Location: The Imperial River at Riverside Park in Bonita Springs, Florida
Distance: 5.1 km
Conditions: High, smooth water with a moderate downriver current. Warm and sunny but not killer hot.
Participants: I skipped this race because I had to get to an appointment later in the morning. But I had just enough time to stop by and film the other racers. (See video above.) A few others of the usual crew, including Murray Hunkin and Mark Hourigan, also had to miss it. But most of the CGT race team/tribe were there, along with some new folks.
Results: Mark Athanacio won race #9 with ease in 33:29, bringing his series average time to 34:05. If not for the time in February that he raced with the flu his average would be 33.something. My average time 33:38 wins me the series (whoopee!) but not by a lot. Second place man was Justin DiGiorgio, who got a solid personal best time of 35:36. Third place was Matt Kearney in 36:53. First place woman Kate Pagan blazed to an incredible personal best time of 36:58, more than a minute faster than the previous fastest womens' time. Kate has been training hard with Mark Athanacio on the water and in the gym, and it's showing in her speed and attitude. She has also switched to a sleek 12'6 x 22" 2016 model Riviera RP raceboard, which seems to be a great match for her. Second place woman Meg Bosi had a solid performance, tieing her personal best time of 38:56 on her 12'6 x 24" Hovie Comet. Beth Schadd, riding a 12'6 x 26" BlkBox UNO, got 3rd with a very respectable 40:44. (Beth is a super fast runner and is going to be tough competition in a combo 5k RUN / 5 k SUP race coming up May 21st in Sarasota.) The full results for CGT race #9 and the series as a whole are on the CGT Time Trials page.
Other race intrigues: There were a lot of great "grand finale" performances in this race. Joe Gladieux took big chunks off his previous personal best time to get 42:14, which was almost 10 minutes faster than his time in the first race of the series. Practice pays off! John Weinberg beat his best by more than a minute and entered the category of "serious sub-40 minute" racers by getting 39:08. Donna Catron also showed steady improvement, dropping another 43 seconds off her previous personal best time to get 43:38. Heather Olson, who says she's just doing it for fun was looking a little more seriously competitive with a quick 45:52 time on a 24" wide raceboard. Not to be outdone, Heather's friend big-haired David Eisenberg pushed his 10'6 surf-style SUP to its limits and got 45:31. It'll be interesting to see what he can do when puts in that kind of effort on a raceboard.
David Eisenberg warms up.
What's Next: I'm getting nervous already for the Key West Classic (12 mile long race all the way around the island of Key West) this Saturday, April 30th. From the CGT race team we'll be representing with Devin Turetzkin, Matt Kearney, Murray Hunkin, Saralane Harrer, and myself.
Location: Koreshan State Park on the Estero River in Estero, FL. It's an area with an interesting pre-european history, as a thoroughfare of the Calusa people, whose coastal empire centered around "Mound Key" in Estero Bay. (The Imperial River, where the CGT Kayaks and Paddleboards races are held, is also a tributary of Estero Bay and a former Calusa highway. In fact CGT stands for "Calusa Ghost Tours," which was one of the outfitter's original staples.) The more recent history of Koreshan State Park is also interesting, since it was the site of a bizarre religious compound in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the park description, "Throughout its history, Florida has welcomed pioneers of all kinds. Cyrus Reed Teed was probably the most unusual, bringing followers to Estero in 1894 to build the "New Jerusalem" for his new faith, Koreshanity. The colony, known as the Koreshan Unity, believed that the entire universe existed within a giant, hollow sphere. The colony began fading after Teed´s death in 1908, and in 1961 the last four members deeded the land to the state. What remains of their once vibrant community are 11 beautifully maintained historic structures that date from 1882-1920 and landscaped grounds including unique ornamental exotic vegetation from throughout the world. Today, visitors can fish, picnic, boat, and hike where Teed´s visionaries once lived and created their own utopia."
There's also a darker chapter in Koreshanity. The Waco, Texas cultists who fatally clashed with the federal government in the 1990s were lead by David Koresh, a claimant to the Koreshan line of reincarnated Jesuses.
Distance: There was a "10 mile" and a "4 mile" but the former was shortened due to Coast Guard concerns about not being able to provide safety for the originally proposed rounding of Mound Key in Estero Bay. Instead the turnaround for the long race was placed right where the Estero River empties into Estero Bay, for a total distance of about 7.9 miles / 12.7 km. It was a still a long, challenging race. They also had a 1 mile race for kids and parent-kid teams.
Conditions: Typical, warm, hazy Florida weather. There was minimal current at the start of the race, but the incoming tidal current got increasingly strong further towards Estero Bay. Fortunately a breeze from the East was at our backs when going against the current, and the current helped fight the breeze on the return leg of the race. In many areas the water was very shallow. This dramatically increases drag through an interesting physical mechanism. There's often a temptation to hug the riverbanks to get out of the wind and current, but because of the very shallow water in this race the mid-channel was usually the place to be.
Participants: In the SUP division, several members of the CGT race team/tribe were there, including Matt Kearney, Murray Hunkin, Kate Pagan, Donna Catron, Beth Schadd, Mark Payne, Phil Trudgeon, Joe Gladieux, the Hammond family, and Johns Weinberg and Wheeler. We also had some riders benched by illness or injuries who nevertheless came out to cheer us. In the canoe and kayak divisions there were some familiar faces like surfski paddler Doug Lindsay, plus lots of people I'd never seen before. There were loads of kids, teenagers, and adults from Cape Coral's South Florida Canoe and Kayak Club. The SFCKC is a non-profit organization that trains paddlers of all levels, offers summer camps for local kids, winter training for serious racers from up north, etc.
Results: The full results are going to be posted in a few days by the College of Life Foundation, so I'll just briefly go over the adult SUP division results, which are what I remember best. The results are a bit deceptive because there were age and gender divisions but the young weren't always faster than the old, the men weren't always faster than the women, etc. E.g., I got first place in the long race with 1:27:25 but the second fastest finisher was 50+ class Phil Trudgeon. 49 year old Murray Hunkin crossed the line just before Phil, but Murray had started earlier and thus didn't beat Phil's time. Third in the young men division was John Weinberg. Second and third in the old men division were Will Compton (70 years old!) and Mark Payne.
Top 3 male sup racers under 50, minus Murray Hunkin who left before the awards to play golf.
Top 3 male sup racers over 50. <
Two women did the long race- Beth Schadd (left) seemed to pick up speed with every mile and finished first, while Donna Catron took a wrong turn that made the race MUCH longer but still managed to cross the line eventually. Both women were first in their age divisions.
In the shorter race Matt Kearney was the first young man, Jason Mastin the second, and (I think) Joseph Gladieux the third. Joe didn't stick around for the awards.
For the short race old man division John Wheeler was first. The names of the second and third place competitors elude me now- but maybe it was Hal Atzingen in 3rd?
Young womens' short race was a very fast group- CGT team hero Kate Pagan raced hard but was just edged off the top spot by a fast girl from Wisconsin. I think Wisconsin girl also beat our top men in the short race. Pretty impressive. Third woman was also an out of towner, if I'm not mistaken. I don't think there were any older women SUP competitors in the short race.
Gear: I used my usual 14'x23.75" custom carbon Riviera RP raceboard with a 6" Fins Unlimited fin. I used the Riviera Vantage R8 paddle that I recently cut down to 77". There were no board length divisions in this race, so it was an advantage to have a 14' board.
Play by play: For me this was an "extra" race that popped up at the last minute and didn't quite fit into my fitness training schedule, which is based around the Key West Classic at the end of the month. Coach Mark Athanacio advised me to take it easy. I did take it easier than usual, not only because of Mark's advice but also simply because I was worn out from his tough gym and paddle workouts the previous two days.
Nevertheless, I wanted to do a respectable pace and win first place. The plan was to work together with Murray Hunkin, who is normally a bit slower than me. We lined up at the start line and agreed to trade off drafting positions during the race. The starts were staggered, as in the CGT races, because the river is too narrow to line everyone up at once.) During the starting countdown Murray hilariously started paddling at about "3" while everyone else waited until "1". That brought a few jeers from the crowd but no penalty was called. Anyway, Murray let me ahead after 100 meters or so, but after a bit of shallow water and sharp turns, Murray told me to go on ahead because the conditions didn't suit his juggernaut style.
My strategy the rest of the race was pretty simple- Paddle efficiently, keep my heart rate moderate, don't overstrain my sore bits, and stay in the fastest part of the river. There were a few spots where it would have been easy to make a navigational error. The turn-around buoy for the short race was in a wide side channel to the right, which lured in some of the long race paddlers who should have continued left. I'm glad I asked the people on the safety boat for directions there. Further downriver there was a well-marked fork to the right for the "Calusa Blueway" paddling trail, but we had to stay left in the main Estero River Channel. (That's where Donna Catron and Doug Lindsay took their LONG detours).
After finally reaching Estero Bay, fighting a strong tidal current in the last km or so, it was great to turn around and get a boost from the current on the way back. My Speedcoach SUP 2 gps helped me stay in the fast part of the channel for the return- sometimes the river was wide but the current was concentrated in a relatively narrow area. The final quarter of the race got hard again, because the helpful current diminished and a headwind kicked up. My energy held pretty well with sips of Gatorade from my water pack, but I had to paddle gingerly and switch sides more often towards the end because of soreness in my triceps related to a weight lifting thing we had done on Thursday.
The awards and lunch after the race were in a nice shady pine tree area and were run smoothly. They had the mayor of Estero come out to hang the medals on our necks, which was cool.
Here's my speedcoach track and data from the race: You have to click into it to see the details like heartrate and stuff.
Other race intrigues: I should mention that it was really cool to see the youth racers from the SFCKC charging hard and having a good time.
What's Next: Next race is a local one- the final round of the CGT Winter Race Series, April 24th. It's a 5 km race in a lazy, bendy river. You do NOT need to have done any of the other races in the series to do it, and registration is just $5. Open to any paddlecraft- kayaks, SUPs, etc. At the race they will probably announce the summer race series, which will feature a slightly altered course with two laps of about 2 miles each. Then, April 30th is a huge out-of-town race for me, The Key West Classic, which is a horrendous challenge going all the way around Key West.
Date it happened: My dad's birthday, 10 April 2016
Location: Riverside Park on the Imperial River in Bonita Springs, FL
Distance: 5.06 km on my Speedcoach SUP GPS (picked good lines around the bends)
Conditions: Gorgeous springlike weather in the low 20's Celsius. Ebbing tide with lowish water and moderate downriver current. Patches of moderate East wind.
Participants: Much of the usual CGT race team was absent, having been scattered by travel for the previous day's out-of-town race, the Sharkbite Challenge in Dunedin, Florida. The Sharkbite had the makings of an epic race, with 300+ participants in kayak, sup, and outrigger canoe classes, but it was tragically called off by the authorities (Coast Guard, Police, Park Rangers, etc.) due to safety concerns stemming from the rough water and strong offshore winds. It was a bummer that we all drove 3 hours each way and couldn't race, but I at least got wet and rode few waves on my raceboard before we turned around for home. Some of the rest of the team turned lemons into lemonade by doing a just-for-fun paddle at Weeki Wachee springs on the way home. Anyway, after those Saturday adventures, the only race team members to return for the Sunday morning CGT race were Mark Hourigan and me. A cool thing about that was that it allowed some up-and-coming racers to really shine. It also allowed Hourigan and me to put the pedal to the metal in an uncrowded river.
Results: I got first place in the men's 14' class and a new personal best time of 32:49, 26 second faster than my previous best. Hourigan got 33:49, also a personal best and his first sub-34 minute time. Dark horse Phil Trudgeon showed the speed of his new blue Riviera 14'x27" raceboard with an impressive 35:35. This was an incredible 3 minutes faster than Phil's previous record time, set on an older 14'x29" board. Jesse Lavender also had an impressive mid-30s time of 36:59. Several dudes who aren't always super quick showed serious speeds, including John Weinberg with 40:14, and Mark Payne with 41:46. 56 year old Mark Payne has recently switched to a KeNalu paddle with a relatively long, flexible shaft, and he says it helps him stay quick and efficient without hurting his back. First place woman was Beth Schadd, who broke through the 41 minute barrier with an impressive 40:38 on a 12'6x26" BlkBox UNO. Heather Olson who just takes it easy still got a pretty fast 47:38, and Jodi Ziajka struggled with a partially detached and totally weed covered fin to get 52:41. Jodi- time to get a weed fin and a normal fin screw instead of those bogus quick release weed-catcher screws. Complete results will be posted on the CGT TIME TRIALS page.
Gear: I used my 14'x23.75" Riviera, "Fletchy" with a 6" Fins Unlimited Keel fin. The light weight of the board and the moderate rocker and not-too-sharp nose help it with cornering and acceleration- important in this bendy-river race. Mark Hourigan used "Whitey," a 14'x25" Riviera that is very fast in the straights but doesn't corner or accelerate quite as well due to the displacement nose and slightly wider and heavier mass. I heard Hourigan express some interest in going to a 14x23 2016 model Riviera, which would probably make him even faster than he is now. CGT is selling the 2016 Riviera raceboards very cheap, similar to the what they're selling used boards from some of the other brands for. If you're in the market for a raceboard and you want to demo it first check CGT out because they have lots of stuff you can ride. One piece of gear that I changed for this race was my paddle. I used the same Riviera Vantage 8" wide paddle that I usually use, but I cut the shaft down from about 80 to about 77 inches. 77 is the new recommended length for my height. The short shaft lets me get the blade in and out of the water quicker, and gives me more power over the blade in the "sweet spot" of the stroke. It also encourages me to use my lower body better. Seems to be working so far.
Play by play: This race was pretty "boring" from a technical/tactical standpoint because I started in the first group and was out in front the whole time. I was going to work with Mark Hourigan in a draft train, but I zipped too fast off the starting line for him to get in my draft and I was too excited about trying for a personal best time to bother to slow down. Mark is 20 years older than me, and on a wider and heavier board, but he was still keeping pace with me for most of the race. I thought I'd had a really fast downriver leg, but when I turned around at the buoy he was right there behind me. Not until the bends of the upriver portion did I put a little safer distance between us. I tried to apply two techniques that coach Mark Athanacio has encouraged: 1) Throwing in an extra sprint of speed whenever you can, then recovering at normal pace. 2) Deliberately keeping your stroke peppy and forceful even when you feel tiredness and muscle fatigue. One thing that helped this time was not having anyone in front of me, which gave me the luxury of picking whatever path through the river looked fastest and shortest. It's not just how fast you move through the water- it's also about finding the path of least resistance and shortest distance. In the end I was very happy to beat my personal best by a non-trivial amount. I think if I continue with my Athanacio fitness training and technique tuning I can bring my average speed up by a few more tenths of a kph.
Here's my speedcoach track and data from the race: You have to click into it to see the details like heartrate and stuff.
Other race intrigues: New racer Paul Petersen and drone photographer David Eisenberg worked hard and got good times of 43:40 and 45:02, respectively. Paul's time was particularly impressive since he was on a 12'6 board- if I recall correctly it was a 27" wide 404 v3. The Hammond family of Mike Sr., Mike Jr., and kids turned out and seemed to enjoy themselves. Mike Sr. and the boy kid used solo kayaks, and Mike Jr. and his daughter did tandem SUP. After the race we had a great buffet lunch at the CGT shop, thanks to Aaron Thomas. It's ridiculous what a deal the racers get for just $5.
What's Next: Next race is April 16th, the "Calusa Palooza" and it's local, in the Estero River. There's a 4 mile and a 10 mile. The 10 mile goes out the Estero River into Estero Bay, loops around the Mound Key archaeological site, then back. Looks like a fun challenge.
Here's how the series is going so far in terms of folks' times- Times generally got longer in January because the river current was strong then, and they've been getting shorter this spring because of less current plus improving skills and fitness.
Location: Riverside Park on the Imperial River in Bonita Springs, FL
Distance: 5.1 km on my Speedcoach SUP GPS (cut some corners this time)
Conditions: Warm, humid weather. High water with leafy floating debris. Moderate downriver current. A bit of wind in certain sections.
Participants: The hard-training CGT race team was there- Matt Kearney, Meg Bosi, Justin DiGiorgio, Kate Pagan, Murray Hunkin, Devin Turetzkin, Mark Hourigan, and me. We were amped up to see if two weeks of formal training with Mark Athanacio had improved our speeds. There were also lots of members of the broader "CGT Tribe" of avid paddlers. Great turnout.
Results: I got first place in the men's 14' class with a personal best time of 33:14. Second was Mark Hourigan, 20 years older than me but less than a minute behind in 34:09. Incredible PB performance for him, too. Third overall and first in the 12'6 class was coach Mark Athanacio in 34:40. (Amazing that he did that on a 12'6.) Third 14' guy was 50-year old Devin Turetzkin, who had his best race by far with 35:44. Millenials Justin DiGiorgio and Matt Kearney also had great times (36:00 and 36:45, respectively), but they'll need to step it up to match their increasingly fast elders- Matt was just two seconds ahead of "freight train" Murray Hunkin (36:47). First place woman was Kate Pagan in 38:24, followed by Meg Bosi in 39:02, and Beth Schadd in a personal-best 41:17. Beth is fast enough now that with a little more training or a little narrower board she could be a real threat to Kate and Meg. Watch out! Jen Hayes also got around the course pretty darn quick (42:44) without seeming to even break a sweat. If she decides to get competitive it could be real interesting. Bryan Herrick rode a big wide fishing-oriented paddleboard because his raceboard was down for repairs... but he still managed to finish in 41:20. He has been training hard in some windy condition in Matlacha Pass, and it's obviously making him strong. Complete results will be posted on the CGT TIME TRIALS page.
Gear: I used my 14'x23.75" Riviera, "Fletchy" with a 6" Fins Unlimited Keel fin. Weed fins were the call for today- Some unfortunate people like Joseph Gladieaux and Jodi Ziajka had to work twice as hard to go half as fast because their non-weed fins were dragging sticks and leaves the whole time.
Play by play: On Athanacio's suggestion we staggered the start differently than usual this time. Instead of putting the fastest race team members in the first wave of starters, we did the opposite. That way the folks in front would be the "rabbits" motivated to not get caught by the "wolves" creeping up behind them. And if they did get caught, they could practice getting into the draft of those passing them. It was great to do it that way, because it resulted in a lot of good drafting and passing action, and it probably contributed to the slew of personal best times recorded.
First wave was Matt Kearney, Justin DiGiorgio, and Devin Turetzkin. Second wave was Murray Hunkin and Mark Hourigan. Third wave was Mark Athanacio and me. I sprinted like hell off the starting line- A lot harder than I usually sprint. It was a strategy I'd been thinking of using if Athanacio had decided to use a 14'- outsprint him in the first 200 meters (hopefully) and never let him catch me. It might not have worked were we both on 14s, but with him on the slower 12'6 and probably not taking the race as seriously because of that, I did end up putting a gap on him. Then it was just a matter of chasing down the guys ahead of me. Hourigan had dropped Murray from his draft, so I came up on Murray first. I tried to approach him from wide out rather than coming straight up the center of his wake. Doing that I could sort of ride his side-wake in as I approached him. I was lucky to get around him just as we approached the downriver buoy turn.
Heading upriver I felt tired but tried to keep up the tempo and close the distance on Hourigan and the Matt-Justin-Devin train. I paddled OK except for one strategic error where I lost some speed crossing shallow water around a bend. I caught the train a little after Hourigan did. The train was rearranging a bit, with Devin making a strong move to get ahead and Matt dropping back. I squeaked around Justin with a bit of paddle clashing, and I think I then got behind Devin or Hourigan. My memory is a little fuzzy there. But at some point Hourigan and I got away from the rest and I stuck behind Hourigan while trying to recover my breath. On the upper section of course Hourigan let me by and followed me for a bit before I lost him at a sharp bend near the upriver turn-around. I was more exhausted than usual on the final, downriver leg of the course, and I made some poor decisions to go under low branches that forced me to stop paddling and coast for a bit. At the very end I picked up the pace as much as I could, and I was pleased to have beaten my PB time. It was a great race.
Here's my speedcoach track and data from the race: You have to click into it to see the details like heartrate and stuff.
Other race intrigues: Athanacio made an interesting point after the race, asking us, "Who got a personal best this time? Raise your hands. Uh huh. Who was slower?" Most of us did get personal bests, or close to it. But interestingly the person who has been putting in the most miles of practice, Murray Hunkin, was a fair bit slower than his best time of the series. Murray has been grinding out long mileage paddles in between our high intensity interval training days, which might not be leaving enough time for recovery and "consolidation" of the fitness gains made by the high intensity intervals training.
What's Next: Next race is a big one- the Sharkbite Challenge April 9th in the Tampa area. Hopefully I can keep my wits about me and apply the hard training to a speedy result in this 8 miler.
For those who haven't been reading my blog lately, Mark Athanacio is the tough, 50ish guy who has been my constant competitor and often mentor in standup paddleboard racing in Southwest Florida.
Mark is strict and strident regarding the philosophies of personal health, athletic training and fair competition that he has developed and followed over a long career in physical education. In other words, and even by his own admission, he is kind of an a--hole. So when the CGT Kayaks and Paddleboards race team recently entered into a formal training arrangement with him it was like this...
Anyway, we've been training with Athanacio for two weeks now, and so far, so good. Despite his high standards and ferocious competitiveness, Mark is quite positive and encouraging as a coach. He has us doing two types of training:
1. 3x per week group sessions on the water after work. The workouts are generally short, about 30 minutes / 3 km, and broken up into intervals of varying intensity, including a lot of full-on sprint intensity work. Athanacio hovers around and gives us tips before, after, and during the workouts. He's pretty creative about designing courses and staggering the start times of faster/slower team members, which challenges us all to deal with "race traffic," obstacles, and passing situations. One of his themes has been teaching us how to push through feelings of exhaustion to faster than normal speeds, with confidence that we can recover at normal speed once the push is over. Another of his themes is maintaining form and intensity throughout the workout, and ending the workout earlier rather than going to the point where you're just practicing sloppy half-hearted paddling.
2. Strength training on non-paddle days. Mark says there are a lot of little ways to improve your paddle performance, e.g., technique, equipment, nutrition, etc. But the one SURE THING that will improve anyone's paddle performance is proper strength training, because the standup paddleboarding motion is so strength-dependent. Most of the team members are doing strength training independently on off days, but Mark has been extra nice to me and one other guy on the team by giving us strength training lessons in his home gym. Mark's gym is actually the entire lower level of his tiny river house.
(It's a unique house that has been featured on HGTV. The living quarters is a tiny cabin-like thing sitting atop one corner of a normal sized garage. The house is a good fit with Mark and his yogi girlfriend Jen's healthy, minimalist life philosophies.)
Anyway, pumping iron with Mark has been challenging, but not in the energetically exhausting way that I'm used to from my normal gym mode of going around the YMCA doing lots of moderate-weight reps on every machine. Mark's gym workouts are mainly challenging because they involve meticulous attention to posture and movement patterns in lifts that require the whole body. There are three main things that we do- squats, deadlifts, and standing military press. All involve a single, big barbell. We also do some pushups, pullups, and various hanging/stretching activities, but those are mainly just to get us warmed up for the big barbell things. I've been feeling good types of sore after the workouts, and I think they're going to help a lot with the ability to maintain a strong, sturdy posture and a dynamic paddle stroke during races. We'll see.
Next race is a local one, Easter morning, where I'm going to have to face Athanacio again. Aaack!
Picture: Local HovieSUP riders pose with brand owner Brian Hovnanian from Sarasota. Race winner Mark Athanacio is in the front row with his black and grey Hovie Comet GT 14x23.
Location: Riverside Park on the Imperial River in Bonita Springs, FL
Distance: 5.12 km
Conditions: Pleasant sunny weather, moderate current and breeze, very low water levels.
Participants: The usual CGT race team, the HovieSUP business owners, plus some new people.
Results: First place in the men's 14' class was Mark Athanacio, in 33:32. I was two seconds behind. Yep- I got BEAT this time. Third man was Mark Hourigan in 35:28. Women's 12'6 class winner was out-of-town Hovie rider Francesca Morrow, in 39:28, followed by Kate Pagan in 39:47 and Meg Bosi in 39:52. Kate and Meg were also on Hovie sups. Full results will be posted on the CGT TIME TRIALS page.
Gear: I used my 14'x23.75" Riviera, "Fletchy." Athanacio was on a 14'x23" Hovie Comet GT. Both of us used Fins Unlimited 6" Keel fins.
Play by play: The first group to start was Murray Hunkin, Mark Hourigan, Devin Turetzkin, and Bryan Herrick, the man with the dragon tattoo. Bryan usually rides a 12'6x27 404 v3, but he'd recently bruised it surfing so he rode the shop's 14x26.25 BlkBox UNO. I started in the second group with Athanacio, and Matt Kearney. Justin DiGiorgio went behind us in his own group, intent on breaking his personal best time without the aid of drafting.
The starting sprint for my group was pretty even. I decided to slip behind Athanacio since he seemed fired up to go really fast. I'm not sure how long Matt stayed in our draft train because all my concentration was focused on staying in Athanacio's wake. Athanacio is really fast and also has these surges of acceleration coupled with slight direction changes that are hard to anticipate. He's not easy to draft. I can tell because my heartrate and speed don't change much when we trade drafting positions.
I took my first turn "pulling" the train about 1km into the race, and continued pulling after the first turn-around and up to the 2.5 km mark. Then I slowed down to let Athanacio around and he ended up holding the lead for the rest of the race, not counting when we caught up to Mark Hourigan and both drafted him for a while. In the upper part of the course we both left Mark Hourigan's wake to pass him at the same time, and I thought about trying to pass Athanacio at that time, too. In retrospect I should maybe have made my move right after Athanacio passed Hourigan, since passing drains a person's energy.
Anyway, although I was able to stay on Athanacio's tail through the upriver buoy turn and for the remainder of the race, I just couldn't muster the strength to get around him. When I did try to get around him I actually found myself falling back, as I struggled to push my board over his wake. It helped me relate to the frustration he must have felt when I stuck him in the same position a few times in previous races. To pass someone who is very similar to you in speed, and who doesn't want you to pass, is extremely difficult, especially in a narrow channel where you can't get out to the side of the person. Even though I didn't win first place, I was still happy to get a fast time, and I reckon I got a good workout and learned a lot.
Here's my speedcoach track and data from the race:
Other race intrigues: There were a lot of great performances in this race. Joseph Gladieux looked dialed-in on his 14x24.75 Fanatic Falcon (my old board) and shaved 3 minutes off his previous best time to get a very respectable 43:56. Donna Catron got 44:10, beating her best time by almost a minute and nearly catching her rival Damien Lin, who amazingly got 43:39 despite falling three times from running aground. Devin Turetzkin also fell but still salvaged a personal best 37:44. Matt Kearney had a very solid race with 36:41 on his 14x24 404 v3, but he was edged out by on-fire Justin DiGiorgio, who smashed his personal best with 36:25, riding a 14x24 Hovie Comet ZXC. That's going to put Justin ahead in the series. Dragon Bryan went something like 6 minutes faster on the 14' BlkBox than he'd gone previously on his 12'6 board- Maybe he'll be looking at buying one. Alan Navarro had a great comeback from a long time off the water with one of the faster 12'6 times.
One of the best things about these CGT races is, of course, the lunch social afterwards in the shop. CGT co-owner Aaron Thomas always puts out a good spread.
What's Next: The CGT race team is about to begin an exciting new chapter in our quest for speed. We are beginning a group training program with Mark Athanacio as our coach. It's obvious from Mark's bodybuilder physique and age-defying sup racing dominance that he knows how to train effectively. We'll do 2-3 sessions with him on the water each week, and some of us will also add some strength training. I'll let you know how it goes.
Lately there has been an unprecedented level of public concern about the declining health of South Florida's coasts and waterways. These concerns are valid. They stem from a trio of ongoing environmental disasters, which are caused by humans and have worsened recently due to unusual precipitation patterns.
1. High volume freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the Caloosahatchee Estuary, leading to reduced salinity, murky water, and harm to seagrasses, oysters, fish, and tourism.
2. High volume freshwater discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the St. Lucie Estuary, leading to reduced salinity, murky water, and harm to seagrasses, oysters, nearshore reefs, fish, and tourism.
3. Death of seagrasses and reefs in the Florida Bay / Florida Keys region, related to disruption of normal freshwater flow from the Everglades wetland system.
Concurrently, harmful algal blooms, including red tide, brown tide, blue-green algae, and seaweed blooms, have increased throughout Florida estuaries and coastal oceans. These "HAB"s have negative effects ranging from simply creating unsightly murky water, to killing seagrasses, corals, fish and marine mammals, to creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones", to even sickening humans who walk on the beach.
All of these problems are strongly related to the "altered hydrology" of South Florida. Hydrology is how freshwater makes its way from the land to the ocean. Historically, the hydrology of South Florida was a slow flow through forests, swamps, lazy rivers, groundwater springs, and wetlands like the Everglades.
Historic, diffuse pattern of freshwater flow across South Florida. Note that there was no link between Lake Okeechobee and the estuaries on the West and East Coasts of the State. The flow just went overland to the Everglades in the South.
The land was covered in vegetation, which filtered out the dirt from the water and sucked up most of the water-borne nutrients (chemicals like Nitrogen and Phosphorus) before they could reach the coasts. (Though nutrients occur naturally and are essential for plant life, excessive flux of nutrients into waterways, due to man-made sources like fertilizer and sewage, and due to loss of natural filters like wetlands, causes HABs and all their nasty effects.) So the coastal waters were cleaner and clearer than they are now.
In addition to the dirt- and nutrient-removal benefits of a diffuse, slow-flowing hydrology, the old Florida flow pattern also evened out the effects of droughts and heavy rains on the amount of water flowing into estuaries. (An estuary is a bay where freshwater flowing off the land mixes with saltwater from the ocean.) The freshwater flows levels were evened out because wetlands like the Everglades would naturally store water during wet times and leach out water during dry times. A relatively consistent, moderate amount of freshwater entering an estuary allows abundant and diverse life to flourish, whereas "all or nothing" freshwater flows create extreme too-fresh/too-salty conditions that most life cannot tolerate.
You might be asking, "If the natural hydrology of South Florida was so wonderful, why did people alter it?" Well, the alterations began a long time ago (in the 1800s and early 1900s) before many people realized how important the natural pattern was. At the time we thought wetlands like the everglades were just useless land, too wet to farm or build on. So various private and government groups dug deep, straight canals to hasten the flow of water off the land. This effectively turned the wetlands into dry lands, but it eliminated the land's ability to store and filter water. So the estuaries were subjected to extreme high and low flows of freshwater, and the water was also dirtier than before.
Additional hydrologic changes were made when it was realized that the drainage canals actually worked too well, and farming was being disrupted by dry peaty soils blowing away or even catching on fire. So expensive dams, locks, and pumps were added to the canals to retain water for agriculture sometimes, and drain water off the land at other times. That further increased the variability in how much freshwater made it into the estuaries, so the environmental conditions in the estuaries got really weird and bad.
The most famous/infamous man-made hydrologic change was the interruption of the southward flow of the Everglades. The everglades, aka the "river of grass," historically flowed from the soggy south banks of Lake Okeechobee through endless kilometers of sawgrass, down to the "10,000 islands" region where it blended into "Florida Bay," the vast expanse of shallow water between mainland South Florida and the islands and reefs of the Florida Keys. Along the way, the everglades flow recharged groundwater sources really important for the growing human population of Southeast Florida (Palm Beach to Miami).
Anyway, in order to control flooding and expand farming in the everglades-origin area on the south shores of Lake Okeechobee, a big dike was built to prevent the lake from overflowing to the South, and lots of drainage canals, locks, and pumping stations were built to dry out the land there and create a massive "Everglades Agricultural Area" (EAA) where un-farmable wetlands used to be. The main crop in the EAA now is sugarcane. To deal with the excess water buildup in Lake Okeechobee, since it could no longer flow southward without flooding sugarcane fields, giant canals were built on the east and west sides of Lake Okeechobee to drain its water into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively. The receiving estuary for the westward Okeechobee purges is the Caloosahatchee Estuary. The receiving estuary for the eastward Okeechobee purges is the St. Lucie Estuary. Hence, disasters #1 and #2, above. Disaster #3 in Florida Bay is caused by insufficient freshwater delivery to Florida Bay, which creates super salty conditions fatal to seagrass and coral.
This video explains the problem pretty well.
So, what's the solution? The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, a joint effort of state government (the South Florida Water Management District) and federal government (the US Army Corps of Engineers) aims to restore more natural patterns of flow, somewhat ironically, by more digging, damming, and pumping. There are many different CERP projects scattered all over South Florida, ranging widely in size, cost, and stage of planning/completion. CERP has had some successes, notably the restoration of natural river bends and wetlands around the Kissimmee River on the north side of Lake Okeechobee. Another interesting CERP project, the "C43 Reservoir," is underway along the shore of the Caloosahatchee River. For that project, low-lying farm fields are being dug up and turned into a water storage area that will be filled when water flows are high and gradually drained when water flows are low, to reduce the extremes of high and low flows reaching the Caloosahatchee Estuary. Some CERP funding also goes to support environmental monitoring and research in the areas where habitats, water quality, and wildlife are affected by the altered hydrology. For example, I have received funding from CERP to support my studies of the effects of Lake Okeechobee releases on seagrasses in the Caloosahatchee Estuary. You can read my 2014 report by clicking here, then clicking "Caloosahatchee Estuary," then clicking the "SAV" tab.
Unfortunately, the CERP projects completed or underway so far won't do enough to stop the big 3 problems. The centerpiece of the CERP plan, which has yet to be enacted, would do a lot more. The centerpiece would be the buyout of a huge swath of the EAA (the sugar land) south of Lake Okeechobee. The buyout would allow the South Florida Water Management District and the US Army Corps of Engineers to create a giant semi-natural wetland that would convey a significant volume of Lake Okeechobee water into the Everglades, filtering out some of the pollution in the water along the way. The Florida public, and the SFWMD and USACOE scientists with whom I regularly interact, are overwhelmingly in support of the buyout plan. It just makes sense. So far, the elected officials who have the power to enact the buyout have neglected to do so. Perhaps that will change as the increasingly obvious signs of environmental degradation spur public activism. Some of the activist groups already vocal on these issues are:
Though the motivations of the different activist groups are varied, from protecting nature to enhancing fishing to increasing tourism, it's interesting that they all seem to be coalescing around one central message: "Buy the land, send the water south."
I'm a marine biology professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. My professional page is here, my personal blog is here, and my no-longer-maintained science blog is here.
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