The Run of the Charles may primarily be a punishing battle for those who want to test their mettle against 19 miles of portages, rudder-tearing shallows, and the endless meanderings of the river, but don’t tell that to the 27 paddlers who instead opted for a painless 6.1 mile surfski jaunt. Seriously, don’t. We can get pretty defensive about our gutless life choices. The race would take place under blue skies, with mild temperatures and a breeze I’d characterize as “light to friggin’ annoying” (depending on when exactly you asked).
With the unfortunate cancellation of the Shark Bite Challenge a couple of weeks back, this would be our first chance to see how some of the northeast’s heaviest hitters weathered the off-season. Defending SurfskiRacing point series champion Jan Lupinski was joined by formidable Jersey denizens Eric Costanzo, Matt Nunnally, and Craig Impens (don’t worry folks, they all cleared quarantine first). It was going to be a tough day. Hearing that Jesse Lishchuk was also going to be making an appearance, everyone shifted their finish expectation down a notch. This despite the fact that he’d be paddling a Think Ion – a borrowed ski whose flatwater performance positions it just a smidge to the left of Huck Finn’s raft in Wesley’s comparison chart.
For the first time ever, I’d have some unpaid spectators cheering me on – my cousins Emily and Alison, Al’s husband Matt, and their son Patrick. With the temporary exception of Patrick, all of these individuals have won national-level championships (granted, only in the fringe sports of swimming and triathlon – not in anything as prestigious as surfskis), so I was feeling particularly motivated to put on a good show. Or at the very least, to not fall out of my boat. On a side note, if there are any athletes out there looking for triathlon training – Matt’s your man.
Spring is here! Before the race, this young fella plucked the season’s first coconut from the Charles.
The course is straightforward. You head downriver under a series of bridges until you lose count. At that point – which hopefully will be after about 2.5 miles – you turn around and retrace your steps. Since you’ll be heading upwind and upstream, there will be twice as many bridges on the way back. Since you lost count on the first leg, however, it may seem like three or four times as many. You’ll attempt to hug this or that shore to tuck out of the breeze as you negotiate the sinuous Charles, but will inevitably end up hacking through a headwind the whole way. Eventually, you’ll get back to the starting line, only to find that you were mistaken – the starting line is actually another three curves ahead. This process will repeat several times, but those who fight through the hope-disappointment cycle to actually reach the starting line will be amply rewarded with some bonus racing – a quarter-mile more upstream to another turn before returning to the start/finish line.
After catching up with the other racers (a recurring theme for me), carefully choosing my paddling outfit to ensure that I would be both too cold and too hot at various points during the race, and sabotaging a few boats (not yours though), I hit the Charles for a brief warm-up. After a quick trip to see the upstream turn marker (quite frankly, not as exciting as I was led to believe), I headed to the line. A few minutes later, the starter set us off.
Mere seconds after this photo bomb from Bruce, Bill was inexplicably knocked unconscious.
As expected, Jesse blasted out to an immediate lead, a dispiriting cloud of youthful vigor billowing behind him. Rushing into the vacuum left by Jesse’s sudden departure, Chris Chappell, Craig, and Jan also got a big jump on me. Possibly one or two or six other paddlers too. I’d had some bad jostling experiences in the past heading river left while negotiating the first gentle turn, so I resolved to stay above the fray this year. I’d be close enough to shout words of blood-thirsty encouragement to the combatants, naturally, but safely out of range of blood spatter and shards of carbon fiber.
So nobody was more surprised when – some 90 seconds into the race – I found myself attempting to wrench Matt’s rudder off with a paddle while screaming to Craig that I’d eat his children. Throw an unexpected boat wake into the mix for seasoning, and we had a real pot of jambalaya boiling. In the midst of this testosterone stew, I had a sudden moment of clarity – I needed to make myself scarce before the authorities arrived and started taking names. I pulled to the right of Craig and together we fled the scene. Feeling a bit sheepish about that imagined cannibalism threat, I avoided Craig’s gaze as I threw in an interval to get by him a moment later.
Jan and Eric were directly ahead, with Jesse a good dozen boat lengths in front of them. I pulled alongside Eric’s new Mohican, attempting to calculate whether I could squeeze my 21 foot boat in the 8 foot gap that separated Jan from him. The math seemed to work out fine (and I figured I had Eric’s Hippocratic oath on my side should things threaten to get ugly over what essentially would amount to a rounding error), so I eased my V14 into the slot. Fit like OJ’s glove.
I figured the best way to get around Jan would be to get downwind of him and sneak by unnoticed. I swung to his left while trying to maintain a low profile. And I mean that literally. Check the non-threatening hunch in my video! Jan might have been momentarily confused at being passed by a surfski being paddled by a PFD, but he nevertheless managed to angle over and get on my wash. Over the next few minutes, he valiantly resisted the urge to reprimand me on my posture. In the end, however, biting his tongue for so long must have interfered with his breathing pattern. The nose of his inky Uno fell out of my periphery and I was free from the weight of his silent judgment.
I’ve received several complaints recently regarding the length of these race reports. Let me take a break from the action to address this concern. Reading this blog is like visiting a back-alley dentist. First, everyone would have a better time enduring the procedure with few snorts of nitrous oxide, but it’s been impossible to get since our forged credentials were confiscated. Second, it’s going to be that much more unpleasant if you struggle. It’s over when it’s over. None of us are professionals here, but we certainly know how to work pliers and a mallet. And finally, you should count yourself lucky if you emerge on the other side with only mild nausea and a headache. Are we clear, Mom?
Perhaps wanting to toy with his prey before dispatching him, Jesse remained within reach. In fact, over the next mile I closed the gap until – with just a few hundred meters to go before the turn back upriver – I caught him and settled warily on his tail. At the orange marker, Jesse checked my position, pivoted his stern crisply around, and then catapulted himself through the turn with an acceleration that left me wondering how he kept from being flung out of his boat by centrifugal force.
Elapsed time… 15 seconds.
That turn alone was worth the price of admission, but I wanted to see it again at the other end of the course so I kept my head down (which, as a pretty integral part to the hunch, wasn’t that hard) and set off again in pursuit. I saw Jan flash by heading towards the turn, followed a few seconds back by Eric, Matt, Craig, and Chris. Our trip downriver had mostly been with the wind, but now we’d be fighting the breeze, the current, and that ham sandwich we were forced to eat just before the start.
In an attempt to escape the headwind, I cut to the left bank, managing to maneuver ahead of Jesse in the process. For the next couple miles I would have a convenient place to set my coffee, although Think really should consider adding some bow padding to their so-called armrest.
At one point – either because I slowed or Jesse surged – I caught my paddle under the bow of his boat on my exit. Momentum kept my left hand going up while the corresponding paddle blade stayed petulantly low, finally free from the death grip I had been subjecting it to. I teetered on the edge of disaster for the briefest moment before regaining my grip and bracing myself upright. It’s a lock that I’ll go over at some point this season, but I may just make it to the ocean first.
About 5 miles into the race, I started to wonder if I might have a chance to win this thing. But then Jesse said something from behind that made my blood run cold. It wasn’t what he said (a question about the course), but the sinister tone he used. And in this context, by “sinister” I mean “conversational”. This was the composed voice of someone out for a pleasant day of puttering about on the Charles, not that of a paddler struggling desperately to hold on the draft. My labored reply consisted of a series of semi-intelligible grunts, punctuated with foaming spittle. This may have tipped my hand regarding my precarious physical state.
Approaching the upriver marker, I quickly took out my pen and notebook so that I wouldn’t miss any details from Jesse’s master class on turning technique. I was appropriately schooled. Just prior to the turn he sprinted ahead to seize inside position, then wrapped his boat around the buoy and shot off downstream – all while I was still writing the date at the top of the page. In retrospect, I should have made a move to drop Jesse well before the turn. Oh, right. I did try that a few times. Both Jesse and my GPS refused to notice those efforts.
Amazingly – not the same picture sequence as above.
Jesse now had a four boat length lead with a quarter mile left. I splashed my paddle around a lot to put on a good show for the racers still heading for the turn, but I had no power left for a sprint. Bobbing on the current, I floated through the finish to take a shame-free second. I looked up from my dry heaves just in time to see Jan take the final podium spot. Behind him, a stream of paddlers came by spaced at 10 to 30 second intervals – Eric, Matt, Craig, Chris, Tim Hudyncia, and Bruce Deltorchio.
The women’s race turned out to be particularly thrilling, as Mary Beth and Leslie Chappell dueled for the top spot in a photo-finish. Once the pair had fully exhausted Chris Sherwood’s good-natured hospitality, they exchanged leads a couple of times in the final half-mile before Leslie nipped Mary Beth at the line. Jenifer Kreamer took third shortly after. An enthusiastic young videographer with real promise captured the waning second of the women’s race…
The post-race cookout is an essential component of the Run of the Charles. Even though I had heard that Bob Capellini would be missing the race, there’s a big difference between knowing his pulled pork wouldn’t be available and actually experiencing the devastating loss. Between sobs, we consoled ourselves by sharing stories of sandwiches past. Tim H tried to step up by passing out samples of the playfully named jackfruit. I’ve known Tim long enough to be wary of his edible treats. I was blind for a week after eating one of his ginger candies, and that was probably the most benign reaction I’ve had after trying one of his snacks. Tim does most of his shopping at the kind of market where you also might chance across a Mogwai or a monkey’s paw in a forgotten corner. So it was with some surprise that I found the jackfruit quite tasty, albeit with the mushy-stringy texture of a rotten pumpkin. Feeling emboldened (and forgetting all past lessons), I also tried the roasted seeds. The doctor said that the facial numbness will go away in a few weeks, but doubted that my toenails would grow back.
The hard-working paddlers of ROTC 2016. I have no idea how Timmy got in the picture.
For those of you concerned about how far Mary Beth and I have to drive to races (almost 45 minutes for this one!), you can put your minds at rest – at least for the time being. In 30 or 40 years, the Essex River Race will likely begin in our driveway, but for now we’ll endure the 5 minute drive without complaining too much. I was hoping to enter as the hometown favorite, but Mary Beth assures me that I’m nobody’s first choice. Yeah, but… free beer at our house after the race!
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