Medina-Mercer Race

The Medina-Mercer race was held on Saturday, Oct. 7. The morning was rather chilly, with the temperature around 47 degrees F when I left the house at 8:30 AM, and reaching no higher than the upper 50's as the day progressed.

There was no wind, however, which kept things reasonable and the waters of Lake Washington nearly mirror flat.

Surprisingly enough there were still a couple of choice parking spots directly adjacent to Medina Beach Park. Folks probably got burned in years past trying to find empty spots there and suffered when they tried to turn around in the tiny cul-de-sac at the end of the road with long boats on top of their cars. Oh, well.

There were quite a few new racers registered at this race. Most were in various sorts of kayaks, but a couple of new rowers were there, too. As usual I was the only pedal boater present. Apparently none of the other pedal boaters in the area are interested in racing - at least with these folks!

Adrian Storb ran the pre-race meeting. The courses had not changed from previous years. The short 6 mile course and the long 14 mile course both had the same start and finish. The short course turned back after passing one of the sets of four pillars supporting the I-90 freeway bridge from Bellevue to Mercer Island. The long course continued onward, circumnavigating the island before returning.

After the race would be a variety of freshly grilled hot dogs, bratwurst, knockwurst and other sausages. After all, the was the Medina-Mercer Sausage Pull!

The water was rather chilly as I launched my Cadence. There was no dock, so one had to wade into the water a bit in order to get into the boat without it grinding into the sand and stones. Brrr!

I pedaled backward for 50 feet or so with my hands in order to free up some beach space while I then attended to drying my feet and putting on my bike shoes. That was much better!

The new rudder, which was merely the old rudder used at the Lake Samish race the previous weekend but with a chunk of it nearest the hull removed, seemed to maneuver fairly well. There was still a pull to the port side, but it seemed to be not quite as strong. I guess the best solution is to make it extend a couple more inches into the prop wash in order to balance the thrust.

After a few loops among the other competitors, taking photos whenever possible, the 5 minute warning signal was heard. Even though the early sunny skies had given way to a fairly thick overcast I was getting pretty warm. Off went the windbreaker, which was then stowed beside the emergency canoe paddle. I was now wearing bike shorts, long sleeved nylon shirt, lightweight long sleeved wicking shirt, socks, shoes, PFD and my trusty Sound Rowers baseball-style cap. That would be plenty!

The starting signal was heard and off we went!

As usual, the surfskis and other HPK's were among the first off the line, with the rowers not far behind. Most of the rowers soon overtook the paddlers and gradually headed off into the distance. Of course, there were a couple of strong paddlers who kept up with the faster rowers, such as Joost Zeegers in his custom Z-1 boat, but most of the rest were more or less grouped behind.

The GPS reported speeds in the 7 to 8 mph range as I headed towards the I-90 bridge. This was not going to be a sustainable pace for 14 miles, so I dropped down a bit after deciding I couldn't quite catch the OC-2 being paddled by Bela Kovacs and Steve Bennett. Rats! They could have given me a "free" ride all around the island, too, if only I could have caught their wake. Oh, well. Taking photos does have its downside if one is also trying to race.

I caught a white surfski paddled by a guy in a red shirt. He was going about the same pace, so I asked him if he was doing the long or the short course. "Long", he replied. With that I decided to trail behind until the bridge, figuring that I could save a bit of energy and then dash off for photos of the returning short course racers.

That didn't last long. There were some very fast boats in the short race, so I split off and tried to snap a few photos. I also managed to get some shots of a rower who put in at a nearby private beach, apparently to fix his riggers. Since a safety boat went to investigate I decided to continue onward.

Shane Baker in his green OC-1 was traveling nearby as I passed under the bridge. It appeared that he was also going the same pace as the white surfski and, as it turned out, a guy in a gorgeous laminated wood kayak. However, between having to clear my propeller of a small weed infestation a couple of times and taking still more photos, I managed to drop behind a couple of hundred feet. I managed to keep ahead of Shane through most of this, eventually passing the guy in the white surfski.

A light southerly breeze started up, helping to cool me off. It was going to be a tailwind on the other side, though. Rats!

The guy in the wooden kayak was now several hundred yards ahead by the time I reached the south end of Mercer Island. The pack of faster boats, including the OC-2 with Bela and Steve, was over 4 minutes ahead and barely visible in the distance. I figured that if I was going to ever catch them I had best start doing it now.

Putting the pedal to the metal, i.e., pulling as well as pushing on the pedals to make a smoother pedaling action, my speed crept up by about 0.5 to 1 mph. It seemed as though the distance between the Cadence and the wooden kayak visibly shrunk in a much shorter time than would expected.

I caught the kayak in just a couple of minutes, trailing in his wake for a while. We talked for a moment about catching the OC-2, which the paddler said was what he had been concentrating on for the past several miles. I responded with "Let's go get them!" and pedaled off at the same rate of speed I used to catch the kayak.

This I kept up for perhaps 5 or 6 minutes. The kayak was not able to keep up and was quite a ways behind. Oh, well.

Mercer Island has a wide bay on its west side. It is is actually shorter to cut across the lake towards Seward Park and then towards the eastern rise of the floating section of the I-90 bridge than it is to hug the island shoreline. During this crossing I was making pretty good time, but my strength was starting to ebb. I finished the last of an energy gel and the last of one of the water bottles, hoping that it would keep me going. All I knew was that my arms were very tired from forcing the rudder to the right and my legs didn't really want to move very fast.

About 2 minutes ahead of me I could see the OC-2 making the crossing to Seward park. They were able to maintain that distance until we reached the northern tip of Mercer Island, though their zig zagging navigation certainly helped as my speed dropped primarily due to exhaustion. I also made sure the propeller was clear of weeds by stopping every so often. Nope - just my imagination, though there certainly were small mats of milfoil floating around.

During the crossing from the northern tip of Mercer to Medina I focused on what I thought was Medina City Hall. The OC-2 and several other boats were going quite a bit to the south, so I thought they had the wrong landmark in view. I picked up the pace as best I could.

As it turned out, we were both wrong. They had veered too far south and I had gone too far north. I corrected my course and found that the OC-2 was now perhaps 30 to 40 seconds ahead. Could I catch them?

Much to my surprise I saw Shane in his OC-2 a boat length ahead and to the right. How did he get there?!?

I picked up the pace further. There was no way that I was going to let Shane beat me!

Shane also picked up the pace. He asked why I had gone so far to the north, and I explained it as navigational error.

I was now behind his outrigger, then pulled alongside. There were only a few hundred yards before the finish. After taking a final snapshot I had to make my move!

I poured what was left of my energy into the pedals. The Cadence leapt ahead of the OC-2. Shane paddled furiously for a few moments, then went back to his previous rate.

Meanwhile, I continued to pedal rapidly. Shane was now several boat lengths behind when I crossed the finish line, with a time of 2:16:05. Whew! What a finish!

Recovery from the effort took a bit longer. I pedaled slowly back onto the course, taking some shots of the remaining incoming racers.

When I finally landed my legs were not quite as steady as they usually are. I definitely needed some lunch and a bit of a rest!

The bratwurst were very tasty.

A number of folks in surfskis and rowing shells complained about all the weeds. Ha! That's a first, because I had very little trouble with them this year.

With the two races and all the different classes of boats and competitors there was only one person who didn't walk away with a ribbon. He ended up getting a string of wooden sausages instead. Lucky guy!

My best time for this race was 2:15, so perhaps if the rudder had been correct I would have been able to complete the course much faster. We'll see next year!

Photos and my stats can be found at the Sound Rowers Photography page