I made it! I raced in the Wye Island Regatta. For me, that alone was an accomplishment. A year ago I never would have dreamed of racing a kayak. I was an arm paddler and I was slooooow. Since then I've mastered my surfski, mastered the forward stroke, and learned alot about racing, strategy and preparation. I've come a long way in the world of kayak racing and next year I hope to go even farther. To see David Shames' complete photo album click here.

In the Fall of 2005 I ordered my hot pink Huki/Futura S1-A Surfski . I really had no intention of racing it. I already had an older Futura II and I just wanted a faster kayak (in pink). And the S1-A was designed especially for someone my size. I didn't know anything about racing. But I had heard of the Wye Island Regatta. And I remember pulling up the race results from 2005 and reading the list of women who raced ... I knew Cyndi Janetzko from the Georgetown Pirates, but I had never met the others: Melissa Schmidt, Kathy Kenley, Susan Williams (Lady Justice) and others. I calculated their race times and I was in awe. I was still struggling to paddle over 4 mph. I had a wing paddle but I barely knew how to use it. I was an "arm paddler." I had no torsoe rotation. Basically, I had no technique. And I was sloooow. So the thought of racing in a serious race like the Wye Island Regatta was beyond my comprehension.

My surfski arrived late January 2005. It was the dead of winter but I managed to talk three paddlers I knew from the Pier 7 Pirates into going out with me on the very calm and flat Patuxent River: Brian Blankinship, Alan Dixon and Mark Donigan. I remember inching it out into the river with my feet hanging off the sides for stability. I made my way over to the shore where a branch was sticking out of the water. Carefully I moved my feet into the single footwell and with one hand on the branch I tipped the ski on its side. Back and forth. I wanted to find where the primary and secondary stability was. I found it. Gently I let go of the branch to see if I could balance on my own. Yes! I paddled out into the river and met up with the guys. They were all paddling surfskis and most of them had spent months learning to balance and paddle them.

But for me ... I loved it from the very beginning. That first day I came off the river I was ecstatic. I loved paddling the surfski! Remember the old weebles wobble but they don't fall down? That was me in the surfski. I didn't huli once that day. For me, the S1-A really is "The Perfect Surfski" .




A few months later I attended the South Carolina Canoe and Kayak Festival and took another forward stroke clinic with Greg Barton. That was pre-blog so to see photos from that event on Kodak, click here. He told me to change the offset on the paddle and increase the length to 208 which I did. And he told me to increase the force on the catch. Every little modification seemed to help. I didn't have a GPS but I felt like I was going faster.

But what I really wanted was to take the surfski out on the Bay. And eventually I did. On my first paddle with the Kent Island Practice Paddle (KIPP) group around Kent Island I took my surfski. I also met Susan Williams, Lady Justice, who was one of the serious racers I had read about. I had enjoyed reading her kayak reports on the delmarva listserve. It was nice to finally put a face to the name.

That first day out on the Bay paddling the surfski was pretty hairy. Every muscle in my body was tense from trying to stay upright in the wind and waves. But my goal had always been to be able to paddle the surfski on the Bay so I was intent on pushing it. I also got the chance to talk to Susan about racing. I knew nothing about racing. She actually made it sound like something I could eventually do. The only kayak race I knew about was the Wye Island Regatta. But she sent me a list of all the races on the East Coast that she had compiled and I started thinking seriously about racing the surfski.

Then in April I attended CPA's SK102 skills clinic on Lake Anna and took more forward stroke clinics with Brian Houston, who works for Epic Kayaks (owned by Greg Barton). Again he had me working on increasing the force at the catch. I spent most of the weekend sprinting across the lake. And edging the surfski. I knew I needed to feel totally comfortable in the ski on flatwater first and I had to be able to edge it on the side. Susan Williams came and gave an informal talk on what she called "recreational racing." Susan likes to call herself a recreational racer. I think that means she races for fun. But she's really a serious competitor. Her list of racing accomplishments is long and impressive!

So my goal for the summer was 1) to master paddling the surfski on the Bay in wind and waves and 2) to race in the Wye Island Regatta.

I accomplished both. For most of the summer I paddled every Wednesday night on the South River with the Pier 7 piracy. The South River can get some pretty choppy water because it feeds into the Chesapeake Bay and it has lots of boat traffic. So my practice area for the surfski is a river with wind and waves. I also got the surfski out on the Bay ... one day in 3 foot waves. And I went out kayaking every chance I could get with my kayaking friend and forward stroke coach, David Shames. David is not a racer but he knows the forward stroke. And he's an excellent coach. There were times when I thought I had perfected my stroke and he would point out some small error. He and Brian Blankinship did another forward stroke clinic at Pier 7 and David videotaped us all. Using the video and his excellent coaching I was able to move my paddling to an even higher level. Thank you David!

And I competed in five kayak races. I did the first of the CPA "fun races." It was only 2.7 miles but it was challenging and gave me a taste of what a real kayak race would be like. Then I did the Loyalsock Flatwater Challenge in PA and had a blast. In July I competed in The Nanticoke Kayak Race in Seaford, DE and discovered that prerace preparation should include taking your allergy medications on schedule. And in August I got a taste of what it feels like to go the distance with someone who is equally matched and just as intent on winning when Susan and I competed against each other in The Broadkill Race in Lewes, DE. And lastly I did The Wye Island Regatta.

So I made it. I raced in the Wye Island Regatta. In my tippy 16" wide surfski through various degrees of wind and waves. It was more than I could have hoped for last fall. So for that alone, I feel like the race was an accomplishment.

Of all the races I did this summer the race at Wye Island was probably the most nerve racking. I spent the week before the race paddling in the Adirondacks in my Purple Mirage, a stable sea kayak. I hadn't been in my surfski for over two weeks. Susan had taken me on a pre-race tour of the course at Wye a few weeks before and the water around the island had been like glass. But in the few days before the race the forecast had changed to 1-2 foot waves. I had trained all summer in the surfski in various degrees of wind and waves but I didn't know if I could do it in a race. Tension. Tension. We all felt it. And numerous emails were exchanged between the five of the women racing about weather conditions, race class definitions, and which kayak we were racing.

I was also having a lot of pain in my right arm. In the previous race my right hand had froze up a 1/2 mile into the race from what I believe was lactic acid buildup during the opening sprint. I basically paddled almost 4 miles in intense pain and without being able to move my fingers. I decided that I must have some sort of repetitive strain injury in the right arm and hand which was interfering with blood flow.

So I was nervous about the race. So nervous that I got to Wye Island Saturday morning a full hour before registration. On the way there I stopped at the Kent Island Yacht club and looked at the water around the bay. It was as smooth as glass. I decided to race the surfski. I was nervous about that because I hadn't been in it for over two weeks. So after I got to Wye I got out on the water a full hour before the start. I paddled around and warmed up. I had the heart rate monitor on so I could see my nervousness in big numbers. I wasn't even racing but my pulse was already on race mode! I was also hoping that by properly warming up my arms I could avoid the dreaded lactic acid burn I had been experiencing on the right side after the start.

The pre-race warm up helped to calm me down but it didn't relieve the lactic acid burn. We did a mass start around 10 am. I got to the starting line-up only a few minutes before start. Mentally it caught me off guard and I didn't get the GPS turned on until almost a mile into the race. But like I've done in previous races I took off fast. I was keeping a good pace and was maybe 15 boat lengths behind Cyndi. But my right arm started to freeze up again. I've had a few people tell me I should just paddle through the pain, which I did. But it's not just the pain, the muscles basically freeze up and I can't grip the paddle. I seriously thought about ending the race. Then about two miles into the race I passed under the bridge and Susan caught up with me. I told her about the pain and she asked if I wanted to raft up and shake my arms out. I was very happy to take her up on her offer. Surfskis are not stable when you're sitting still. By rafting up with me she gave me a chance to shake the lactic acid out of the uncooperating right arm. Her friends Cliff and Chris stopped by because they thought Susan had flipped in the surfski. We stayed there for about 3 minutes.

And then we were off. But we kept pace together. A short while later we entered a section of the river with considerably more waves and boat wake. Because I had trained all summer in the surfski on the South River and a little on the Bay this didn't faze me at all. But Susan is a flatwater paddler and she doesn't handle waves in the surfski yet. She looked fine to me, but looks can be deceiving. She said she was scared. So I did what I could to talk her through it and calm her down. Basically a surfski is like a bike. You're only stable when you're moving. So we just kept moving through the waves ... side by side. Occasionally I paddled in front but I kept checking behind to make sure she was upright and paddling.

After we had passed through most of the squirrely stuff (about 2 miles) I noticed her confidence start to improve. She inched her surfski out in front a bit. I knew we would need to start racing again and part company soon. Right about then a nice boat came racing by giving us a nice set of waves on the beam. It didn't faze me but Susan slowed and turned to face the waves. I glanced back and saw that she had drifted maybe three boat lengths behind in that one boat wake. We were nearing the point and I knew the river would flatten out as we came around the corner. And once we were in flat water she would be back in her element. She likes to sprint and I didn't feel like paddling behind her through a second race. So I took off.

There was a white Dory ahead of me so I set my sites on catching up with him. I caught up and found myself in a very wide, comfortable boat wake. Ahhh. The sense of relief. It wasn't my intention to ride the wake. But once I was there I struck up a conversation with the Dory paddler and he was very nice. He had just bought a house last year in PA with his wife and bought the Dory to keep in shape. He did the Wye Island race the previous year and by his accounts ... almost died. Last year it was oppressively hot. I started telling him about my racing and the issue I was having with the lactic acid. We were having a pretty nice conversation and for a while I forgot that we were in a race. Racing can get pretty boring at times. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

Right after we turned the point Susan showed up on my tail. She was trying to sprint after me. Ahhh ... the race. I had almost forgotten about her. I thought she might need a break so I turned and asked her if she wanted to take my place behind the Dory. She yelled something at me that I couldn't hear. So I asked the Dory guy what she said. He didn't know. Maybe it was something he couldn't repeat. But she stopped sprinting and we went back to our conversation.

The rest of the race was pretty nondescript. Susan says I drafted the whole time behind the Dory. I did for awhile. Then I'd start to feel guilty and I'd paddle off to the side. But it was boring paddling on the side. So I tried to chase down another kayaker for a wake ride. That was fun for a while. Then I went after a 6 man team, but of course I couldn't get near them. But I was always keeping pace with the Dory so I decided to paddle behind him a few times. He was nice to talk to and we had this brief symbiotic relationship. He faced to the rear and couldn't see in front without turning. So I told him where to go. And I faced to the front and couldn't see Susan. So he gave me updates on her progress. Basically she was getting further and further behind. The boat wakes were slowing her down. Pretty soon the "race" was over.

But it didn't feel like a real race ... even though Wye Island was the "big race" I had been training for all year. First the issue with the lactic acid almost caused me to quit the race early on. Second I took a three minute break two miles into the race. Third I coached Susan through the waves and didn't race her at all during that period. And finally I drafted the Dory for more than a mile. Not because I needed to ... he was just so nice to talk to. And apparently I wasn't the only one drafting that day!


So I did my first Wye Island Regatta in my surfski. I accomplished my goal. I got a really cute ribbon with a smiley face on it. Susan got one too but in a different color. I threw mine on a shelf somewhere. And the next day I went out paddling with Shannon on the Bay and kept the incredible pace of maybe 3 mph. We put-in at Sandy Point State Park right near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and paddled across to the other side ... about 4 miles. We had lunch on the beach and she introduced me to canned sardines. They look horrible but they actually taste pretty good. And then we paddled back slowly, chatting and laughing all the way.

And it was a really good day!

-Susanita