Change Out Race 8/30/08

There's lots that has been happening and I'd like to bring you up to speed. It would be far too much to post it all in one blog entry. I think I may post multiple individual entries on a given day. Just fyi!

Saturday August 30 was the big change out race that SSP and Kikaha co-host in Lake Washington. The course starts out at the SSP beach heading east towards Kirkland until we pass the point near the dog park, then we head south under the eastern highrise of the 520, along the Bellevue and the western coast of Mercer Island, under the western span of I-90, around the southern tip of Mercer Island, under the eastern span of I-90, back north under the eastern highrise of the 520, around the point and back to SSP. An easy 26 miles!

It’s called a change out race because we have a nine member crew, 6 in the OC and 3 in the escort boat. Periodically the escort boat will drop paddlers into the water and the OC will come alongside them, they grab the gunnel and heave their-selves into the moving boat as their seats occupants fling themselves out the other side to be retrieved shortly by the escort boat, another experience in heaving ones-self into a boat. We do this over and over until the race is finished! When in the OC you paddle long and hard, trying not to think about being tired or thirsty (we don’t wear our hydration packs during a change out, we keep bottles of liquids in the escort boat), or cramps, just paddle strong until your seat is called to jump out of the boat. Once in the escort boat I change my wet shirt for a dry one, put on my fleece, and start re-hydrating and snacking for the next go round.

There was one other women’s crew, they were from Kikaha. They started out strong, staying in front of us for the first mile or so until their first change. Their second crew was not as strong and we were able to overtake them. They were changing more frequently than we were, every 15-20 minutes to our 20-30 minutes. At times we were ¼ mile ahead of them, at others they were nearly even with us. Being that close made them hungry to catch us and made us hungry to stay ahead of them.

At the last two miles of the race we made what we thought would be our last crew change and Kikaha brought back their strongest crew, we could hear their yells, they were entirely too close for comfort! Kristen wanted Lianne and Minnie back in the boat NOW! They had only jumped out maybe five minutes earlier. Our finishing line up was Meilee, Lianne, Melissa, Jen, Minnie, and Kristen. Within a couple of minutes Kikaha’s voices faded to silence. The SSP women went on to beat them by over a minute. What an excellent race! It was awesome to have such close competition really keeping both crews motivated.

The full SSP women’s crew was (in alphabetical order): Jen, Lianne, Kristen, Meilee, Melissa, Minnie, Rives, Shelly, and Tanja. Way to go ladies!!! And big mahalos to Dave for being our male escort (boat driver) and Marth for coordinating our changes!