World Cup #3

So this was the last race on the Upper Mersey, and tonight is our last night at Silver Ridge Retreat.  As you can tell from this shot is a truly horrible place to stay and we can't wait to get out of here.

The race today was short, on easy choppy water and was really a "lactic for 7+ minutes" kind of race.  Now I can't go lactic for 7+ minutes o I eased of in a few places, while trying to keep the boat moving.  It worked, and I was pretty happy with my pacing - I could have maybe picked up a few seconds but certainly not many.  My sore muscles now tell me I went pretty lactic.  From the look of pretty much every K1M who finished after me we were all in the hurt locker, big time.  Gulping down breaths of air while maintaining a look of disgust on the face was most common as if to say "That was so easy - so why wasn't I faster and why does it hurt so damn much?".  Luckily (or by strange foresight) I had dropped off a camera at the finish on my warm up run, so I got over 400 pictures of the finish, a place that could not be reached by spectators without a boat.  Here are a couple of examples of the pain on racer's faces at the end.

Gerhard Schmid (4th)

Nejc Znidarcic (2nd)

 

The C boats didn't look anywhere near as tired when they crossed the line - the course was a bit shallow in a few places and they used that excuse to not go as hard (or so it seemed).  It really wasn't a classic C boat course, and to prove it I took 17 seconds out of Tom over the short course when he was less than 6% back on the winner once again.  I was over 3% up on my race result last weekend, and hope that this reflects my full recovery from being sick.  I'm still on course to beat Tom in every race, but there is a 25 minute mini-marathon with big boat breaking potential on the horizon, so I would be foolish to count my chickens.  Maybe I won't race that race?  I almost counted my chickens yesterday when I said the Japanese had arrived and I might have more people to beat as they all beat me convincingly, including Yoda.  So, I can avoid the Dark Side for some time, at least if I stay away from Foo for now.  I was much close to John Gallagher, the Irish paddler in front of me, and I'll be gunning for him at the next race (probably unsuccessfully, but you gotta try you know).

Anyway, tomorrow we drive to bray's whitewater course for some practice.  Its a 1-4 hour drive, depending on who you ask, and is mostly along an unsealed road.  I bet we get stuck behind Brian Wilson like we did on the way home today - someone needs to teach that boy how to drive downhill!

Next post will be the parent/paddler competition, although it might not be today as it takes a long time to upload the pics from this connection.