2004-04-16 RR SK 3 - Tax day relief with shallow water sprints

Sarah Kueffer and I started out in her tandem racer along with Ed Arenz and Eric Canny in their C1 racers around 5pm with the temperature in the seventies.  We went upstream to the bridge on County Road 116 and turned back to see if anyone else was late because of traffic.  Coming across the bridge in Anoka was never quick during rush hour.  Sure enough, Devin Arenz, Todd Ellison, and Kjell Peterson were coming upstream when we got back to the last turn before the straight away back to the boat landing.  Devin turned back towards the boat landing when he saw us and then all of us chased him back to the boat landing where we picked up his brother, Brett Arenz, in his C1.  Finally we were a group of six C1’s and a tandem racer with everyone who was going to show up.

We had fun sprinting upstream in the sandy shallows, but the C1’s could stay closer to shore than we could in the tandem because they didn’t draft as much water.  We saw Eric ground out when he slid up onto a submerged tree branch stuck in the sand, but we all figured he would get back in and catch us when we stopped at the bridge to get a drink.  Once we made it to the bridge and noticed that he wasn’t following us, we turned back downstream again to find him standing by his canoe. 

The tree he hit had broken out a big hole in the bottom of his woodstrip canoe.  You end up working on your canoe a lot if you race in a woodstrip canoe because of these unexpected encounters.  We all accompanied Eric as he ferried across the river to make sure he made it back to the side where he could run back and get his car.  Then we bid him farewell and continued on with our shallow water sprints upstream.  Down to five C1’s and a tandem racer.  Once again, I was the least conditioned of the pack.  Eric claimed that he was out of shape, but he worked as a carpenter and that does tend to keep you more in shape than a desk job like mine.  The others

“My boat hurts!” said Devin, along with many other quotes from various movies and television series as he paddled.  Todd took his shirt off and Devin started singing “I’m too sexy for my boat” to give Todd a hard time, but he appeared not to care. If I had his physique I wouldn’t wear a shirt either.  As it was, I decided to suffer in my long sleeve shirt to avoid embarrassing myself.  

As we came to the next shallow inside bend of the river, Sarah and I were positioned between Kjell on the inside and Todd on the outside when we all popped it up.  Our huge tandem roller caught the back of Todd’s C1 unexpectedly for him and he did a slow motion rollover with his bow almost hitting ours.  He was drenched in the exhilaratingly cold water and it turned out to be knee deep water when he stood up.  The danger of hypothermia was gone as long as you get out within a few minutes of being immersed.  Summer is here at last. 

We made it a ways upstream past the sandbar island and the Boy Scout camp bend across from the high sloping sand bank before deciding to turn back.  The wind was in our face on the way back, but it wasn’t hard enough to hurt much.  At 52, Ed was the oldest in the pack next to me at 49.  He started the bridge sprint very early in my opinion which was before we even rounded the bend where it came into sight.  It took everything I had to keep paddling alongside Ed’s C1 and not give up and he was actually a few inches or more ahead when we crossed the line.  There went my excuse of being old.  Ed has quite a few more hours of training in than I do and a background as a very good long distance runner.  My arms were tired, but I got a quick drink of water and tried to reach out with my torso rotation and teach my muscles to do that even when they were tired.

Once we finally got back after 3 hours, Todd insisted that I turn back upstream again and he tried to get me to understand how to paddle again.  He said that I had been “rowing” instead of paddling and I had a wobble in my top hand when I anchored my paddle.  I was only able to get close to a satisfactory stroke once or twice in the next fifteen minutes and splashed cold water all over myself a lot. Both Todd and Kjell were paddling alongside and offering advice and it was extremely frustrating because I could not quite get it.  Once we were back and I commented that I had been trying to learn this for fifteen years without success, Todd said “Not many people ever figure it out.”  That did make me feel a bit better since I can only think of a few who actually do know it.   I told him I needed to practice on my own for a while and he told me to spend 200 hours in a C1.