[Paddlewise] blackburn challenge

My annual long race was last weekend.  I managed to miss my target time
by just a little.  I had hoped to finish in under 3 hours.  I finished
in 3:01:30.  As I paddled the last 2 miles the water felt shallow and
the headwind was just enough to make me realize I wasn't going to cross
the line in my target time.  We had some decent fog in the first half of
the race, going across Rockport harbor we couldn't see a thing for a
while.  I ended up paddling 19.64 miles this year.  Last year in clear
weather I only paddled 19.29 miles.

I had a real relaxed attitude toward this years race.  At the starting
line there were 39 boats in the surf ski class.  35 lined up on the
line, 4 of us lined up in a second line.  I felt zero need to sprint off
the start knowing that I had 3 hours to go.  Overall I had a completely
uneventful race, a nice comfortably solid pace.  I even managed to keep
my heart rate at a normal 70% of max level for the duration instead of
trying to see if I could explode.

There are some decent pictures online:

http://www.pixel8er.net/gallery/8983340_t7VcY#597123692_PhaBT

The surfski racing site has several good writeups.  

http://surfskiracing.com/Races/Blackburn_Challenge_Race_Summaries_2009.html
-- 
  Kirk Olsen
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