First Liar 23 s2s
Reivers Dustin May 29 #33885

I got bested by LB this year. By 12 seconds. Ok, 12.6 seconds. I kept thinking “I hope this rough stuff bothers him worse than me.” I guess not. But since no bragging rights for me, I can't have you guys all walk up to him and ask him “by how much did RD beat you again?” … sure was fun tho.

So instead, I'm recruiting everyone to ask Hilde if she brought an eggplant dish to the party. The story is before the big race yesterday we're sitting around wearing out our excuses, I mentioned that if I just ate what Hilde said, I would live forever. That for example when I reach for a cookie she says, “but wouldn't you want some eggplant instead?”. This all got started with Mayhem and Deano doing their cookie throwdown. They try to fatten each other up with cookies. So yesterday at the race Deano shows up with a cookie in a baggie taped to the front of his boat. Should that be considered performance enhancing?

Great day yesterday. A little bigger than it needs to be. As Marc and I were paddling back we noticed a big gap of kayakers. They had stopped the kayak leg. I was thinking I saw a boat upside down over by the green pilon. Lots of helpers around and power boats were moving that way. It was a hot run back north.

OK, next liar.

Denise Weeks May 29 #33886
Mine is a video. Videos don’t lie (yet). Lots of fun at the start until the start got cancelled and Paul couldn’t go. I think the rest of us made it across though? I’m sorry I don’t have more of our community of paddlers in this video. My GoPro always dies before the good sections.

https://youtu.be/Y1ZXd0_QouM

Denise

David Scherrer May 29 #33888

Another great video Denise… and very cool to include Tina!

Eric Grossman May 29 #33889

Super cool Denise and all you awesome paddlers and community! And now, it’s officially summer with wind no less!
EG

Susan DeBari May 29 #33890
And here is a great picture of some of our esteemed paddlers at the handoff location - look at those smiles! No pre-race jitters apparent.

Sue

Dean Bumstead May 30 #33892

Barnacles at their best – at rest.

David Scherrer May 30 #33893

Anyone know Kate Baring? She finished next to Dean… a Whatcom county paddler. And here I thought I knew just about every paddler in our community.

D

Denise Weeks May 30 #33894

Kate is Ana’s roommate and has been paddling with Ana for the last year or so? She’s a rising star.

Also: do we need to call the Cascadia Daily to correct this error? Surely Reivers meant to say eggplant.

“Reivers Dustin, 72, of team Revolt Against Maturity, said he's done the race more than 30 times. He plans to eat chocolate bars and ice cream to recover from the kayak leg. The team finished in 28th place.”

Reivers Dustin of Revolt Against Maturity talks with his teammates after finishing the sea kayak leg. (Julia Lerner/Cascadia Daily News)

Nick Kelly May 30 #33896

Reivers, my wife works at the local chocolate factory – K’ul. She wants to know where to send your recovery chocolate bars to. She said she can ship them in discreet packaging so that HIlde won’t confiscate them.

Dean Bumstead May 30 #33897

Nick, you’d better have her send them to me, and of course, I’ll make sure Reivers gets them.

DB

Reivers Dustin May 30 #33898

Just to put everything in perspective, attached is David's trophy:

Tyler Irwin Jun 1 #33910

It looks like we haven't had any of the river racers chime in on this… it's probably because the river this year was super easy. Quick water, no wind, no strange water phenomenon.

Nevermind, I can't lie. We got our handoff around noon (some debacles up on the Baker) and the top half of the run was pretty solid. Megan and I got to the Guide in approximately 50 minutes and so I'm thinking, 'sweet, this is going just like the past few weeks, right on…' Then the bottom portion hit. The south wind must've kicked up around 12-1pm because the long north/south stretches of the river were brutal. I'm not super strategic and river savvy like the Bob Woodwards of the world, but it seemed like the river hid the fast water pretty well on the lower half, coupled with non-ending facefulls of wind, we were bone-tired by the time we hit the Metallica bridge in Ferndale. Bottom half time was an hour and 15 minutes.

The main redeeming quality is the awesome spectators along the route! Those people were yelling/cheering at level 10, throwing beers to the racers and blasting music. Pretty awesome if you ask me