The race was 4 laps equaling about 6.3 miles inside the harbor. The start was chaotic to say the least... every conceivable paddle craft all lined up together... A few of us made the wise decision to start far to the right, making for a slightly longer paddle to the first buoy turn, but a little less turbulent water to get through...
At the start I just focused on getting to that first turn and not falling in... I was only able to apply about 80% power as the other 20% went to staying upright. After that first turn, I found myself behind one of the few single outriggers... I tried to draft him for about 200 meters (what are the drafting rules again? Oh yeah, there aren't any!) I had trouble staying with him but found myself a few meters behind Dustin Sousley, a very strong 20? year old from Gig Harbor and the Urban Surf team. I drafted him until the next buoy turn, about half-way through the first lap... I looked back and saw we had Renick Woods in tow... it was going to be a good train! Sitting in the draft, I was barely working at all, probably only about 60% capacity, to the point I felt 4th-10th place were going to catch us... So at the next corner, I went wide around Dustin and punched it. Dustin got on my tail and I guess we gapped Renick because for the next 3.5 laps it was just the two of us. I held the tempo at about 90% of my max for the next 2 laps... Then started worrying about when my "shadow" was going to go for the pass... So at the 180 degrees buoy turn starting the 3rd lap, I came out of it really wide and stopped paddling, hoping he'd take a turn at the front for a lap... no dice. Now I'm thinking that if I lolly-gag much longer, Renick and company were going to catch us... I could see they weren't very far behind us. So went hard again for the 3rd lap, with Dustin in-tow. I did the same thing at the start of the 4th lap, backed off to about 2 mph hoping Dustin would pull-through... nope. I could see at this point that we had a fair lead over 3rd and 4th place, so I lead-out the last lap, "soft-paddling," cruising along just fast enough to not get caught, but saving my strength for what was going to be an inevitable sprint finish.
Approaching the final 90 degrees turn before the finish line, my nerves were about wracked, as I just kept waiting for Dustin to pounce... I was having serious flashbacks to road bike racing, the same tactics and mind games going on... and I was in the bad position, the lead-out position. I knew he wanted to win in front of his home-town peeps... I had a notion that whoever got to that buoy first had a good chance of winning, so I ramped up my speed going into the corner and started my sprint. I thought that maybe I'd gone too early, that finish line looked a long way off! I could hear Dustin's paddle strokes right behind me so I dug a little deeper into the pain vault and managed to hold him off...
I was gassed form the sprint, but quickly recovered and wasn't that tired... a sign that our avg speed was a bit low, due to our cat-and-mouse games. Sure enough, we averaged about 5.6 mph, where last year Cyril and I drag-raced the whole 4 laps and averaged over 5.8mph.
Next in was Scott Vande Vusse who at some point reeled-in Renick for a tight race for 3rd and 4th place.
Congrats also go to Elizabeth Schalka for winning the womens race...
As usual, the PNW and Team 206 crew were all awesome and fun to hang out with... the beginning of another fun season.
Check out these pics from Lisa Vande Vusse...
End of lap 2...
Lap 1 Renick, Dustin & myself...
All technique & form going out the window...
After the start/finish turn...
Some of the SUP results...
