Surfski Knowledge Base

Larry Goolsby
02/21/10 #7907

Wow, what a venue and what an event. It's hard to choose how to start with this story but I guess the best place to begin is with my training up until I hopped on the jet and headed south. I had been practicing 200M and 500M for the last 4 weeks and although my times weren't fast compared to Grayson Bournes, I was gaining tenths of a second every day that I was able to do a couple of sprints. I hated the 500M because they are so hard to judge just how hard you can start and still have a respectable finish. The 200M is fine because you just give it everything you have for 40 seconds and your done. Before I left for OK City, my best time in the 200 was 41.0 and my best time in the 500 was 1:55.8.

Why Oklahoma City? Why not Oklahoma City. This was not the hick town that I expected and the area where the event was held (Bricktown) is spectacular with all of it's great restaurants, hotels, events centers and it all sits next to the Olympic training center. The race was in the Cox Convention Center (not the Chesapeake Boathouse)and was held in the corner of a large event room that was hosting a health fair that day. Besides the kayak erg races, there was also the rowing erg races right next door to us and both events shared a large practice room cluttered with ergs for warming up. I have to say that this event was well organized and ran very smoothly. We had 6 ergs on the stage for racing and six more in the practice room for warming up.

We didn't have a huge amount of participants but that was a good thing because we were able to roll from one heat to another very smoothly. However, there were some really top paddlers there like Grayson, Jeff Smoke, Shaun Caven (Olympic coach), a kid named Cedric Bond that was always just behind Grayson's time, a few other guys known in the circles of K-1 racers that I had never heard of, and finally some bitchin' fast junior class youths that were faster than over half of the senior racers. I think that I was the only Surfski paddler in the entire event with everyone else coming from a K-1 background. I would have to estimate that we had about 35 paddlers show up for this event.

I arrived in Bricktown the night before after starving myself all day with the hope that my weight at the weigh-in was going to be near the 87 Kg I weighed earlier that morning. It was 10 at night so when I walked around Bricktown for a meal, most of the restaurants were closing. So I was forced to grab a burger from the Sonic drive-in next to the hotel. I was starved so beside a double meat/cheese Jalapeno burger, I also got Jalapeno poppers and Popcorn chicken; my thought was that I would just poop it right back out in the morning before the weigh-in. After I ate, I turned on the TV and watched a wrap-up of the days Olympic events before retiring to bed to get some sleep. Sleep didn't happen. I laid there all night and tried every relaxation technique that I knew but I couldn't fall asleep. Finally at 5 am their time (3 am Pacific), I said screw it and made a large pot of coffee and flipped on the TV. This was not the best way to start the day of racing and besides being tired, everything that I had taken orally the night before was not coming back out. At 8 am, I walked the four blocks to the convention center and immediately they had me step up onto scales for the weigh-in; with my shoes on I was 90 Kg again. They say that bad things come in three's and my third crux was that the first race of the morning was the 500M, the one I hate.

Luckily for me, I was in the second heat so I was able to view the first racers as they went up and did their heat in front of a large crowd that had gathered in front of the stage. The rowing competition had loud music blaring during their event and this only added to the excitement of our races. When it was my turn, I chose a fan setting of 6 and gave it everything I had. Towards the end my strength was waning and my body was screaming in pain but the fact that you have a TV monitor in front of you showing your position along with your competitors, it keeps you going. When it all came to a stop, I was very frustrated with my performance and didn't even bother to look at my time. I just got up from the erg and headed out into the foyer of the convention center to cool off in a quiet area. I called my tandem racing partner with my cell and told him about how poorly I had done, and when he asked my time, I told him that I didn't bother checking. He said that before I complained too much that I needed to get back in there and see just what my actual time was. When I went and looked, I thought that there must have been an error because it said that I did the 500 in 1:53.0 and that I made the finals. From this point on, I stayed pumped the rest of the day. I believe that Grayson had the fastest time (1:42? point something) for the first heat with Jeff Smoke a close second. I was in the first final heat and because I felt so drained on the first run, I set my fan setting at 3.5 with the intention that I would pick up my stroke rate and compensate for the reduced drag setting; my big mistake for the day.

We took off and I was watching my competitors on my monitor and was paddling really fast in order to maintain my speed with theirs, however, at the higher stroke rate, I tired even quicker and I ended up finishing with a 1:59.2 just behind Tim Barnes who I had beat by a few seconds in the earlier race. Now the second and last final arrived and the focus of this race was Grayson vs. Smoke with Smoke passing Grayson in just the last few meters for the win getting a 1:40+. Grayson was amazing because he was one of the few over 50 paddlers there and he was obviously the guy to catch.

The irace program was great in that it gave us a rabbit to chase and that it showed who was coming up on you. Having this feedback only spurs you to push harder and watching Smoke chase down Grayson was the most exciting race of the day. After the 500 finals, we took a couple of hour break before jumping into the 200M. This is the race that I came for and I was not feeling any of the fatigue that I had felt earlier that morning. I also watched Grayson down two Sprites during that break so I took a cue from him and bought myself a Coke (which is something that I never do). The excitement in the convention center had intensified by the time we started our 200M and the crowds were larger than ever.

In my first 200, I managed to get a 40.4 (a new PR) time and during this race, I watched my stroke rate bounce around the 160 to 174 range. I also had edged out Tim Barnes who got a 41.9 and didn't qualify for the finals. I made it into the finals for the 200 but the real focus had now become Grayson vs. Smoke and they both had gotten a time of about 35+ second in their first heat. In my final heat, I pulled off a 40.2 final time but this was not good enough for a spot on a podium. My Stroke rate had hit 178 and the 40.2 was another new PR.

Then it was time for the Grayson vs. Smoke race and this time Smoke went out really hard with Grayson chasing him with just inches behind. All of a sudden, with only a few meters to go, One of Smoke's ropes was severed at the coupling disabling his erg and Grayson passed him just before the finish for the win. After witnessing this, I quickly ran and changed into my street clothes so that I could catch my flight back home. This entire event was exciting and proved to be the learning experience that I had hoped for. I met some awesome people there and my only regret was that I didn't arrive a day sooner to allow myself to prepare for the days events. I spent a good part of that evening sleeping in airports and on planes after all the adrenaline had finally left my body. I will post the video of the highlights later after I edit the 1 hour of video down to under 10 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpA8lE62p2A

Larry G.