"There is nothing I would rather be doing" I said, just before I started the Race. I was having just the time of my life. Adding to the experience was the weather was just perfect. Not a cloud in the sky, no wind, and a very calm relaxing holiday weekend. Thinking about it now, it must be very rare to have full sunshine and NO wind, with sun warming up the land near a city to heat up and cause thermals, not to mention adiabatic and katabatic winds being near the north shore mountains and ocean.
I had the fun experience of weighing-in for this race, but I checked 30min before official time and I was .6km over the limit, that is 1.3lbs that I had to loose in 30min. I did all the necessary bowel/bladder movements but I was still .4kg over. So, after consultation with my coach I donned every last Item of clothes that I packed, and went for a heavy run and push-up fest to get the sweat flowing. I also sat in my hot car for 15min. At weight in I was dead-on; 74.0kg.
I had some confusion with the VCRC Junior team-members and oars that turns out we were both planning on using for the race. Anyway, I got things sorted and decided to just use the extra oars that luckily fit the boat. My only real plan the race was to hold strong, keep steady, not flip, and finish really smoothly. It turns out a 2000m race only ends up being roughly 7-8minutes long! That is much quicker than my days as a marathon runner. I wanted to keep as straight as possible, so I may have looked over my shoulder more than necessary (which in turn may have slowed me down also!)
I finished the race and had almost caught the leader ahead of me! Each boat was started roughly 30-40seconds apart in single-file. I hit a buoy that was about 20feet from the finish line and it nearly flipped me, I was really off-set and may have lost another second or two just in the last few meters of the finish line. But, that is part of the race and I have to learn to finish strong and not be distracted by a minor buoy-hit.
After the race I put a list together of things that I need to do for next time. 1) Make sure oars/boat is all sorted before the warm-up 2) drink more water after weigh-ins, and 3) get better sunglasses (due to the Zellers $4.99 special were sliding down my nose - and no free hand to push them up)
Results were posted today: I'm not really sure what it means to Rowing Canada, but I was the fastest single on the water!
Derek Vinge LM1x 46 07:34.6 06:38.0 87.55%
Those percentage will be converted into a point-system and ultimately add to my RADAR total points. I need roughly 350 total points to get funding/invitations to major races.
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