The club race and swim

Well here's my eagerly awaited race report. All went well with the morning preperations (ie. getting myself, 2 children, and husband to the race on time). We were running a bit late, but not so late that I was stressing out too much. We got the K1 off the car roof, Connor paid the money and chose my race number, and I had about 15 minutes to prepare before I had to be on the water.

The club races use a handicap system with the aim of everyone getting to the finish line around 10:30am. So for the usual summer distance of 11.35km people start anywhere between 9:00am and 9:35am. My start was at 9:16 with another club paddler Max who was racing his newly aquired K1 for the first time. Instead of his race number he had an 'L' plate (Learner Plate) in his number mount. I loved the idea! After a bit of a shaky start (lots of bracing), I was off and quickly moved ahead of Max. About 200m into the race a motor boat came in the opposite direction, so I just turned into the wash head on. No real worries. I was feeling strong and confident, when about 400m into the race another motor boat came by. This time unfortunately it was heading in the same direction as us and since Max and I were on different sides of the river, it had to pass between us. Even more unfortunately, the #$*# idiots decided to pass about 7 metres away from me. I didn't know which way to turn, to make the wash more K1 friendly, but I really didn't have a hope. In I went with a "bugger" (didn't even swear), popped my paddle in the kayak and swam for shore. Thank goodness it happened in a spot where I could easily get back in. So after emptying it out, I was soon back into it and paddling again. No idea how much time I lost, but it took me all the way up to the turn-around point to catch Max again...so I'm guessing about 3-5 minutes. Anyway, I was still feeling strong and managed to cope with several other boats going past without any dramas. I was going hard, but not full race-pace. After successfully making the turn around out at the river/lake junction, I headed back with a bit more effort. I managed to drop the paddlers that were paddling with me and was soon passing some more people that had either started before me, or passed me whilst I was swimming. I gradually increased the effort as I got closer to the finish and was feeling tired but good, when lo and behold a voice calls out from behind me. Now Mark if you're reading this, you can correct me on the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "C'mon Cassie, pick it up". Damn, now I had to go harder. I did my best but Mark passed me just before the finish line and beat me by 3 seconds. I had nothing left in me - I was stuffed. I crossed the line 4th in a time of 1:11:47. So just over the time I had hoped to achieve. Now I reckon, with a swim that's a pretty good effort. I definately would have gone under 1:10 if I hadn't gone in. So all in all I was pretty happy with my result.

One interesting point about the race, was the fact that I was not so tired fitness-wise, but balance-wise. At one point I felt myself "losing the plot" a little bit, and feeling a bit zoned-out. I was finding it hard to keep my focus, and kept losing concentration, having to correct my balance and technique too often. This is definately something I have to work on, and I guess race practice is probably one of the best ways.

The other interesting point was how poorly I coped with boat wash when the boat was travelling in the same direction as me. I'm going well with wash that I can turn into head on (or at least on some angle), but I have a lot of trouble (obviously) with wash that comes from behind, travelling in the same direction as me. I have to definately practice this more. I'm not quite sure of the best way to deal with this kind of wash, so any tips from others would be greatly appreciated!