National Club Championships – Eton Dorney 2014
As August draws to a close and the summer series is over in the UK 1 last major event is on everyone’s mind. One last attempt to showcase the diversity and standard of your local club and fill the trophy cabinet! I was really looking forward to this event mainly due to our first year going so well placing 2nd club a mere 1 point behind BaySup, everyone was fired up after the event and things looked promising for 2014, that was until the event started to get closer, I’m not going to go into why people weren’t able to make it but needless to say I was the only one due to be heading up from Waterborn, disappointing! As I could already have my own individual race within the event I wanted to still be able to add something to the team side of it, so I gave the guys and gals at BaySup a shout and asked if they could take me under their wing and let me race under their banners for the day. Thankfully they took me in and it gave me an added purpose within the race to not let them down.
Another long day of work bobbing up and down on the ferry on the busy Friday bank holiday weekend it was time to set off for one of the last big races in the UK for the year. A fairly straight forward run from Devon to Eton taking the M5/M4 and I rocked up at the lake, to my surprise the gates were open and I headed down the driveway to the car park and was tucked up in the back of the van by 01:30. Although I only slept for 30/40 minutes at a time I did feel fairly recharged by the time I got up at 08:00 and started to see who was about. Thankfully the Triathlon was being held down at the far end of the lake this year and it meant we had a lot more space and weren’t in danger of being run over by bikes every few minutes. Sam Ross was trying to get set up ready for the kid’s race and needed a hand with some brand new inflatables, so I helped pump up a few boards in order to kick start my system and warm up, it worked. It wasn’t an overly warm morning but I certainly felt pretty toasty by the time id got through 4. The course for the event this year had changed and instead of 2 long laps it was made into 3 shorter laps and the start line had moved, to my delight the wind had also picked up and I was looking forward to getting on the water! However the start was a tad late, something to do with some guy that looked a bit like Chris Kenyon running late or something like that?!?!
Eventually it was time to hit the water after everyone was shown what to do by the kid’s racing on the Red Airs. As we lined up side on to the wind with about a minute to go I had a wobble and almost fell in, my board filled with water and I couldn’t make it drain fast enough, I had yet again a hideous start, downwind and full of water and towards the back of the pack I wasn’t overly impressed with myself. I got a good few high cadence strokes in and tried to build some speed, trying to make the most of the extra weight I was carrying as I started my into the wind slog. I took a wide line to give myself plenty of space to pass people and started looking for the people I knew I should to be close too in terms of similar pace, I had a quick count of how many were ahead of me got to 18 and then started counting them off 1 by 1 as I got into a good rhythm. The lead pack were flying and small trains were forming off the back of them all fairly close to the bank, I stuck to the middle of the relief lane and headed towards the bridge with the fanatic flag and used rail tilting with foot steering to make the turn, slightly wider than I would have liked but it kept a fairly good pace as I started the first of the downwind sections.
Although I passed 1 or 2 people on the downwind leg the guys I were trying to catch were pulling away slowly and I knew I’d have to work hard into wind if I was going to catch the leaders, I really need to find a more effective way to get a good speed out of my board on downwind legs, something to work on over the winter. As I went under the Olympic rings back into the relief lane I started using more muscles doing my crunches and again I was gaining ground on those ahead of me. I spotted Scott Warren and Sam Ross in the distance and set them as targets to catch.
As I closed in on Sam I let him know I was going to pass and for him to slot in behind me if he wanted as he was also paddling for BaySup, he slotted in behind and I set my target for Scott who had fallen off the back of his train. I couldn’t quite get close enough to him as we rounded the flag and headed back down the main lake, it took about half of the distance downwind to pull alongside, I had been trying to catch his draft but ended up paddling uphill on the back of the second bump and had to keep moving in and out of his wash to get passed it. As I pulled level, Scott said "is it 3 miles yet?" just as he said it my Garmin buzzed at me, 3 miles on the dot, scary stuff!! We had a laugh about it and carried on surging off each other’s bow wake.
I took the inside line ready for the last turn under the rings in an attempt to push Scott wide, however it backfired and only ended up pushing me wide trying to rail the board round, he and Sam slowed, passed behind me and got ahead, we were all jostling for 6th 7th and 8th place and although gaining down on the lead pack of 5 we were never going to catch them with the downwind legs as they were, the race now was purely down to our own little mini race. I managed to pull level with both Sam and Scott all 3 of us side by side, although Scott fractionally behind in the middle, I tried to slowly narrow the gap but still giving him somewhere to go, making his life just a little bit harder. I pulled in front and tried to increase my cadence with my shovel to try and get a slight gap. They stuck with me and I banked round the bridge and headed now over to the far bank to round the marker, I was still in front with just the last 1km to go, I was really feeling the burn in my lungs and knew I would struggle to keep both of them at bay downwind. I listened for when the splashing changed sides and tried to move over to block the attempted pass, within reason. I could see Scott attempting to pass and I tried each time to burst off and try and create a gap that he couldn’t slot back into my draft but he was right with me the whole time, even lifting up onto my tip toes and pulling through with each stroke to try and maximise reach and power wasn’t working. Eventually with about 200 metres to go we were side by side, there wasn’t much more I could do to keep him at bay and I knew he can out sprint me. I did everything I could but he beat me over the line with around 2 seconds spare for the 2nd time in just a few weeks. I did however come at a price for him, the moment he crossed the line he collapsed into a pile on his board and was sick, at least he really had to work hard to beat me so that’s some small consolation. I ended up finishing 7th Overall and 5th in age group for the 14’ class, not as good as the result from the previous year but different circumstances and all. Sticking by a motto I’ve adopted, ‘I never lose, I either win or learn’ I certainly have learnt plenty from the event which I shall rectify for next year’s races. After the race I headed back to the van and decided to repay Scott for his effort by cooking him a bacon sandwich as a thank you for the fry up he cooked after the event in Wales the weekend before at Port Eynon on the Gower Peninsular. Cheers Scott!!!
The day was not over though, plenty more races for the other club members in the form of sprints on race boards and XO (cross over), I watched the events unfold as I took to Scott’s Land SUP for only the second time ever, the first time in the car park in Totnes didn’t go overly well but the surface around the lake seemed ideal as well as flat! I can really see how you could get into land SUP if you lived somewhere flat but it just wouldn’t be suited for back in the Shire with all our hills, well the down ones could be quite fun.
The day was coming to an end and everyone was getting rather nervous as to who had claimed the trophy, with good turn outs from local’s Bray Lake as well as BaySup it was due to be a fairly tightly contested title fight. As the awards were being done each club tried to work out how that would affect final rankings. It was another close result with just 4 points in it this year but BaySup claimed the title for the 2nd year running, Congratulations guys and gals and fantastic effort all round, many thanks for letting me race for you and making me feel so welcome.
Thanks to Starboard and Tushingham! Teapigs - that earl grey after the race really made me feel so much better, and Onit Pro - my banged up old board still looks good and performs great. Also my thanks go to Sam Ross and Bray Lake for setting up the event as well as Eton college for the use of their lake, and a big congratulations to everyone who took to the water to race in some fairly tricky wind conditions. My next race is this Friday (29th Aug) the last in the mini series down at Waterborn’s HQ the Crabshell in Kingsbridge and is military themed. Keep an eye out for race report and pictures shortly, Whoop Whoop!!
