boat moving with authority for another 12-plus kilometers. I decided to stick to the same basic plan: push the pace every other kilometer while backing off ever so slightly during the other kilometers.
So that's what I did, and as the race went on I realized that I was averaging faster than 5 minutes per kilometer. I was excited about that until I remembered that I had almost a mile-per-hour current helping me along. Then again, I was paddling into a pretty good headwind for the entire race that probably offset some of that benefit. I tried not to overthink it and just appreciate the fact that I was feeling good. While a racer never likes a headwind, it was nice to have it keeping me cool as the temperature rose toward 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
By 12 kilometers I was definitely feeling some fatigue setting in. I lowered the stroke rate a bit during my "on" kilometers while trying to continue taking powerful strokes. As I moved past the one-hour mark, I set a goal of finishing the race under 80 minutes, assuming it was a precise 16 km.
As it turned out, the course wasn't quite 16 kilometers: my G.P.S. device measured it at about 15.2 km (9.4 miles). I crossed the finish line with a time of one hour, 15 minutes, 14 seconds.
Pleased with my effort, I ferried to the far bank and paddled easily back upriver to watch the other competitors come in. I fully expected to see Christian not far back, but it turned out he had faded back into third. The fourth-place overall finisher was also the first female: Kim Schulte of Mandeville, Louisiana, looked strong as she finished under an hour and a half.
The complete results are as follows:
Christian had in fact "bonked" in the race--he cited an inadequate nutrition plan--and was understandably frustrated afterward. I assured him that I'd had a few such days myself and probably will have a few more before I'm all done racing. He's a quality athlete and person and I have no doubt he'll be back. I first raced Christian nine years ago at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and he beat me by some three and a half minutes on that 15-kilometer course. Since then he and I have been pretty evenly matched, with him beating me sometimes and me beating him sometimes. I suppose I could think of yesterday's victory as payback for that spanking he laid on me back in 2012.
I loaded my boat on the car, changed into dry clothes, socialized a bit with the other racers, and enjoyed the hamburger lunch that the race organizers provided. There were a few burgers left over and Mister Ray insisted I take a second one, and I gladly wolfed it down. As soon as the awards had been handed out I embarked on the trip home. The hardest part was getting out of the state of Louisiana: because of the swampy terrain of southern Louisiana, there's no direct way to drive anywhere, and a wreck on Interstate 10 near Baton Rouge slowed my progress to a crawl for a while. Once I was headed north on Interstate 55 I finally began to click off the miles. Once the sun went down I was able to pick up KMOX from Saint Louis on my AM radio: the Cardinals were playing a late-evening game on the west coast, so I had that for entertainment north of Jackson. I arrived home around 10 PM. I was grateful to be crashing in my own bed.
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