The race was about 2 hours of paddling loops on a shallow tributary of the Assiniboine river in East Selkirk, Manitoba. As the first race of the season, it was not terribly populated but the weather was warm and sunny, if a bit windy. The start was a bit of a scramble with some bumping, but we got into a good rhythm pretty quick. There were 6 bouy turns on the course and if felt like we lost a lot of momentum. Probably we need a little more speed going into the turns, and I need to do a better job of posting so we turn tighter. I didn’t feel too hot, but I drank two litres during the race and never felt like I ran out of gas, so that was good. Overall I was pretty happy with the race and I am looking forward to doing another one.
It took almost 9 hours to drive to Winnipeg and another 9 hours home, so I was lucky to be traveling with awesome friend and canoe stern Ann. She bought new roof racks for the trip since we were the only ones from Saskatoon going to Manitoba. 18 hours is a long way to drive for one paddle, so we also did a training paddle in Winnipeg on the Assiniboine and Red rivers. I paddled with paddling mentor Mike, who gave me about 6 dozen things to work on. that should keep me busy for the next few months!
Glad you had a good race! We started War Canoe practices again last week. Got blown off the lake the first night but did about 5k of drills yesterday with a half full boat. I love canoeing.