Down to the club for 8am to get the boat trailer loaded and my boat loaded onto my car and then of to the Bishop Stortford's club about 40 min's away.
Today was going to be the day where I'd get all my questions answered, cant say I was feeling nervous at all until we got in the water for a warm up after the main briefing, looking around I was thinking this is an awful lot of boats and a not so wide river, had been warned the starts can be a bit fraught.
During the summer we have the Hasler series, a series perhaps more based on the individual, starting in the lower divisions and working your way up based on your performance, the winter series is perhaps more based as an inter club competition, unlike the Hasler series where you'll find yourself in a group all roughly matched in performance, the winter series and in my case class 3 Veterans (old codgers) is just simply based on over 35, so again in my case you could be competing against a division 1 Hasler racer or someone 15 + years younger than yourself, seems a little daunting but with the right attitude it gives you a possible goal to aim for and great preparation for the summer Hasler series where you'll return to a class perhaps more evenly matched.
Starting was a lot less formal than I thought it would be, each group lines up and goes, lots of boats jockeying around for position in a not so wide river was a bit of fun,
K2's were first of the line followed by group 1 and so on, my group 3 was called up to the start line, there just wasn't enough room for everyone to get on the start line, what little space there was I could only get the nose of my boat in and wouldn't have been anywhere for me or the the boats either side of me to put the paddles in the water.
But as I had been told the start can be fraught I thought it defiantly wise to hang back, looking at the other boats on the line most had the faster boats in comparison to mine, the mini against the dodge vipers lol.
It was a wise move, the water just seemed to explode and the wash from the other boats felt like you'd just hit the surf water, the bow waves were also bouncing back of the barge next to us making it a bronko ride.
Took me a little while to recover from the start only now to see the main group disappearing around the first corner, a little disheartening but there was some others lagging back of the main group so I had something to aim for.
Never being on this river before or knowing what the portages were like left a little apprehension, I knew the distance to the first portage was fairly short and the other 2 portages were more spread out over the next 4 miles to where the turnaround point was, leading up to the first portage nothing seemed to work together, co-ordination seemed to have taken a leap somewhere.
First portage came into sight fairly quick with 2 racers in front, caught the nearest just as he got on dry land, a bit of a muddled and rushed portage got me level the other end of the portage, unfortuanatlly for him he slipped on the wooden lower step and went in with his canoe, thankfully for me he found that out before I did,
felt a little guilty leaving him to sort himself out.
Seemed to feel a lot calmer after the first portage and co-ordination seemed to be coming back, one more in front of me which was another club member who started in group 2, didn't take long to catch him and pass, then there seemed to be no one in front at all and felt a bit of a slog to the next portage as the banks were more exposed to the wind, this portage went ok, hard work lugging a heavy boat and trying to run in a coordinated fashion lol, half way to the next portage I could see a boat in the distance, a k2 mixed pair, was gaining but it seemed really slow, the last portage saw me gain at least 200 mtr's over them, certantlly showed that a good portage can gain a lot of distance on someone, got me thinking about the Devizes race with 77 portages, the ground that could be lost or gained must be huge.
On the way near to the turn point 4 miles out I got first sight of the leader's making their way back, a few words of encouragements from John and Stewart as they went past in their K2 was great, got sight of the K2 that I was tracking coming back up the river, turn point must be near, yup next corner, took forever to turn my London bus lol.
Now I knew what lay ahead and that seemed to make a big difference for me, at the initial start with nerves etc I felt drained pretty quick but now I felt really settled and still full of energy, my pacing had been quite slow up to this point, so knowing what I had in front of me it was defiantly time to start digging in and concentrate, next target was the K2 in front, caught them at the next portage and went past on the portage, the rest of the race went past very quick, the co-ordination defiantly got better, but too often I was forgetting to use my legs, finish line arrived very quickly and defiantly felt I could have gone further, but the first race was over, wasn't last so I achieved what I set out to do.
Now Ive done my first race the next I know what to expect and what I should be doing, I know ill never be in the front with the boat Ive got and do realise ive still got a million miles to go with technique, so my target is to finish higher up and to do my best to hang on to the main group, and over the next 2 weeks to get as much help as possible with technique, Ive proved easily I have the strength and stamina but boy it dont count if you dont have the technique.
It was frustrating being in a slow boat but if I had chosen a faster less stable boat Im pretty certain the start would have kicked me out, hopefully the winter series will build my fitness and skills and when the Hasler race starts and I get the faster boat it should be like taking of the lead boots to going bare footed.
Next race 21st November at Barking and Dagenham, slightly shorter race of 7 miles and no portages and one turn, a flat out race, so no pain no gain
A really big well done to my 12 yr old eldest boy as it was his first race as well, hes only had 4 trips out on a canoe, didn't go so well for him as he got caught out with an on coming C2 with steering problems which pushed him out the way and capsized him into the freezing water, and boy was it cold and on his first turn he fell in again, he made it back to the portage but was so wet and cold he couldn't carry on, his lips were royal blue, well done Ben x
Just got the results, finished 9th out of my group of 12 and beat 6 others on groups that started before me, and hit my target time of 1hr 20 min, 8 miles one turn and 6 portages, quite pleased with that for my first race :)
