Today’s training race looked like a carbon copy of last year’s: cold, windy, raw, and overcast. Tom Kerr and Mark Ceconi traveled from Connecticut while Ken Cooper, Cory Lancaster, Chris Chappell make the trek from the Boston area. Razz Bregenhoj, Tim Dwyer, and I represented the local paddlers; a small turnout but a very competitive field. Most of us decided to paddle our skis versus our K1’s, with the exception of Cory and Tim. I had my Tor all ready to go, but changed to a ski at the last moment.

The course was 9.75 miles with a mixture of shallows and ever changing currents. I think everyone wanted the race to be over at mile 8 because the last couple of miles into the wind and the shallows took some determination. Cory led the entire race up until the last pole turn that he missed. Cory was easily ahead of the pack by 3-4 minutes in his Mohawk and deserves a lot of credit to paddle a very fast, but twitchy K1 in today’s conditions. Ken and I started yelling at Cory once we saw he missed the turn pole at mile 8.

The preceding 8 miles was a study in wash riding. To my surprise I was leading the chase pack. Cory was ahead from the start and nobody was catching him unless he missed a turn (!), capsized, etc. The train was pretty much kept intact until the 8 mile turning pole in this order: Me, Ken, Chris, Tom. Tim was not too far back trying to ride the wash but found it tough going in his K1.

At about the 5 mile mark, Chris threw in an erg-like interval and surged ahead of Ken and me. I jumped on Chris’s wake and could not believe he was going that fast in his 33lb V10 Sport (Remember the rest of us were in 22 to 28 lb high performance skis or K1’s…) I was praying for him to relent, but he kept it up for a good 5 minutes or so, and then the train resumed again in the previous order. Chris put in an amazing effort to finish only seconds behind us in only his second race in that ski. All that erging (indoor rowing) can’t be hurting! Who says you need a kayak erg??????? To further the point, Tom also put in a great effort and proved ramping up the off season training by a factor of 500 is paying HUGE dividends. Tom was looking super fit and determined to see all that hard work pay off, which it did. We took notice!

Tim, undeterred by paddling his Typhoon on a sloppy day, found that extra high gear he is so well noted for, and despite being back in the pack for the whole race, made a manly surge with a mile to go and passed the field to nip second. Ken was looking super smooth as usual. I think he was enjoying a hard effort, blowing the cobwebs out after a long winter. Mark, despite a nagging injury, paddled for 6 miles before deciding the effort was enough for today with the ROTC only a few weeks away. Raz enjoyed meeting some of the other paddlers and despite limited paddling time, nevertheless enjoyed himself. The common theme for the training race was a great effort on all our parts. Everyone came away with the feeling of accomplishment from a very hard paddle and enjoyed the post race conversation over beesr and fish and chips at a local tavern.

Thanks to everyone for coming!!
~Wesley