Biking and Hiking and Kayaking: Be Careful Out There

Random Pictures and Posts

If it's not one thing, its another. Between work travel and weather and parent's day at my daughter's college, my outdoor activities have been a bit limited. Plus, I'm now blogging on my company's corporate blog - all these factors have combined to dilute this blog. But here's some pictures and short posts on some of the outdoor time that did happen:

Carl and I have done a lot of biking, including just about every stretch of the C&O Canal towpath from Shepardstown to Glen Echo, MD. This picture is at Whites Ferry, I think this is an old 1800's vintage store. The white pattern on the right hand wall looks like a dog chasing an ATV to me.

I haven't gotten a lot of kayaking done at all since the Wye Race. Right before Wye, I did get a paddle in on the Severn River, starting at the 450 bridge at the Jonas Green Park boat launch. This is part of my efforts to get more time on textured water but at first I didn't think the weather would cooperate. At first there wasn't much wind at all and it looked like it would start raining at any moment. However, I launched anyway and started heading upstream. The wind picked up quite a bit and there were a good number of big yachts and working fishing boats cruising up and down the river - I got to take some decent waves on the side. I ended up doing about 9 miles and exploring some nice coves on the northern side of the river.

Carl and I also went back and repeated one of the nicest sections of the York County Heritage trail. We saw some rail car enthusiasts motoring along on the tracks and revisited the tunnel were we sought shelter from the near-tornado conditions on our earlier ride:

Race Report: Wye Regatta 2008

When I got into kayaking in 2006, Wye Island quickly became my favorite place to paddle. When I tried some races in 2007, the Wye Regatta was the one I was aiming for. Mother nature caused last year's race to be shortened to an 8 mile out and back, vs. a 12 mile circumnavigation, so this year would be my first chance to actually do the entire Wye race. The marine forecast kept wobbling back and forth between saying 5-10 knot and 10-15 knot winds, with mostly overcast skies, temperatures in the high 80's and high humidity.

Saturday was a complicated day - to do the race, I would drive 75 miles east to Wye Landing and then after the race drive about 75 miles south to meet my wife at a party at a friend's waterfront house in Drum Point, MD. I usually bring a few kayaks to Chris and June's party, so in addition to the Marlin I loaded up our Perception Dagger rec boat. Plus, my daughter was going to meet us at the party, driving up from St. Mary's College, so I loaded up her bicycle and some supplies for her. Hurricane Ike's impact had driven gas prices around here up about 60 cents per gallon - my 250 miles of driving would cost a bit more. Since there was also the potential for heavy fog, I loaded up my GPS with maps, packed the VHF radio - this turned into a major production.

As usual, the weather pundits were all wrong - Saturday morning dawned clear and breeze-free. After the traditional 7-11 coffee and a muffin, I was over the Bay Bridge at 0715 looking down at an almost glassy Chesapeake Bay. I arrived at the start way early and spent about an hour shooting the breeze with Charlie and other regulars, looking at the wide variety of kayaks, canoes, sculls and dories that were entering the race. Many other usuals, like Cyndi, Brian, Susan and Jeff P. were nowhere to be found and at about 0915 they called for kayakers to get on the water. When I did my usual graceful dock entry, the guy helping accidentally pulled by front hatch cover off - we put it back on but I was sort of wondering all race long if it was really sealed.

The Wye Regatta does not do mass starts, which is a bit of a bummer because you really can't race directly against others - you are really racing against the clock. Since we were on the water well before the published start time I was just sort of dawdling along when I noticed Charlie was starting out - they were letting kayakers start early. So, I paddled over, got in line and launched several minutes later. I actually remembered to start my GPS and turned the display to show speed, distance and heart rate but not elapsed time. I figured I'd watch my heart rate to see if I should push more and would not watch my time - I was aiming for 2 hours but if I was way behind that pace I didn't want to know because I might ease up.

My goal was to only be passed by skinnier, younger, faster people in skinnier, faster boats and for the first few miles I was mostly passing others in recreational boats and the occasional rowboat (dory?). Shortly before the bridge I was passed by a guy in a racing kayak who had a beautiful stroke and shortly after the bridge I was passed by Holm with his powerful stroke. We were riding a bit of current since the tide was still going out and I was keeping my speed up above 6 mph, which is what I would have to average to finish in 2 hours. The water was flat, the sun was burning, the humidity was high but there was a bit of breeze in our face as we headed west - it was pretty pleasant paddling on this stretch. 

I've done Wye enough times now that I have a line I follow and it was interesting to watch the various paths everyone else took. Shortly before we made the turn south onto the main Wye River at Grapevine Point, Melissa passed me in an Epic V10L surfski and then Stephen on his surfski. On the main Wye, the wind and waves picked up a bit and there was a decent amount of boat traffic. Nothing major, but one guy in a large boat did the usual thing: he was trying to be helpful and slow down, but in doing so he slowed down to the exact speed where he is displacing water (vs. being up planing) and making the largest wake possible. I stayed on my line and took most of the wakes on the side, but for that one I turned to cut directly across - whee.

As we headed towards Bordely point I started to be passed by 2 person sculls, and right before the turn east I was passed by a guy in a long kayak using a very strange paddle: it looked like two crutches joined together, with paddle blades in place of the rubber tips and diagonal hand bars. He was paddling a very low angle stroke but he was chugging. When we made the left turn at Bordely Point we started going against the outgoing tide, and the wakes coming from boats on the main river were trying to force me towards the island so I slowed down as I took the swells on the right rear quarter while attempting to maintain the right line. Probably would have been faster to try to surf the way the wakes wanted to go and then cut back across but it gave me a chance to practicing handling seas from that angle.

I stopped paddling every 1.5 miles or so to drink (I still haven't gotten the Jeff Pringle/Stevie Wonder harmonica holder thing), so I stayed pretty well hydrated - at the finish I only had a few ounces left. The last four miles was a slog.  I started hearing "skitter skitter skitter skitter" as the 8 person sculls started passing and they are always fun to watch. At a right hand bend in the river, two of them were side by side and seemed to get into a game of chicken - the one on the inside of the turn kept going straight and the one on the outside wouldn't slow down to turn behind them, so they both heading way across the river, almost all the way to the island. Either they were just being competitive or they were both making a navigational error, but they were way off course.

Jeff Evans caught up to me at one point so I cranked up the rate a bit but mainly focused on the paddling stroke. The last four miles were a real slog - it was in the high 80's by then, no breeze, etc. Way too many of my training paddles were limited to 6 miles this year and the 10 mile Broadkill is my only long race this year - if you are going to commit the crime, be prepared to do the time, or something like that. I really wasn't in great shape for a 12 mile race this year, the heart rate vs. speed chart below shows that.

Since about mile 5 my heart rate display had been in the mid 150's but once I saw Pickering Creek up ahead I knew there was only about 2 miles left and I started to pick up the pace. Once I could see the sailboat and orange buoy marking the finish I did my version of sprinting, which to someone on shore looks like a kayaker panicking in a sinking boat. As you can see, it did drive my heart rate up a lot and my speed up a little bit. In the chart to the left, it is pretty clear that the first five miles had some current assist - highest speeds and lowest heart rate.

I barreled across the finish line and made sure the timekeeper got my number - last year they added about 20 minutes to my time. My GPS said 2:10 but the official results credited me with 2:02 - I think the Annapolis Rowing Club had some synchronization issues between the starting clock and the finishing clock. My goal is to get below 2 hours, so I'd like to believe their time but I'm positive I did it in 2:10. That is about 20 minutes faster than I've been able to do before in the Capella, so I did a little better than the minute a mile improvement I'm crediting to the Marlin. Charlie and few others were lounging on a beach in the shade a few hundred yards after the finish, so I sloowly paddled over there and chatted for a bit but I mainly wanted to get out of the boat. As I paddled the last .5 miles back to the launch point, I passed the starting boat which shot off a cannon for some reason when I was about 10 feet beyond it - I thought my kayak had exploded and literally almost leaped out of the boat. While I was looking around to figure out what happened, they shot off another one!

After a stunningly graceful dock exit (onlookers commented that it reminded them of Mikhail Baryshnikov, but when he fell down the stairs leaving the stage) and a bit of chatter with the usual suspects, I loaded everything back up and made the long drive down to Drum Point. The Wye regatta is a pretty low frills event, at least from the point of view of freebies, but the mix of boats, the challenge of the length of the course and the mix of conditions and the plain old fact that it goes around Wye Island make it my favorite event of the year. Next year I will be in shape and break 2 hours.

Google's version of the route:

Kayak Review: KayakPro Marlin

I've had my KayakPro Marlin for about six months now, so I figured I had enough mileage on it to do a review. First, the background:

I've been paddling for a little less than two years and quickly went from a 13 foot Boreal Designs Ookpik to a 16.5 foot P&H Capella, both plastic.  I really like the Capella - I'm 5.10", 220 lbs, and the Capella fits well and handles very well. The vast majority (more than 90%) of my paddling is on flat water, as I only live a mile from the Rocky Gorge and Triadelphia reservoirs in Maryland. Since I paddle those so often, I got interested in going faster each time I did the same loops, which got me interested in racing. After doing several CPA races and the Broadkill and Wye races last year I finally reached the point where I was faster than the Capella - a perfect excuse to buy a new and faster boat.

Everything I experienced and read said faster meant longer, skinnier and lighter. It looked like staying just under 18' made sense for length for a number of reasons, but skinnier was an issue. I am balance challenged to start and the fact that the vast majority of my paddling is on flatwater means I just don't get a lot of time in rougher water to get better. I tried a surfski on dead calm water and immediately went into omelet-eyed survival paddling. So, I was willing to sacrifice speed for stability. I also didn't want a boat that could only be used for racing - something that at least had enough rigging and capacity (like hatches) for day touring was a must and I would take wider and heavier.

So, I quickly narrowed it down to the QCC 600, the Epic 18x and the KayakPro Marlin. They are very similar boats in many ways, as they are all designed to fit the kayak racing rules while maximizing waterline length. I managed to get short test paddles in each boat (actually I test paddled a Kayakpro Nemo, which is the girl version of the Marlin, same hull just slightly less cockpit volume). All of the test paddles were in fairly calm river water and all felt good but the Nemo just seemed to feel the most like the Capella, so that was it - I ordered a Marlin from Kayakpro.

I ordered the carbon/Kevlar 36 lb layup in October - I didn't care that much about the weight savings, but I thought the $500 extra was worth it for stiffness and durability. Delivery was first estimated to be early December, but ended up being February. If you have to miss paddling months, missing Dec/Jan/Feb is the best way to go. The boat's yellow over white finish, the interior and all the fittings looked great. It really is purty.

The first problem was that when the boat showed up, there were no hatch covers - those were being shipped separately. So, I got out some garbage bags and rubber bands and covered the hatches and put-in on Triadelphia. Boy, is the Marlin fast compared to what I had been paddling - I am back to being the limiting factor in speed, vs. the boat. Doing a loop where I would push to average 5.2 mph in the Capella became an effortless 5.8 mph average in the Marlin. In sprinting, I still haven't hit the point where the boat just won't go faster, I always give out first. Plus, what a difference carrying a 40 lb kayak instead of a 65 lb kayak!

The hatch covers came in a few days later and I ran into the next problem - the small round front hatch cover was a tight fit and when I tried to push it on, the plastic hatch rim immediately separated from the kayak shell. A gentle tug on the large rear oval hatch rim caused that one to come off, too. Phone calls to KayakPro resulted in them sending marine epoxy and me scraping off the old adhesive, scoring the hatch rims and clamping and gluing them back on - a royal pain in the neck, especially on the large, oval rear hatch. But once that was done, I was back on the reservoir having a great time.

The next problem occurred when I finally got out on some textured water, a 20 mile paddle down the Patuxent River. The paddle started out with slight following winds but we hit a section where 1-2 foot (more 1 foot than 2 foot) confused seas started hitting us broadside and I immediately felt squirrelly and bloop - had an unintended swimming event. To someone who paddles racing kayaks, the Marlin probably feels like paddling a canoe. For me (who gets very little time on rougher water and has zero native balancing skill), the stability profile of the KayakPro is very different from the Capella - much less initial stability but probably stronger secondary.

Since then I've had a little bit of time in slightly rougher water and I'm starting to feel much more confident in the Marlin. Even I can tell that for a fast boat it is very stable - in both dimensions (speed and stability) the paddler is the limiting factor. By taking advantage of the adjustable seat and footpedal positioning, I was able to move my position forward which seemed to help stability quite a bit for me.

One last problem occurred when the rudder assembly fell off during a paddle on Triadelphia Reservoir. Turns out the threaded stud that the rudder pivots on had never been fully threaded into the rudder assembly and it had wobbled and stripped the lower threads. Some help from KayakPro and multiple Nemo owner Cyndi J. helped me get it re-installed and KayakPro is sending replacement parts.

Those are the only negatives I've experienced. Paddling the Marlin is a lot of fun. It has enough sea kayak features (two hatches, decent deck rigging) to be reliable for fast day touring. It is fast enough to be competitive in the fast touring categories in races. The rudder system with the gas pedal type controls makes steering and correcting  a snap, while still providing firm support for leg pushing. I really like the seat - it doesn't have any back support, but every back rest I've used in a kayak has just ended up chafing my back and I don't miss it at all. I have plenty of padding on my rear end, but others might want to add a pad.

I've now had the KayakPro Marlin for about 6 months and probably have about 250 miles in it. Summary review:

• Fit and finish -the hull and shell are great, very professional job. I find the seat very comfortable and I like the adjustability with one negative - the track that accepts the sliding seat bolt has a cutout just about where my optimum position wants to be. I guess the cutout is to make it easier to drop the bolt in vs. having to slide it in at the end of the track, but it does limit positioning choices. The rudder can not be raised or lowered from the cockpit, not an issue for racing but I'd rather be able to launch and land with the rudder up and you really can't do that with the Marlin unless someone is there to help you.
• Workmanship -with the hatch rims and rudder falling off, obviously KayakPro has some process and quality assurance issues to work through. Their support has been great in dealing with the problems. I would also like them to include a manual or at least information on how to adjust the rudder and pedal control system since neither is intuitively obvious. The front hatch stays dry as a bone but I do get a few spoonfuls of water in the rear hatch, most likely due to my amateur job of clamping and re-gluing the large oval rear hatch rim back on.
• Speed -top of the line for a sea kayak/racer hybrid. In the recent Broadkill 10 mile race I went from 1 hour 40 minutes killing myself in the Capella in 2007 to 1 hour 29 minutes in the Marlin paddling hard but less effort in 2008, under nearly identical water conditions.
• Stability -I underestimated the difference between more stable, harder chined boats and a faster more rounded hull. As I've gotten more time in the Marlin I can see I'm the problem, not the boat. Anyone with decent roughwater skills will consider it very stable.
• Tracking, maneuverability - at just under 18 feet long with a very sharp, nearly vertical bow, the Marlin isn't nimble. The rudder system works great, edging really makes it turn but it is really a boat mainly designed to go forward. Without the rudder it does weathercock a bit more than the Capella but not all that much. With the rudder down, not an issue of course.  It plows through oncoming waves really well and seems much easier to control on following seas than the Capella.
• Durability - I was concerned to move away from a plastic boat, since I'm not real gentle on bikes or boats. The Marlin has come  away with the usual hull scratches but, with a decent amount of knocking around and no real babying, there have been no gouges or cracks or warps or anything.

Bottom line - I'm never going to be someone who has 5 or 6 kayaks, so the Marlin turned out to be exactly what I wanted: a boat fast enough to make me be the limiting factor in fitness training and local races but also fun and usable for touring day trips. If I really wanted to go deep in either racing or multi-day touring I'd pick a different more specialized boat. However, for doing my usual training paddles, local races and local day tours like Wye Island or the Eastern Neck, the Marlin is fast and fun (and easy to carry) all at the same time. 

Race Report: Broadkill 2008

or for you Tblisians: Tboned on the Tbroadkill, Terrific Tailwind to Tchase Tcyndi

The Broadkill race in 2007 was just about my favorite of all last year, so I was psyched to do it again this year. Things did not bode well, however - I put the Marlin in at Triadelphia on the Thursday before the race to get in a little training and make sure the boat was all set, and about a mile in the rudder fell off, kersploosh. Looks like the threaded stud that inserts into the hull fitting to allow the rudder to pivot had never been fully threaded into the rudder assembly, and all the wobbling stripped the threads. Some email to Gray at KayakPro, and to Cyndi who owns scads of Nemo's (the Marlin's skinnier, flashier little sister), clued me in on how to re-install the rudder until KayakPro could send some replacement parts, and I was all set -  assuming the rudder would stay on for the curvy 9.6 miles of the Broadkill race...

Charlie and I planned to meet at 0830 at Milton to leave one of our vehicles there for a shuttle back to the race start, so after the traditional 7-11 coffee and a muffin, I was on the Bay Bridge by about 0700 looking west at some big old clouds. The weather bookies had predicted a hot humid day, but it turned out to be cool and overcast, with a tailwind and an incoming tide - you really couldn't ask for better kayak race weather.

As I drove east through Delaware, the signs of our August drought were obvious: corn fields that were irrigated were green as could be, those without irrigation were completely brown. Farming sure is a tough business. I pulled into beautiful downtown Milton a bit early, but Charlie was already there, applying a mysterious speed enhancing wax to the hull of his skinny hand-built wooden 20 footer. We transferred my boat and stuff to Charlie's Scion and were off to the start.

The rainbow regatta of recreational kayaks was out in full force at the start at Oyster Rocks, but many of the usual racers weren't there. According to her evil twin Pattie, Ladyjustice Susan was taking the easy way out and doing some downriver race in Pennsylvania. Stephen had family obligations and Brian was a no-show, as well. Holm and Melissa were there with their pool cue-width boats. I did see Vince and Jeff and many of the others from last year and this year's Nanticoke race.

Much like last year, the tide was just switching from dead low to incoming, so we would have a nice current helping us go upstream. As we all put in ahead of the start, the current was impressive - you had to backpaddle pretty vigorously to stay in one spot. After getting banged around at the mass start at the Nanticoke race, I decided to stay at the back until the actual start and try to avoid some of the carnage. That worked pretty well - for about 15 seconds. Then as I tried to sprint through an opening, a guy in a blue kayak lost control and turned left right into me, knocking me sideways into the path of some other kayaks and we all came to a dead halt. Once I got out of that, I headed to the side and sprinted around the big blob of boats and got into clearer water. Now I know - stay on the side at the start, stay out of the middle.

I quickly caught up to a pod consisting of Jeff, Vince and the guy in the black Epic who I beat by a few seconds in the Nanticoke race. The Epic guy was still doing the "cut the corners of the curves" approach, which at low tide guarantees a lot of suckwater paddling, so I passed him by. Jeff and I chatted for a bit and he commented that my rudder was waggling back and forth - uh oh. But then I realized this was just a bad habit I have of leaving my toes on the rudder pedals while I try to push with my legs. I corrected that and Jeff said no more waggle and I gradually pulled ahead as we continued around the snaky turns on the Broadkill.

Holm and Melissa and all the toothpick boat racers were long gone and Charlie disappeared from view quickly, too - it must be that mystery wax, or perhaps the fact that he is very fast. A few hundred feet up ahead I could see Cyndi in her blazing orange Nemo. Since the Nemo and the Marlin have the same hull, essentially all the difference in our speeds would be due to differences in the paddler. I have advantages in being bigger and stronger, a much faster typist, and pure of heart. Cyndi has advantages in being younger, a much, much better paddler, and sneakier. Turns out that much better/sneakier paddler stuff wins out every time.

I decided I would just try to maintain the same gap behind Cyndi until we hit the Rt. 1 bridge that was the halfway mark. Then, with 4.8 miles remaining I would start trying to close the gap. Just before the bridge there was a water police boat idling along and I told them they needed to stop Cyndi to inspect her boat because she was probably carrying prohibited substances but they said nothing was prohibited in the Peoples Republic of Delaware. Dave Biss was cheering us on at the bridge and I accused him of installing a trolling motor in Cyndi's Nemo but he managed to deny it with a straight face.

I can't stand paddling with the Camelbak mouthpiece in my mouth, and I've never figured out to get it to stay close enough to my mouth to easily grab while paddling, so every 14 minutes (arbitrarily chosen because 14 minutes into the race I realized I should drink something) I had to stop paddling and get the stupid thing in my mouth. That's another thing to work on for next season. I noticed Jeff Pringle had a Stevie Wonder harmonica holder around his neck holding the Camelbak sippy straw - maybe I'll look into that. 

One nice thing about following that far behind was that I could use Cyndi to decode the turns in the river, since it isn't always obvious when you are looking ahead at water level. I tried to shave a bit off of her line each time when she seemed to go a bit too wide, but I didn't want to get stuck in the shallows. After the bridge there was a junction in the river where the volunteer water barge was and Cyndi headed the wrong way - aha, I had a chance. But the water guy told her she was going the wrong way and she quickly corrected, so I only gained a few yards on her. I yelled at the water guy that he wasn't getting the $20 I had promised.

As an experiment, I tried to synchronize my stroke with Cyndi's and found that her cadence was about 10% higher than mine, even though she has definitely moved away from Energizer Bunny mode. I tried to pick up my rate to match hers, but I would always slip back to my natural, slower rate. So, I decided that whenever she went out of site around a curve I would dig in and sprint, really going for the wood-chopping, stab the water mode. When I came around the curve and she was back in sight, I would go back to normal paddling so she wouldn't increase her rate. This seemed pretty sneaky to me, but of course Cyndi is much sneakier - and was already doing exactly the same thing. Every time she came back into sight, I'd find I hadn't gained much - in fact, it looked like I was gaining more when she was in full view and losing time when I was "sprinting", or what impartial observers would more commonly call "thrashing".

I was just starting to realize that my strategy wasn't working when I came upon a white "3/4" sign on the left bank. I looked at my GPS and we had only gone about 6.3 miles. If that was the 3/4 mark, then this was only an 8.4 mile race and there was only 2.1 to go. Since I had forgotten to start my GPS the year before, I wasn't sure how long the race was but I thought it was 9.6 miles, meaning there were really 3.3 miles to go. I decided to ignore the "3/4" sign, mainly because I just didn't feel like pushing for the finish yet. Turns out I made the right choice -  a lot of people commented on how long the last 1/4 of the race felt.

Towards the end, the river gets narrower and more scenic, and Cyndi began to get really tricky. I whammed into something and it turned out to be a dead horseshoe crab that "mysteriously" appeared right in my path. When the odometer said there was 1 mile to go, I tried to go to full time water stabbing mode and after a few minutes of seeing the speedometer go higher, I whammed the paddle into something in the middle of the river. I think it was a turtle that "mysteriously" appeared in my way, as well. Crabs and turtles under the command of Captain Nemo, perhaps???

I finished in a little bit over 1:29, a minute or or so behind Cyndi and an 11 minute improvement in my time from last year when I paddled the Capella. That matches what I've seen so far - the new boat all by itself took about a minute per mile off my time. Improvement from there requires my paddling to improve. Looks like my heart stayed in a pretty narrow band, averaging 158 with a max of 168. That's a good deal lower than the Nanticoke race, but there wasn't as much current assist in that race and I was actually racing someone nearby for most of that race and pushed harder. You can see dips in the heart rate every couple of miles where I stopped paddling to sip at the Camelbak.

At the finish we all enjoyed the phenomenal weather and chatted about boating stuff. Charlie and I shuttled back to the start and I headed home - just in time to get trapped in a backup due to an accident shutting down Rt. 50 in both directions at the Severn River bridge, big sigh. Another fun race at Broadkill, and some goals for next year: shave a few seconds off by avoiding demolition derby at the start, and shave a whole bunch more off by getting my paddling power up. The Google-tronic map of the race below and the Garmin summary here:

Let The Sun Shine In, or The Kayaking Halo Effect

This was kayaking on the Potomac earlier this summer. I appear to have either stolen the halo that usually appears around Carole's head, or I was actively targeted by a sniper at the time.

Maybe Air Quality Around Here Isn't So Bad After All

From today's Washington Post - and this on a day where the Beijing officials call air quality "good." Someone smack me the next time I complain about the air quality in the DC area.

Wimpy Whitewater, Canal Cruising

For some reason, back in 1930 a National Geographic writer described Maryland as "America in Miniature." I guess this is because of the topographic diversity, with oceans, estuaries, mountains - even a small desert zone. It certainly isn't because Maryland's state sport (jousting), state sport (lacrosse), state crustacean (blue crab) or state dinosaur (astrodon johnstoni) are all that common across the United States. From a kayaking perspective, the nickname rings true as within an hours drive you can do whitewater, flatwater, bay and ocean kayaking. In particular, the Potomac River and the C&O Canal travel side by side for 184 miles in Maryland, creating some interesting paddling loop opportunities.

 

Carole and I did a 5 mile paddling loop with our friends Bunny and Jerry, putting in at Violet's Lock onto the Potomac River, heading downriver and then exiting the Potomac at Pennyfield Lock and paddling back up the C&O Canal for the return. Violet's Lock isn't a real elegant put-in spot, you have to carry the boats down a rocky narrow path and, at the current low water levels,  put in on some rocks on a small creek that feeds the Potomac.

The Potomac from Violet's Lock downstream for a mile or so is strewn with rocks and small islands - it doesn't look like the Potomac at all. Since the water level was low, we had to experiment to find a line with enough water to go downstream. Jerry was acting as our guide, but since he hadn't done this stretch in many years and since the downstream flow meant stopping to ponder wasn't possible, and Carole (who has very little whitewater experience) got to bang into some rocks and traverse several ripples. We basically all randomly paddled through different spots until we decided to portage across a downed tree and go over to the Virginia side of one of the many islands. From there, we shot through a few Class 1s and a lot of riffles, feeling like real whitewater paddlers, and passed many herons and fishermen along the way.

After about a mile of that, we reached the flatwater section and headed over to the Maryland side. This was pretty much stillwater paddling but very scenic, with the requisite herons guarding the shore every 1/8th of a mile or so. One danger on this loop is missing the Pennyfield take out spot, as the Maryland shore pretty much looks the same no matter where you are. If you miss Pennyfield, you can take out at Swain's Lock a few miles downstream, after that it is Great Falls. We saw some canoes coming out of a stream on the Maryland side and suspected we were near Pennyfield, so a bit downstream I asked some fly fisherman (standing in only knee-deep water in the middle of the river) and they told us that the stream was the Pennyfield put-in. So,  we paddled upstream against the raging torrent and turned into the small stream. Very cool - we ran into a Potomac Paddlesports class practicing right next to the aqueduct bridge that takes the stream under the canal and towpath - they all had Perception Daggers just like Carole's, which was no surprise since we bought her's used from them.

The canal is shallow and weed-choked for most of the section between Pennyfield and Violet's Lock, but at least it wasn't covered with green scum - it sort of felt like what I imagine paddling through kelp beds on the West Coast must be like. Albeit in water that is only 2 feet deep and 20 feet wide.

 

There were a couple of blow-downs across the canal, but someone had come along with a saw and strategically removed enough limbs to open up a path through. With some bobbing and weaving we made our way back up to Pennyfield, seeing lots of turtles along the way. Probably about a 5 mile round trip, nothing very strenuous, but a nice way to enjoy a great day out on the water with friends.

Googletronic map of the route: 

Sweating in Seaford, Sabotaging Susan, Sudsy Shower Scene

As that great philosopher, Roseanne Roseannadanna said "Its always something." Between dealing with trees falling on my house and work travel, I haven't spent a lot of time on the water this year. It figures - I eagerly await a brand new boat all winter and when it finally gets here, just not enough time to get out on it. I think last year by this time I had done two or three Wye Island paddles, this year not one.

So, the original goal this year was to do the Blackburn race in Massachusetts, but I haven't spent enough time in rougher water in the Marlin to be ready for that. That same weekend is the Nanticoke River Challenge in Seaford, DE - a 7.5 mile flatwater race that I have never done before. Since my local training paddle is 8 miles on Rocky Gorge reservoir, the distance was about right, too. Off to Seaford I went.

Mapquest said it was a 105 mile trip, so I had the Marlin and associated paddling paraphernalia on the truck and was on my way by 0700. After the traditional stop for the pre-race 7-11 coffee and a muffin, I was going over the Bay Bridge by 0800 on what looked to be a hot and sunny day with minimal breeze. I hit just a smidgen of Rt. 13 traffic just north of Seaford, as all those Delaware and New Jersey people were heading to the Maryland beaches, while the MD people were heading to the DE and NJ beaches. I guess $4 gasoline hasn't had that big of an impact yet - there were RVs galore, and of course I was doing 210 round trip miles of driving to paddle 7.5...

I pulled into the non-descript launching area and many of the usual people and boats where there. Susan Ladyjustice and friend were doing a tandem racing kayak, looking like Satanic Doublemint twins in their matching red outfits. Jeff Pringle (or what is left of him, anyway - he has apparently been making "healthy choices one day at a time" and is now positively waif-like) was there in his maroon Millennium and we bemoaned the fact that we wouldn't be repeating our close race from last year's Broadkill since I had moved up to a faster boat. Holm and Melissa Schmidt were also there - they have completed the move from South Carolina and are now living in Pennsylvania in a town that I guess was founded by aging liberals - Lake Mock-on-Nixon.

A number of other familiar faces were there with impossibly narrow racing boats, along with a lot of sea kayaks and vac-u-form rec boats. One thing that is unique about this race is that it seems to attract a large number of much older paddlers - many of whom seem to believe cigarette smoking is part of of a good paddling training regime. One guy was very proud that this would be the first year where he didn't actually smoke during the race - he would normally go through half a pack of cigarettes as he paddled along.

The put-in is only about 10 feet wide so there was a logjam to get out on the water but with a minimum of fuss we all got over to the starting line, where there was plenty of fuss. The tide was going out, and the river is not very wide at that point, so there there was a decent current. Twenty five or so boats jammed together trying to stay in place was not a pretty sight. After a few minutes of back paddling and boat bumping, we all finally grumbled at the starting guy "Just say go already!" and he did - which lead to a lot more boat bumping and wild thrashing about. Once the spray cleared and I avoided some of the wildly swerving rec boats, Holm was already almost out of sight.

The Nanticoke is a very twisty and scenic river, edged by lily pads and houses. On this section it is rarely even 100 feet wide, usually less than 50, and there is rarely more than a few hundred yards that is straight. I just started paddling at what felt like a reasonable pace and a pod of four boats formed: two women in a racing canoe, Susan and friend in the racing tandem kayak, a guy in an Epic and me. I figured they all had done this race before and knew the river, so I stayed behind to see what lines they would take around the bends in the Nanticoke. Or maybe I was just hypnotized by the syncopated paddling of Susan and partner in their matching red striped tops and red hats.

In any event, everyone took different approaches. The canoe women seemed to take each turn differently but they were so fast they pulled away. The guy in the Epic hugged every inner shore, just about scraping the lily pads. The Syncopated Satanettes seemed to swing wide on most turns as if looking for deep water. So, I did what I usually do and just generally stayed in the middle of the river - I'm really not much for tactics. I had worn my Garmin Forerunner and heart rate monitor to gauge how hard I could push it but as I looked down I noticed in the thrashing and splashing at the start I hadn't turned it on and once I did the display mode was such that the heart rate display was microscopic and even with my fancy new glasses I couldn't see it anyway.

It was hot out, but after the first 10 minutes or so I got in rhythm and felt pretty comfortable. The guy in the Epic asked me what race class I was in, so I thought "aha, he is racing me" so I decided that would be the race within in the race for me. There are something like 24 different categories, I actually had no idea what class I was in - maybe "name ends in a vowel, can't ever figure out how to use a Camelbak, under 55"? As the river narrowed, he pulled in front of the Doublemint Devilettes and I drafted them for a bit, then tried getting on their wake like we had practiced at Lake Anna, but a couple of skinny women in a skinny racing kayak didn't seem to have any wake that I could notice.

Holm and the faster boats came by on the return, so I knew we were getting close to the turn-around. Susan's paddling partner suggested I sprint around them or else I would have to wait out their slow, barge-like buoy turn. I replied "you are making a big assumption about what my buoy turn looks like" but I sped up and got in front of them (sort of, anyway) just as the guy in the Epic started back paddling to make the turn around the buoy (well, inner tube.) I had to swing wide, and proceeded to cut across Susan's bow and force them to turn directly into the shallow water. Now, I didn't realize at the time that I had done that but when I told this to Jeff Pringle at the finish he offered to pay me $20 for having done so. If they were giving out scores on the buoy turn, even if I had bribed the Italian judge she wouldn't have given me higher than a 1.3.

On the way back I followed behind the guy in the Epic and he kept turning his head to see where I was. I kept working on my stroke, often times even getting two out of the five parts to be halfway decent for a few strokes in a row. With about 2 miles to go I was still feeling pretty strong, so I decided to focus on the "axe chopping" part of the stroke - really stabbing down and getting a good catch and a power stroke, and stop trying to think about hand height and elbow lift and foot push and torso twist and frammis angle. I passed the Epic guy and even increased my stroke rate for a while to get some distance. I could see the canoe women up ahead but never really closed the gap with them. The return trip was against the current and much more slog-like.

I figured the Epic guy was drafting me but I never looked around. I figured that if I was the one behind, I would start to surge when we came under the Rt. 13 bridge with less than 1/2 mile to go - so I stepped up the pace before the bridge. Then once I could see the dock where the finish line was I just gave it everything I had and just did my version of sprinting, which lead those watching from the shore to think a bee's nest had fallen into my boat. Holm and Melissa were paddling around after finishing and they started cheering me on: Holm "Go, you get this guy." Melissa: "Great job of sweating profusely, John!"

I finished about 15 or 20 seconds ahead of him, I think in something like 1:21 - I never did hear a time. The town had a firetruck spraying water up in the air onto the river, so I headed through that to cool off - until I realized that high pressure water sprayed up comes down really hard and really fast - it was like getting slapped in the head with a mop. I got out of the water, put the boat away, apologized to the Titian Twin Terrors for cutting them off at the turn around, and chatted for a bit. The awards ceremony wouldn't be for several hours, and the real world awaited, so I stopped by Susan's van to say goodbye and I walked into a scene right out of the movie "Wild Things": Susan had set up her camper's shower, basically a plastic bag full of water that heats up in the sun. Susan and the two canoe women were standing under it, soaping each other up. All they needed were prison outfits and it would have been every guy's fantasy. They were all fully clothed, by hot weather kayaking standards anyway, so it was sort of the PG version but a nice exit note to go out on. With that vision in my head, I hopped in the truck and headed for the inevitable Bay Bridge slowdown on the way home.

When I got back and looked at the heart rate data, I was pretty surprised to see how high my heart rate was during the race. I'm usually in the high 150's in these races, but it looks like I averaged 172, though that is high because I didn't have it on for the first .25 mile of the race. It wasn't until the last mile or so that I really felt like I was pushing it.

All in all, a fun race on a nice scenic river, very well organized by nice people. Googleicious map of the race course below.

Memorable Memorial Day Mileage

I've never been a big "let's go drive somewhere over the three-day holiday weekend" kinda guy, and with gas at $4 per gallon, a stay-at-home Memorial day weekend sure makes a lot more sense anyway. The weather gods smiled on the Baltimore-Washington area for the holiday, with blue skies, temperatures in the 70s and not a drop of rain in sight.  The movie gods also cooperated, with some good opening night opportunities for evening activities.

I started the weekend with a hilly 32 mile bike ride through Montgomery and Howard counties, stopping at the new "House of Flavors" in Highland for an expensive coffee and a bagel. I did the Haviland Mill hill both ways for my first granny gear test of the year - I could do the hills in 3rd gear, so I'm starting out the bicycling year a little bit ahead of last year anyway. Though, 7 miles an hour isn't much faster than 5 mph. This route passes by about 7 different coffee shops (only one of them a Starbucks) so some day I will map out a tour de java where every 7 miles or so you get another jolt of caffeine.

I followed that up with an 8 mile kayak training run on Rocky Gorge Reservoir, where I concentrated on trying to do every stroke the right way. Lots of herons and turtles out, and the one bald eagle, to watch me as I tried to keep both hands high, both upper arms bent, both hips rotating, both lower arms straight, both paddles fully in the water - oh, and sit up, and forcibly stab the paddle in the water, too. I made some progress - without really trying to push it, I got my standard time of 1:28 (5.5 mph average) down to 1:24 (5.8 mph). Maybe I will make some progress in doing less thrashing and more actual boat propulsion. That put me in a good frame of mind as Carole and I joined some friends to go see the new "Indiana Jones" movie (many thumbs up if your thumbs like Indiana Jones movies, which they probably do) and a really good dinner at the Aida Bistro in Columbia (many tongues up if you are one of those who eat.)

Sunday morning was the standard "bicycle with Carl" day and we decided to check on the Gwynns Fall Trail which had opened a new segment from the Park and Ride lot at I70 and the Baltimore Beltway. This is a very odd trail, mixing in new paved segments along the river with riding on abandoned roads with riding on dirt paths through the woods with riding on open heavily trafficked streets through urban Baltimore. It goes all the way down to the Inner Harbor, but we only did the northern, more rural part. The new northernmost section includes several switchbacks and lots of brand new landscaping - it will be a good looking trail section when that all matures.  About 5 miles in some fire trucks up on the road were spraying their fire hoses over the trail into the river, for some reason - this created a mini-waterfall that had us puzzled for  bit, but they stopped spraying as we sat there deciding what to do.

We went as far south as Carroll Park, home of the Mt. Clare mansion that dates from 1760. The Gwynns Falls route beyond that is basically mostly on streets, except for a few sections of paved path that get you under the Baltimore Beltway. It is a fun way to bike into Baltimore's Inner Harbor, if you are so inclined, but it ain't scenic - nice view of the Greyhound bus station, though. On the way back, we detoured to do the abandoned road section to beeyootiful Dickeysville, MD - a town that seems to have been isolated in time and remained unchanged for 100 years. Even though there is a tree down across the trail, it is well worth the 2 mile detour. We then headed back north and chugged back up those new switchbacks, for a ride total just shy of 20 miles. You can stretch this out to about 35 miles round trip if you go all the way to the southern end.

Later that night, Carole and I (along with Jim and Jacquie) did another dinner and a movie night, seeing "Son of Rambow", a weird British movie. Half a thumb up, if you like oddball movies with lots of kid actors with British accents using all kinds of British slang as they do all kinds of things you hope your kids never do.

The next day it was back to paddling. Jerry and Marie had mapped out a paddle on the Monocacy River, starting at a launch ramp north of Frederick, MD (essentially in the parking lot of a WalMart!) and ending at at Pinecliff Park, 6.7 miles downstream. With all the rain we've had in May, the river flow was about 50% above normal which gave us a nice downstream assist. We saw lots of herons and other birds, and one river otter - a first for most of us. The river is largely isolated from development, but you do go past the discharges from a few water treatment plants and you get to experience that nice minty fresh smell. At this water level you hit a few small rapids, probably Class I at best, which added a bit of fun. I lead the way through many of them and cleverly lead Carole and me to run aground at one point after passing under a bridge. However, we quickly moved on and enjoyed a nice float, er paddle down the river. A quick (but huge) bite to eat at the breakfast buffet at the Four Seasons in Mt. Airy, and a quick viewing of the fancy bicycles at the Mt. Airy Bicycles shop and a very nice Memorial Day weekend drew to a close.

The Googlefied map of the paddle:

More Paddle Stroke Analysis

This series of pictures are captures from a video taken at Lake Anna during the race training days and show Brian (grey shirt), Holm (blue shirt) and me (white shirt) at similar points in a forward paddling stroke. The set of three above show us all just at the start of getting the left blade in the water. I look OK compared to Holm, but I think he has actual torso rotation to the right, so his paddle angle is higher and the blade is going in closer to the boat. I think I'm also leaning a bit too far forward and not sitting upgright enough, plus my shoulder looks higher with my forearm less vertical than Holm's. Brian looks like he has rotated around but compared to Holm, his hand is way higher - above his head. I think Brian is just a split-second earlier in the stroke, as his paddle is less in the water than Holms, so that explains most of the difference.

The pictures below show the end of that stroke, with the three paddlers just at the point where we are taking our paddles out of the water on the left. Here the differences are much more noticeable - Holm and Brian have rotated so much to the left that their right paddle blades are completely clear of the left side of the boats and the paddle shafts are almost parallel to their boats. My right paddle blade is still over the center of my boat - you can see I only have shoulder rotation (not torso) and no way to get the paddle entirely to the left of the kayak. I think a lot of this is due to the fact that I'm still in "sea kayaker" position with my thighs locked in under the thigh braces (vs. in knees up position) but so was Brian - his knee injury meant he wasn't really able to push with his feet to get better rotation either. I just have to focus on using abs/obliques to twist and not just shoulder/lats. More to work on - its always something.