[Paddlewise] Tuesday night at the races.

My local crew of surf ski paddlers has a tuesday night race series,
http://home.roadrunner.com/~nesurfski/Salem_league_page/Salem_League.html. 

I'm back to my usual position of completely average.  

The first night we had wonderful conditions.  We paddled from Lynch Park
in Beverly Mass out around Bowditch ledge (near misery island) and back
- it's billed as a 5.9 mile course.  The 15 to 20 mph wind was out of
the south east which resulted in whitecaps and quartering waves on the
bow, the whitecaps and waves were enough to get the bow slapping down
off waves and occaissionally sending the bow through a wave so that the
water came most of the way up the deck and into the cockpit.  The return
trip was amazingly annoying, the waves were quartering from the rear,
the waves were very rideable but they were going toward shore, not
toward the finish line.  I finished fifth of 9 in  52:42, 4 minutes out
of first place.  For the first time ever we had a in the water start. 
We usually do a le mans start/finish - run from a break wall, down the
beach to the boats, jump in then paddle off.  Since it was just about
dead low with a negative 1.8 foot time we did a water start - but a
running finish - 100 yards or so through the low tide soft sand back up
to the wall.  15 to 20 mph wind, 48 degree air with 52 degree water, a
lovely time for an evening paddle. 

Week 2 we were back to the le mans start.  It was also a split course -
which is great for people who do interval training.  We did a 3 mile
course - out around great haste island and back, then a 5 minute rest (5
minute rest for the last paddler - longer for everyone else), followed
by a 2 mile loop around the nun by Jubilee yacht club.  I managed to get
second in the first race, 19 seconds ahead of third place.  For the
second race Mike M. worked hard and managed to finish 23 seconds up on
me.  So I end up third  4 seconds out of second place.  Cory Lancaster
his having a smoking season - he finished the 5.5 mile split course in
38:39 - a full 2.5 minutes up on Mike and I.  Conditions were dead flat,
just sit back and enjoy 23 minutes, then 17 minutes of semi anaerobic
joy...

Kirk
-- 
  Kirk Olsen
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