2004-06-17 Hoigaards with John Kilgore

John didn’t care which category we paddled in and I had just given blood the Friday before so I chose to paddle in the shorter course with a Minnesota II canoe.  It turned out that there was a shortage of rookies for this race and a lot of teams had paired up two experienced racers.  Most of the teams turned out to be mixed (a man and a woman), so the “Men’s Racing” category offered a good chance of getting a ribbon.  There were only 4 mens teams in our Derby class, so John and I stood a good chance of getting a ribbon anyway.  I have plenty of ribbons, though they are mostly white (3^rd place) and red (2^nd place), but I wanted John to get one if we could. 

John took the stern and I took the bow, but he was thirty pounds lighter so we added a garbage bag with about 25 pounds of sand behind the seat in the stern to level out the canoe.  I also used my life jacket as a foot brace to move me further back from the bow.  There were lots of weeds on Lake of the Isles, so I made sure I could reach the bow with my paddle so I could sweep them off while keeping the paddling pace of 60 or more strokes a minute.  We each brought water along because the race would take about an hour.  John had a plastic tube stuck into a hole in the cap of a liter pop bottle full of water, but I just brought a small plastic bottle of water to drink before and after the race to keep from dehydrating.  I’ve suffered from dehydration before and it takes a long time to recover.

Thirty or more canoes waited in a ragged line for the starting blast of the air horn.  We were between two racing canoes and were hoping to ride their wakes as long as we could.  The sound of the horn triggered the churning of water and a chorus of “Hut” calls.  When the line broke up, we found ourselves at the back of a line of about fourteen racing canoes.  I looked for, and didn’t see any other derby class canoes ahead of us. We were still on the stern wake of Kenn Ketter and his rookie partner “Ole Mersinger” as we rounded the 90 degree buoy turn at the far side of Lake Calhoun heading for the channel for Lake of the Isles. 

The starting sprint was over and the canoes had fallen roughly into their finishing positions.  Now it was a matter of endurance and extenuating circumstances.  In longer races, endurance can make a big difference, but this race was only an hour or so long and it would not make much of a difference in finishing positions.   Extenuating circumstances could make a big difference in this race.  Circumstances like flipping a canoe in canoe wakes or high waves, while sweeping weeds, or while taking a buoy turn.  Circumstances like tossing or breaking a paddle, or having a canoe seat or foot brace break.  Circumstances like being turned by another canoe pushing from behind.

Even though we made a decent buoy turn at the north end of Lake of the Isles, we fell back another canoe length to their 2^nd stern wave when Kenn and Ole punched it coming out of their 360 degree turn ahead of us.  A while later, Kenn and Ole cut across the back of Stephanie Larsen’s canoe and turned them out 90 degrees while trying to pass them.  With a rookie in the bow, they lost a couple of canoe lengths before they could straighten out the canoe and get back on Kenn and Ole’s stern wake.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but I remember now that the stern paddler of the lead canoe can use a strong rudder on the opposite side of the canoe from the offending bow of the trailing canoe to shove them back and keep from being spun out.  I hoped I would be able to remember that when I get into that situation.

Since that wasn’t exactly an example of sportsmanship at it’s best, we stayed half a canoe length away as we pulled alongside Stephanie.  I said, “Let’s go!” intending to have Stephanie and her rookie partner ride our side wake to catch back up with Kenn and Ole.  Instead, they dropped back off our side wake as we headed into the channel to Cedar Lake. 

Rounding the second 360 degree buoy turn on Cedar Lake, I could see that Eric Canny and his green rookie paddler weren’t that far behind us and I knew they would take us if we let up.   Coming back into the channel we started to make up some distance on Kenn and Ole.   “The canoe is really moving good!” I hollered at John and Ole told me after the race that he had heard that comment and started working harder.  Even so, we were able to catch back up to their 2^nd stern wave just before we came out of the channel back into Lake of the Isles.  That’s when we turned back towards Calhoun and Kenn and Ole had to go the longer route back via the north arm of Lake of the Isles. 

Reminding myself to breath and reach further with each stroke, I blew air out my mouth loudly.  I had dropped my hat because it was too warm, but I kept my sunglasses on until we came back through Lake Calhoun.  John asked if I was OK and I reassured him I was fine.  If this were a longer race, I would have been worried, but I knew I could keep up this pace for another 20 minutes.  We were now ahead of all the racing canoes as we came into Lake Calhoun because they all had to take the longer route.  We kept it moving well and none of them were able to pass us before we crossed the finish buoy 57 minutes and 47 seconds after we started.  John Kilgore won his first blue ribbon in a canoe race.  It had been over a year since I had won a blue ribbon because the competition is always good here in Minnesota.  We floated nearby and cheered on the other teams as they finished.  It was good to be able to see the better racers paddling strokes as they sprinted to the final buoy.