Catching up on the blog, Training and Rat Racing!!

Well its now a week into the official racing season for T& T and I am trying to be diligent here and keep up with the training and racing updates thru out the season. So here we go!

Wednesday night found us back down on the Charles River at the bird feeing area in Newton. It was great to get some paddling time in with our friends who live closer to Boston. Jeff Defeo made the trek out from Western MA to paddle with Carina Peritore, The Millers brothers Seth and Steve were out and we also had the company of Adam Gelinas and Andy Hall for the night. There were the usual kayakers and a few C-1’s as well but the group seemed to be all over the river so we didn’t see them as much as we normally would when we are having our casual self timed Wednesday night races. We paddled down to Waltham and back up to Wellesley as we normally would chatting along the way pushing the pace for fun in the shallows where we could and riding along toughing out the wind in other spots. It was a pretty windy paddle especially where the river is wide down in the Waltham section, seems as if we have been fighting the wind the whole season so far. We ended out the night at the Skellig, a nice Irish pub, in Waltham for drinks, burgers and my favorite the Shepard’s pie. It was good to catch up with everyone after the long winter and hear all the stories about what people did to stay in shape and pass the time till we were all back on the water again.

A good view of the many different types of boats

Saturday was Rat Race Day starting in Athol and ending in Orange on the Millers River! If you have been following the blog you know we do quite a bit of paddling on this river throughout the year. Now click the link below which will take you to a  video of this years start.
2011 River Rat Race Start
 There is a great view of Travis and I (maroon boat towards the bottom left of the screen) about 32 seconds into the video trying to avoid the chaos around us and find a nice clean line. You can also see Neil (father in law) and Jay (brother in law) in this video they are in a teal boat and started right around us as luck would have it.

Quick rundown on how this race works for anyone who hasn’t heard or seen video before of this race. Basically every boat is entered in a drawing the night before for a starting position on the shore of the river regardless of your speed, ability or vessel of choice as long as it is 18’ or under. I mention the boat length because this is important to know, most of our racing during the season is done in a 18’6” pro racing canoe, this boat is not allowed in the rat race. You will see ALL sorts of boats in this race, the fastest being a “rat boat” where they take a really fast sleek pro racing boat and chop off 6” thus making it a “rat boat” and 18’, you will also see some boats that couldn’t be more then 15’ where the people are basically sitting in each others lap, see photo below hahah (not to fast as you can imagine) These guys were still siked and thought they had the fastest vessel by far.

Travis and I usually take “the barge” our plastic 17’ Sundowner unless we happen to draw an amazing number the night before and then we try and scrounge up a rat boat the night before the race since we don’t own one ourselves. The barge is actually a great boat for this race, it is sea worthy and battle ready so it can handle mostly anything that can come our way and its not that slow if you really put some OOOMMMMFFF into it. We also take this chance to get some steering practice in at top speed since we use this same boat in the Westfield Wildwater river race the following weekend. This year we drew 115 out of a total of 265 boats so we were right in the middle of the pack. The cannon fired to signal the start of the race and the mayhem ensued. We worked hard to get free of the mess of boats and made our way down the right hand shore which was a little different from previous years where we seemed to find our holes in the mess of boats on the left hand side of the river. We drafted the faster rat boat teams where we could and powered thru the open water when we found it. It was a fairly successful race for us and we finished out 36^th overall, first to cross the line in a plastic boat and first in a 17’ boat so I think we accomplished a lot! We got some compliments from paddlers at the end on our speed in a recreational boat as well as some insight on what I needed to focus on before the Westfield, mainly cutting out the zig-zagging which can happen in a boat that turns easily. Another great Rat Race down in the books and we were on to enjoy the party at the end for some good live music and sunshine!!! On a sidebar we not only won a little cash at this race we also won the grand raffle prize which was a giant tub of liquor and basically everything you needed for a camping trip, tent and sleeping bag included!!!

Just the liquid portion of the winnings

Neil and Travis, he is a proud rat father :)

Sunday we decided we wouldn’t do the Rat Pro/Am race in Athol/Orange and opted for a long paddle with the Millers brothers on the Nashua River instead. It’s more beneficial at this point in the season we thought to get in some good hours since we won’t be able to do any long paddles the following weekend while we are out at the Westfield Races. We met up with Seth and Steve in Groton and put in feeling a little crotchety and stiff from putting in a good hard effort in the heavy boat the day before. We had great weather and plodded our way up stream towards Ayer, we usually paddle quite a bit on this river from Harvard to Ayer but it’s a nice change of pace to paddle from Groton up to Ayer. The river looks pretty similar to the upstream portion we spend a lot of time on but there is a little more current so it tests the technical skills needed to make your way upstream in the pro-boat We also got a chance to check out a small tributary to the Nashua River called the Dead River which wasn’t much of a “river” but it passed the time. After paddling back up to the spot we turned at the first time which was, a shallow rocky section of the river where the water moves pretty swiftly we made our way back to the car and ended the day out with a little over 4 hours in the boat. One more successful training session for the upcoming Run of the Charles, which will be our first long race of the season in the pro boat.

Thursday we headed down to South Meadow Lake in our home town of Clinton. We took out the barge for one more training run before we make the trek out to Western MA and the Westfield Wildwater race this weekend. We made a quick lap around the outside edge of South Meadow in no time and decided that we would go thru this granite tunnel under the railroad tracks (which always gives me the creeps I am not going to lie) and head over to Coachlace Pond for a quick lap just to make sure we got a good workout/stretch out. We paddled along at a good deliberate pace and we made sure to pay special attention to steering and feeling how the boat responds to wind, waves, and leans cause all of these things play a huge factor during the race on Sunday. We also discussed the race course and how we would be handling certain areas and began our mental attack on the pro whitewater race we have ahead of us. Ohh yeah I can’t forget to mention the wildlife we saw on this short paddle, obviously we saw the normal 5-6 ducks but we also spotted a beautiful large deer who stopped to watch us paddle by, as well as an overfed raccoon who looked like a fat house cat hanging out on the shores edge of the lake. Wild animals in Clinton aren’t starving, that’s for sure.

I am going to try and get some great video and photos of this weekend’s race and keep the blog updated, the whitewater races are a blast so stay tuned!!