We were racing the Hastings 1066 kayak marathon, which was obviously going to be 60 miles away from Hastings, in Tonbridge.
Considering that I didn’t even want to take part in these races a month ago I do look at myself, (in those third person retrospectives Owain sometimes has) and shake my head in disbelief at how serious I am being about these races. I get promoted up one division and all of a sudden I have designs on winning every race. Fortunately this week I didn’t win or get promoted which has kept my ego in check.
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| Serious face |
After the carnage of the first race this week was a much more civilised affair. The Div8 juniors went off a minute or two ahead of the Div8 seniors, which meant my wave had only five paddlers giving us plenty of room to position the boat, and we were released in a rolling start. I got away well and was at the front with another member of Wey for the first few kilometres; he kept me honest all the way until the turn, after which I was able to get away from him. As with the first race I tried to hunt down the boats in front of me but the div 8 juniors were not much slower than me (if not a bit quicker) and I couldn’t make up the head start they had over the distance.
It’s difficult to quite work out what position I was in while racing because some fast movers from the wave behind went past, and I overtook some of the slower paddlers from the waves who went before, but I think I was 2nd in my wave (which out of 5 doesn’t seem that good actually...). 00:47:47 earned me 8th place overall for Division 8 and scored 13 points, and they all count this time because I am no longer unaffiliated.
I have decided that the boat I usedis too slow and heavy and it’s time to upgrade to a slippier but more unstable craft for the next race. I can’t decide if I want to take my lime green racing machine, or go for a halfway house and borrow one of the clubs Tor’s next time.
Oh. Yeah. In other news, I got a new 5k PB at parkrun. 00:23:08.
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