Tonight's race went south out of Deep Cove, across to the east side of Hamber island, continue south around Boulder Island, then back across the arm to Grey Rocks, and back to Deep cove around the 5 knot can. The race would be just under 5 kilometers.
I have been really tired these past couple of weeks, and tonight would be no different. I kept the warm up to a minimum to conserve what little energy I had. I started next to Katja and Kiran in the K2, and Saen in his V10S. Both of us had the same game plan. At the start we would get on the K2s wash and try to ride it as long as possible.
So right from the start I head start for the stern of the K2, and like wise Sean. He got on to the side wash, and I got on the stern wash. For me this was a really short time, about 2 minutes max before I jut died. Off the back I went. I had to slow down to a speed I could handle for the rest of the race. After dropping back about 5 or 6 boats, I managed to find a groove.
I had both Lina (who has really improved this season) and Gary in front of me. They were about 50 meters in front of me. Going across to Hamber, I managed to bring the gap down to about a boat length. It was a hard grind just to do that, and I started to slide back again, losing the gains I had made. By the time we were going around Boulder the two had about 30 meters advantage on me. This distance remained the same all the way to Grey Rocks. After the we hit the wall section after grey Rocks, I started to use the waves more and started to make some ground on Gary and Lina.
Coming up to the 5 knot can, I was about 10 meters behind, and thinking there is no way I am going to catch them. Then a gift from the heavens shined its light on me. Bob in the safety boat was filming and came right up on my right hand side. Well I was not going to pass up on this gift. I ramped up the stroke rate and got on its side wash. Yeehaa, off I went towards my targets. I rocketed up to and past both Gary and Lina. But as I got about 5 meters in front, the boat slowed down and veered off, leaving me to hold off the two racers I had been following all night.
I was just knackered by this point, and I slowed right down, just waiting for the inevitable. There was still about 200 meters to go, and I was just trying to survive. I tarted to listen to the racers who had already finished there race and were cheering on the people coming in.
Just then I saw in the corner of my left eye, the bow of Gary's ski. So I upped the rate just to hold him off, but there still a long way to go. Then I heard someone say to Gary, “go Gary, you got him” upon hearing that, I knew it was time to hammer or give up. So I put the power on and crank the stroke rate as fast as I could go.
After that I could not hear anything because my head was just pounding and I was on the edge of exploding. As I was going over the finish line, I thought I was going to barf. I was completely wasted. After the race , I just managed to paddle to the other side of the dock, and just sat there resting. It was a really hard race for me.
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