Lake Samish Race

The Lake Samish race is the 3rd last race put on by the Sound Rowers. Taking place near Bellingham, WA, the course completes most of a figure 8 around the lake for a total distance traveled of about 6 miles.

Normally the race is headquartered at a park located beside the bridge near the north end of the lake. Normally parking is atrocious. Normally the headquarters is filled to overflowing with people preparing for the race. That was not the case this morning!

After finding a choice spot and wandering around taking a few pictures I went in to register for the race. Imagine my surprise when the folks inside said that the race folks were somewhere else! Oh, no!

I hurried back to my car, left the park, found some signs pointing to the new location and sped off in pursuit.

The new location was at some sort of private camp or retreat at the far north shore of the lake. It appeared that this place was also the home to scores of 8 man rowing shells, some of which I had seen earlier out on the water and mistook for racers in the middle of warming up.

The grassy parking lots were enormous. Even so, it was quickly filling up with all sorts of vehicles that either were carrying, had been carrying or towed all sorts of boats. It appeared that a significant number of vehicles had come from Canada to swell the ranks, too.

Quickly I took the Cadence from the roof of my car, loaded it with stuff needed for the race, and wheeled it down the gravel road towards the docks.

The line for registration was long and moving very slowly. Rather than wait I chose to launch the boat and tie it up out of the way, figuring that the line would have diminished over time.

That wasn't quite how it worked. Everyone else was waiting, too, and the line only grew longer.

I helped speed things up by handing out blank forms and pens to people in line, finally getting in line myself. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the table all the race T-shirts that had been printed were gone. Boo-hoo!

Well, I didn't really need or want another shirt. My closet is stuffed with them, and nobody else at home wants them, either.

Eventually everyone was registered and the pre-race meeting commenced.

Micky Bevins, the race director, apologized for the last minute change in location. Most people present indicated to him that the extra parking, easier water access and larger rest rooms were actually an improvement over the previous location. Still, he gave his thanks to the private park proprietors for making the place available on short notice.

Micky also pointed out a difference in the course from the previous years. Instead of making a clockwise loop around the north end of the lake beyond the bridge the course now went counter clockwise and ended at the private park's dock.

The total distance, 6 miles, would be about the same.

The race would start at about 10:20 AM in the same location on the lake south of the bridge as in previous years.

After the meeting I headed over to the dock where my boat was moored.

The place was a beehive of activity. People were launching from one of the 3 docks, from the shore or getting ready to go. After taking a bunch of shots from the dock I got into the Cadence and pedaled backward from the dock, intending eventually turn around and head to the starting line.

About 100 feet from the dock the chain began slipping from the smaller cog. Uh-oh - what could this mean? Was the cog stripped somehow?

It got worse really fast as I tried to return to shore. I ended up having to use a canoe paddle I keep onboard for emergencies in order to make it to the dock.

Once there a quick look was all I needed to know that somehow I had forgotten to tighten the eccentric after working on the drive system earlier in the week. The loose eccentric didn't maintain the proper chain tension, so the chain slipped off the small cog! Rats!

Meanwhile, another racer returned to shore with a broken rudder. I lent him my Leatherman multi-purpose tool's screwdriver, ran to my car (which was parked about a block away) and retrieved a couple of tools.

It took several attempts before the eccentric was adjusted properly. During this time all the other competitors had long since gone to the starting line, which was located about a mile away.

I left the tools with the boat dolly on the shore near the dock, jumped into the Cadence, and began pedaling at high speed over the fairly smooth water towards the starting line. My watch said it was 10:20, the GPS said 7 mph and the heart rate monitor claimed a pulse of 154. I hoped to have some energy left for the race, too!

As expected, by the time I reached the starting line (10:28 AM) everyone else was long gone. There were a couple of folks on the shore to whom I waved in the vain hope that they would have an alternate starting time for me. Regardless of whatever the official results would say the GPS track would record my true performance.

I continued pedaling, and the GPS reported over 7 mph. The polishing job on the new propeller and the extra lubrication of the drive system seemed to have done the trick. The boat was going fairly fast and the effort was not overly taxing. Ok, so the heart rate was still in the middle 150's. It seemed like I could maintain the effort for quite some time.

Far off in the distance the pack could be seen. They were still spread quite widely, but slowly converged toward the southwestern side of the lake. The wind started to have more of a presence as well, coming down the length of the lake and blowing nicely into my face and helping to keep me cool. It also kicked up the water a little, with waves reaching nearly as high as a foot.

Still, I kept up the pace and drew ever closer to the pack.

Since I had missed the photo opportunities at the start of the race there was but one chance left. If I continued to follow the loop course and try to pass as many boats as possible while taking their photos I would miss the fastest ones because I'd never be able to catch them. Instead, I would cross to the far side of the lake and follow the end of the loop in the reverse direction, meeting the fastest boats down through to the slowest boats until reaching the turn buoy. Once I reached the turn buoy I'd reverse my direction and follow the course like all the other racers, covering only a little more distance in the effort.

It was time to cross the lake.

Heading across the lake resulted in a bit more water and wave action. A couple of times some spray made it over the bow and into my face. The camera's optical port needed some wiping periodically, too, in order to remove the accumulated droplets. Still, the waves weren't high enough to actually cover the deck, so I had no worries about soaking my trusty old bike shoes.

My main concern at this time was whether or not I would make it across before the fastest boats passed by. With the bright almost sunny conditions it was hard to see whether there were any small boats traveling along the far shore. I figured that as long as I couldn't see any splashing water or reflections from wet paddles that they probably were not yet there.

I continued on at nearly 7 mph.

The timing was almost perfect as I closed in on the far shore. The first boat, by quite a margin, was the four man kayak. They were practically motoring along the course, their paddles entering and leaving the water in almost perfect synchrony. A few snapshots later and I started heading backwards along the course.

Following the K-4 was a single rowing shell, and then a scattering of double racing kayaks. After the front runners came the big canoes and an assortment of other boats. That is also when I started running into camera troubles.

The Minolta DiMage A-1 digital camera is a wonderful device. It is capable of taking up to 3 full sized pictures in quick succession before it has to pause and wait while writing the first image to its compact flash memory. That means it won't acknowledge that the shutter button is pressed until there is room for another shot in the camera's buffer memory.

In my somewhat oxygen starved condition this fact didn't register for a while. All I could think of was that the #@&*^#$*& camera was taking too long to focus and take the shot - and when it did take the shot the camera was no longer pointed properly at the subject.

The fact that this occurred while doing this through the somewhat stiff vinyl glove of the waterproof case that I often have trouble pressing the shutter anyway didn't help me recognize the problem, either.

Eventually the source of the problem became clear. I just had to slow down with the shots!

While masses of boats passed I barely pedaled, other than to get out of their way or to get a better angle. Between the groups I brought the Cadence back up to speed. Eventually the last boat passed and I headed the remaining short distance to the first turn buoy.

It was time to start moving!

It appeared that most of the boats were long gone by the time I rounded the buoy and started after them. I think the Doppler effect was in full force. Traveling at a given velocity against the field one encountered a higher frequency of boats than one does when traveling at that same velocity in the direction of the boats.

This did not cause any great dismay, however. I brought my pace up to 7 mph, and the heart rate monitor indicated a pulse of about 155. The wind and sun were now at my back, so I removed my cap for extra cooling.

I set my goal at catching the last boat. Pedal!

It is good for one's spirit when you can catch and handily pass another boat in a race. It might not be so great for the other guy, but that's his problem!

I moved into second last place, snapping photos and cheering the new last place racer onward.

The next target was sighted. All ahead full!

The next boat was quickly caught and passed, as was the third boat. The third boat was a rowing shell, and appeared to be heading into a little point of land.

I yelled to him. "Zeke, you're going to hit the shore!"

He looked around and made a course correction. I pedaled next to him for a couple of seconds, paid my respects and headed on.

The next boat, the flatwater canoe, was pretty far away. I made a goal of trying to reach it by the time we were at the second buoy.

It turned out he was a bit too far ahead and managed to make the turn a few seconds before me.

I trailed off to one side behind him for a while as we headed in a northwesterly direction. The wind and chop was now to our side and was causing some problems for that tippy flatwater canoeist. He was making progress, but he certainly had to work his reflexes in keeping the boat upright!

I took a few more shots, wished him well and targeted the next boat.

Every so often on the surface of the lake some floating weeds could be seen. My speed had dropped to only 6.5 mph, so I thought that perhaps something might have gotten caught. The effort to pedal didn't seem to have changed, but to be on the safe side I decided to clean the prop.

A couple of quick pedaling reversals didn't seem to make any difference, so perhaps I was finally wearing down. Even with my pulse at 157 the GPS refused to register over 6.8 mph, so perhaps the side wind combined with the rudder correction was affecting my forward speed.

I passed several other boats on the way to the bridge. The water was more protected here and there were fewer waves off the port side.

Ahead I noticed a racer in a yellow shirt and decided that I would try to make it to the bridge at the same time. Pedal!

He saw me coming. Paddling as fast as he could he managed to make it just past the bridge before I caught up to him.

"Hi Paul! Nice day for a race!", I said. "Too bad I started 5 minutes late!"

He chuckled at that, and off I went.

Ahead and prior to the third buoy was a rower and a kayak. I rapidly dispatched the kayak, which was one of those skin on frame baidarka style boats, and targeted the rower. With luck I could pass her near the third buoy.

She made the turn just ahead of me and continued on a course more along the shore than directly towards the finish line. This was my chance!

Putting all my energy into pedaling, pushing and pulling on the cranks, the boat responded. The GPS registered 7 mph, then 7.5, and finally settled on 8 mph. Go, go, GO!

The Cadence flew over the water, leaving the rower far behind. There were no boats ahead, with the exception of those that had already finished.

My legs were working at sprinting speed, leaving no reserves behind. Could I maintain this effort to the finish?

Huff-huff-huff, pedal-pedal-pedal!

Finally, I crossed the finish line with an official time of 1:03:22. Unofficially, my time was about 58:30, and the distance I traveled was about .17 miles longer than everyone else. That would translate into about an extra 1:27 onto my time, not to mention the seconds spent floating about taking photos, nor the energy spent racing to get to the start of the event. My average pulse was 150.

With all those considerations I guess I'm just about back in shape again!

Just beyond the finish I encountered Jeff and Deb. Jeff was on Deb's rowing shell and Deb was on Jeff's HPK. Deb explained that they couldn't make up their minds before the race whether they wanted to swap boats or not. About midway through the event they called out to each other and decided to swap them right then and there.

Who says you can't have fun at these events?

After spending some time recovering and taking more photos I took the boat out of the water and headed to the car. Once there it was unloaded and put on the car.

I changed into dry clothes and went back to the registration area for some munchies, hoping some were left.

As it turned out most of the Costco muffins and drinks had been consumed. I split the last muffin with another guy, and snacked on a couple of tasty cookies and fruit juice. That would be plenty until I stopped somewhere for some real food.

Micky and Beth Bevins worked for quite a while to straighten out the timing results and organize them into the proper classes and places. As there were over 70 boats and some confusion with a few of the numbers and boat classes this took quite some time to complete. Still, it gave everyone a reason to stick around and talk to each other, and I had a few conversations with folks I had not seen it quite a while. The random appearance of the sun from time to time helped to keep things at a moderately reasonable temperature.

At last the awards were meted out. 74 boats competed, and the guy with the broken rudder (#75) chose to not start. The fastest boat this year was the K-4, with a time of 38:26 for the nearly 6 mile long course. The fastest single racer was a rowing shell with the time of 42:16. The slowest was a sea kayak with a time 1:14:45. With my late start I officially ended up in 64th place overall.

In closing Micky announced that this was the 14th and last year he and his wife Beth would be running the race. Duncan Howat and another person said that they would take over the reins and continue running the race in 2006. Thanks, Micky, Beth and Duncan!

After the awards ceremony a group of racers descended on Mallard Ice Cream Shop in downtown Bellingham for some organic soup and chili, home made ice cream and fruit ices - not to mention some excellent conversations!

Next week: Medina-Mercer!