SSPO Rocks!

The race went really well Saturday, but it was a very long day. I ended up leaving around 5:30 to go pick up Kristi and then Lise and then we were off to pick up Kristen in Tacoma. We got down to Portland in very good time, arriving around 8:30 or so. The first order of business was rigging the canoes only one hadn't arrived yet, we'd passed them on the highway. We off loaded the Mirage (our fastest canoe) and rigged it for the race. I turned in our forms and payment and received our race t-shirts, a much better design and color than last year. Then off to the very long line for the toilet, get changed and make ready to race. Our race crew was Minnie in stroke, then Rives, Nancy, me, Lise, and Kristen steering. A few sucks on the albuterol before we started and I was ready for the warm up. I asked Claude from our men's novice crew to shoot some snaps with my camera, he did a great job and shot some videos with narration, too! Thanks Claude! The first video is us leaving the beach to begin our warm up and the second video is our race finish.



We lined up with all the other boats, a dozen or so, if I recall, and waited for the horn to start the race. And we're off! Paddling hard all the boats stayed pretty close together in the beginning. There were lots of fishermen out hoping to catch some salmon. They were fairly decent obstacles that the experienced steersmen had no difficulty avoiding. However, there was one very green crew with an even greener steersman that had a very hard time keeping a straight line. There was some serious full contact paddling going on. They hit us on the right side of our boat, we had to switch some paddlers over to the left side to be able to keep paddling. Their crew was nearly rabid with intensity and couldn't hear their steersman telling them to stop paddling and allow us to get clear of them. We finally extricated ourselves and continued on passing around behind them only to have them come up against us again. Only this time our ama popped up onto the rail of their boat! I hiked way out as did Kristen to keep us from huli'ing, Nancy, right in front of me didn't even notice our ama was up that high. We managed to get them off us again and continue on. We ended up sprinting nearly all the remaining way to the first turn. At the turn they were technically in front of us but their steersman was sufficiently unsure of herself that she couldn't press her advantage, we made it through the turn first and made a hard push leaving that troublesome crew in our wake.



Now it was the long hard press up river past the start line to the next bouy turn. This was my first ever race last year and that section of the race was brutal last year. This year it was a long hard stretch but we all were able to keep our stroke long, good rotation, and reach, with a good hard pull. No other canoes were nearby us for the remainder of the race. The wind was to our backs for the against current run and once we made the turn to head down river again the refreshing breeze in our faces combined with the current made it feel as if we were flying down to the finish line. You can see in the video, we all still look really strong as if we could continue some distance further.

Our finish time was 1:14:32 and we took second in the master women category. And I think we were 6th across the finish line. The official results are not yet posted or I would have more details. Our post race team photo is at the top. Here is the photo of the SSPO open men's crew, they took first overall in the men's race with a time of 58:17! They rock! In the photo they are Kevin, James, Geoff, Alan, Tom, and Eric. Our golden master men's crew crossed the finish line 5th, I think, and their finish time was 1:02:35. Their crew was Dave, Doug, Koko, Ed, Mike, and Clem. I have referred to them as our 50+ guys in the past. They rock, too! And then we had a third men's crew, the novice men. Their crew was Ryan, Frank, Ken, Claude, Troy, and Ernie. They finished in 1:08:16. As with all of SSPO, they rock!

I think in all SSPO had a pretty darn good day. Everybody raced hard and raced well. SSPO represented with 24 club paddlers, what an awesome turnout for the first OC6 race of the season. Props to everyone! Let's keep it up. Here's one last photo of everyone in the club that paddled here at the Rusty Iron.