Racing in the heart of the Ozarks

It was a lovely sun-shiny day as a small group of racers gathered for the start of the Landing to Landing canoe and kayak race at Branson, Missouri.  The start was on the White River just below the Table Rock Reservoir dam.  Because of another dam downstream, the piece of water we would be racing on is known as Lake Taneycomo, but its narrow channel made it feel more like a river, and the first couple of kilometers there was a modicum of flow.  The course distance was 8 miles, or not quite 13 kilometers.

The starting area was tight, and the presence of a half-dozen fly fishermen restricted our maneuverability that much more.  As a result I found it difficult to get in my normal warmup.  Once the gun went off I was straining to persuade some blood into my muscles as I sprinted for a good position.

Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, moved quickly into the lead.  While trying to keep contact with him, I found myself alongside a tandem surfski paddled by the father-son team of Brad and Ethan Daniels, who hail from the nearby town of Hollister, Missouri.

Early on we had to navigate a few shallow stretches where my rudder dragged on the bottom.  My rudder continued to function, fortunately, but it was a distraction as I jockeyed with the Danielses for a decent position.

Eventually the water began to deepen as we entered the pool of Lake Taneycomo.  It appeared that Mike was his old self as his lead on the rest of us grew and grew.  I settled onto the Danielses' wake to conserve energy for some surges later in the race.

I was working as hard as I cared to in a race of this distance, but it seemed like my speed wasn't what I think I should be capable of.  When I looked down at my G.P.S. device it was most often showing about 11.1 kilometers per hour (6.9 miles per hour).  The water we were paddling was quite cool, probably because it came from the bottom of Table Rock Reservoir, and I thought of some research that Maks cited to me earlier this year, that a boat moves more slowly in colder water.  I'd be curious to know what impact it had on Mike's hull speed.

There were many motorized craft on the water, and around the 3-kilometer mark a bass boat moved in front of us.  Ethan and Brad sprinted to catch the boat's wake, so I did the same.  I was aware that what we were doing wasn't exactly fair either to Mike in front of us or the other racers behind us, but it sure was nice to get a breather while still traveling between 11.0 and 11.5 kph.  After a couple of minutes the bass boat began to veer from our race course, so I took the initiative to abandon its wake and encourage the Danielses to follow.

A short while later I began to open a gap on the tandem ski, and I threw in several surges to press the advantage.  It would mean paddling all by my lonesome the rest of the race, but if the Danielses were falling off the pace then it was the right thing to do to preserve my at-least-theoretical chance to reel Mike in.

For the next twenty minutes or so I moved along at the quickest pace I could manage, but with 5 kilometers to go fatigue was beginning to set in, and a few glances over my shoulder revealed that I hadn't really opened much of a gap on Ethan and Brad.  It was pretty clear that catching Mike was not in the cards, so I backed off the pace and allowed the tandem team to regain contact with me.  Now I could do some wake-riding with the hope of finishing strong and being the second boat across the finish line.

As the race wore on our speed dipped down toward 10 kph.  Having never paddled against the Danielses before, I wasn't sure whether they were fading or were just gathering themselves for a strong finish of their own.  As we paddled beneath the U.S. 65 bridge some 1500 meters out from the finish, I got my answer: they began to surge.  I knew I wasn't ready to sprint yet and I tried to hold onto their starboard wake.  We continued along like this to the railroad bridge, and though I was still comfortable with the pace I was definitely working much harder.

Past the railroad bridge we could see the pair of bridges for Veterans Boulevard and Branson Landing Boulevard, with the finish line a couple hundred meters beyond.  Here, Ethan and Brad put the hammer down.  I dug in and tried to hold their side wake, but their advantage in horsepower was clear as they edged farther and farther in front.  I fell back onto their stern wake and tried to gather myself for one last charge.  Mike, who had finished several minutes earlier, was off to the right cheering us on, and I knew I couldn't throw in the towel with him watching.  100 meters became 50 meters, and though I was sprinting hard the confused water behind the Danielses made it feel more and more like my efforts were in vain.  With less than 50 meters left I moved to my right and made one last mad dash, cutting their lead from a full boatlength to maybe seven-eighths of a boatlength, but there wasn't enough race left.  Ethan and Brad's bow broke the finish line five seconds before mine did.

I congratulated the father-son team and paddled easy as my heart rate returned to normal.  I watched as more racers came in to the finish.  Mike's daughter Savanna won a furious sprint with Don Walls to claim fourth place overall and third place among single kayaks.  Don, paddling an outrigger canoe, was the fastest single-blader, with OC1 paddler Stephen Lynn finishing 27 seconds later.

The results are as follows:

1.  Mike Herbert 1:04:32

2.  Ethan Daniels/Brad Daniels 1:09:11

3.  Elmore Holmes 1:09:16

4.  Savanna Wright 1:15:43

5.  Don Walls 1:15:45

6.  Phil Capel 1:16:03

7.  Stephen Lynn 1:16:12

8.  Frank Walker 1:25:53

9.  Karen Kesselring 1:34:05

10.  Andrew Peters 1:37:22

11.  Matt Andrews 1:43:16

12.  Sharlyn Todd 1:53:45

13.  Kyle Todd 1:53:46

14.  Kurt Hallow 2:11:34

15.  Jeff Holley 2:38:35

16.  Linda Blair 2:38:39

17.  Larry Ford 2:54:31

The race officials didn't make any distinction between kayaks and canoes or between women and men in distributing the awards.  Among the top nine finishers, every racer was in some type of kayak except Don and Stephen.  I'm not sure about any of the racers who finished behind Karen Kesselring.

I carried my boat up to my truck, which Karen's husband Dan had kindly helped me shuttle to the finish before the race.  I inspected my rudder and found that it had suffered a bit of damage that I'll have to repair when I get a chance.  Great... another item on my to-do list.

I socialized a bit with my fellow racers, whom I've seen sparingly in Pandemic Times.  Then it was time to hit the road for the five-hour drive back to Memphis.  A while back I mentioned to Maks that a race within five hours of my home is considered "close by," and he couldn't believe it.  Over there in Slovenia he has a lot of events within just a couple of hours.  That must be nice.  After my exhausting trip to the Pacific Northwest and back this summer, I'm only just now finding the gumption to drive even a short distance for a race.

The drive gave me ample time to ponder how my race had gone.  In general I didn't feel great about it, particularly the slowish speed I had maintained.  But obsessing over speed is probably not a good idea.  Besides the cold water, there were many areas of "suck water" (i.e., water that's shallow enough for bottom-drag to be a factor).

And I really had no reason to expect to do any better than I did.  For a few weeks after the big trip in July, Maks gave me (at my request) some easier training plans while I regrouped; and even though the plans are getting a bit more substantial now, they're still not anything that will get me into peak racing form.  Mostly, I'm feeling that the work I'm doing at this point in the year is preparation for 2022.  I hope I can define some clear goals for next year as race dates are announced.

All told, I'm glad I went over and did the race even though I'm not exactly gleeful over how I did.  Hopefully this is a first step toward breaking out of the inertia I've been stuck in for the last couple of months.

This morning I felt pretty chipper when I woke up.  It wasn't until I was down at the river that I realized how tired I actually was.  My oblique abdominals were a bit sore and my back and shoulders were stiff.  Maks had assigned an 80-minute endurance paddle that forced me to pay attention to the stroke rate.  I did four 18-minute pieces with 2 minutes rest after each one, with the first and last pieces done at 60 strokes per minute and the middle two at 64 spm.

Training will be abbreviated this coming week because of an annual crafts fair I'm participating in Thursday through Sunday.  Hopefully I'll be feeling ready to go Tuesday and Wednesday.

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