My First Blackburn by Reid Hyle – Repost from 2012

The Blackburn Challenge has been on my “to do” list of races since I began racing in a sea kayak with the Mid Atlantic Paddler’s Association in Virginia back in 2002. But even with all the racing and travelling I’ve done since then I’d not yet made the trip up to do the Blackburn. Well, this year, I decided to make my focus surf skis so I put the K1 away to train exclusively in the surfski and scheduled the US Surfski Championships, Chicago Shoreline Marathon, and the East Coast Surfski Championships. Arrangements were made easier by the Stellar sponsorship thanks to Wesley, Dave and Ed.

The East Coast got cancelled so I decided that I would replace it with The Blackburn Challenge. That suited me fine because the Blackburn is well established, open water, and something I’ve wanted to do for awhile. The northeast has a really enthusiastic paddling community and some fast people always show up for Blackburn so I knew I’d have nice scenery paddling around the cape and likely some fast company for the trip. I’d also get to visit with friends I’ve made on trips up for the Mayor’s Cup in 2009 and then the East Coast Championships in 2011. There were no disappointments on any front. I flew into Providence to stay with Wesley, borrow a Stellar SES, and drive out with him and Betsy the day before the race. After the race I got to catch up with most of the folks I’ve met in the northeast over the last few years as well as meet a few more which is a double bonus on top of it being a great race. I even got to have a couple of pieces of Betsy’s strawberry and cream pie for a bit of extra carbs.

When I registered for Blackburn I saw that a lot of people (45) were registered including Boris Markin and Dorian Wolter. That meant that it would be a good race and that there would be a lot of work to do since both beat me when we last met in 2011. I was also hoping to hang with faster paddlers long enough to turn in a really good time.

On race morning Wesley made sure we were early out to Gloucester and registration went smoothly. It was fairly cool and overcast so the weather really couldn’t have been any better for a hard effort. Boat traffic was a lot lighter than I expected from stories I’d heard and compared to what I saw on the Google Earth images. All of that was conspiring to set up for fast times. I was feeling pretty well rested too.

Pre Race Early Morning(photo Betsy Echols)

I lined up a few boats to the left of Boris for the start. I didn’t see Dorian so I don’t know where he lined up. The race started and Boris was off at a fairly hard pace. I settled on his wash for a few minutes and then took the pull when the pace dropped just a bit. It looked like we’d work together for a while in the river to separate from the field. The pace felt a little harder than I wanted to try to maintain for all 31.5 kilometers, something like a 10k race pace effort, but trading leads it was do-able. Then I noticed a black and white Epic ski paddled by someone with a white shirt and white hat sitting on the outside wash. Glickman? Dorian? Boris took the pull back after a few minutes and when I dropped back onto Boris’ wave I saw that it was Dorian over on the other side of Boris. We were pretty well separated from the main field at this point and had the group of three that I’d hoped for. The three of us traded leads/wash for the remainder of the trip out the river into the ocean. It was nice to have boats to share the work on the way out the river because we had the wind and the tide against us for that portion, not a hard wind or fast tide but just enough to make it a little extra work.

Reid in Background, Boris in Front(photo Chantal Dufour)

Once we were out in the ocean and turned northeast we had the light breeze and little waves on the beam so we stayed grouped up with nobody really making any moves but still making a better pace than in the river. Then we turned a bit more to the east past Folly Point. That put the little residual waves from the fading breeze behind us. That loosened up the pack as it was more fruitful to work with the little push from the tiny waves than to try to just grind along in a pack. As flat as it was, there was a little motion offering some help from time to time. Dorian looked like he was just cruising and I noticed after he surged a couple of times that he was making use of the little following sea and realized that I had better do the same or I was going to burn out soon. Boris picked up weeds a couple of times on his rudder. The first time he was able to regain contact with Dorian and me. The second time pulled him back for good. That left Dorian and me paddling side by side alternately surging and relaxing as the sea dictated. With a little help from waves and a light current we were making great time, much nicer pace than in the river, and it didn’t feel like I was working too hard. Dorian was chatting with the outrigger paddlers he knew as we overtook them so he was definitely having a nice cruise, maybe just biding his time. The trip from the Annisquam to Straightsmouth was very fast. We had to enjoy that because the hard work was to be the long grind back into a light head wind and head current for the remainder of the race. After Straightsmouth I was working really hard but the pace was dropping. The waves were no longer helping so we went back to sharing the duties pulling. The very light breeze was against us so it felt good but it was slowing us. There also seemed to be a bit of current against and nowhere to escape it. So we exchanged lead a few times between Milk Bar and Brace Cove sharing the drudgery of the long boring straight-away.

A bit before the 2 hour mark I got the slightest little cramps in my foot and left hand and figured I’d have a last good drink since it would probably be about 30 minutes more to go. Dorian made his move then. I was on his wash happily having my drink and he put in a solid surge. I spit out my pipe and hung on for a minute or so but he ultimately burned me off the wave. Then in the last 6km or so he held his pace while I faded back to a gap of 52 seconds. I moved in close to shore on the approach to Dog bar hoping to find a faster line and regain contact but at best I held even for a stretch. Then he really pulled away in the final few kilometers heading back into the harbor. I’d pretty much run out of gas. I drank consistently every 20 minutes or so and consumed almost 2.5 liters of drink so I wasn’t dehydrated and should have been fairly well fueled. I might have been a touch short on endurance to hang at that pace for over 2 hours or perhaps I needed to have some other supplemental feed in addition to my drink. Really Dorian was just faster on the day in general and I was likely lucky to hang as long as I did. Oh well, pretty happy with the race regardless. I wanted to break 2:30. It hadn’t been done yet by a ski but it looked possible with calm cool conditions and a fast group. With the help of Boris and Dorian I went 4.5 minutes under 2:30. It just happened that Dorian ended up almost a minute faster than that. After crossing the finish it was time to gather on the beach and talk about the race and the future races over beer and barbeque. That’s probably the best part about a good race; friends, food, and beer at the finish.