Wey Kayak Marathon

This weekend I had a race. A real race, as opposed to those races that I take part knowing full well that I won’t even come close to winning but it doesn’t matter because I get a medal anyway, sort of race. This was an actual race where the only way you get a medal (or mug, or T-shirt, and other prizes) is by being quite good.

The race in question was the Wey Kayak marathon; it was on the river Wey, it was in a kayak, and it only fell short of the actual marathon distance by about 22 miles. I was quite ambivalent about it to start with and when it was first mentioned to me I was planning on only going to spectate, but then in a moment of weakness I agreed to take part and I am pleased I did because I had a lot of fun.

I think it was part of the Hasler series of kayak races (but I will need to check that out) which is organised in divisions. As I hadn’t taken part in any of the races before I had been placed in the lowest division with about 20 other newbie racers. Everyone starts in division 9 and based on race times, and some arcane maths you move up and down divisions. While I was only there to take part, I planned to not be relegated out of the bottom division.

I didn’t really know what to expect so my only plan was to not fall out and/or embarrass myself. To that end I borrowed the relatively stable Hobby and formed up at the back of the pack not wanting to get into any argy bargy at the front.



Wey Marathon Start

The instant the marshal said go, there was a lot of splashing, someone to the left of me fell in, two high kneeling canoes crashed into each other, and a K1 was knocked sideways by another kayak performing a PIT manoeuvre that any American cop would have been proud of. This was the sort of carnage I had suspected from div 9… After the fun and games at the start the race did settle down and I got my head down to grind out as good a showing as I could manage… 


I have this thing where I have to overtake the person in front of me. I can’t help it, on some distance races it has caused me to run too fast too soon and I have subsequently blown up later in the race. Well I did that thing. If there was a kayak in front of me I would have to catch and overtake it. And there was always another kayak in front of me. Boat by boat I moved my way up the field and by the half way mark I realised I was up amongst the front runners (paddlers). The second half was downstream and I knew I had enough left in the tank to increase my cadence further, for the remaining couple of miles I hunted down as many boats as I could.

For my efforts I was rewarded with fourth overall, first in my age group (Veteran Male) and promotion to division 8. I entered as an independent rather than a club paddler (because I’m not one) so I didn’t get the 17 points that would go towards the Hasler (I think) series total score. But that’s okay, I might do a few more of these kayak races this year but I have already too many events in my diary and I can’t race in all of them, so I’m not going to be able to contest overall winner. At least not this year.