May 17, 2012
| SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT Eight races that break the mold | ||
by Jeff Moag | ||
| From the 2008-2009 Rower's Almanac. | ||
There's something reassuring about a 2,000-meter rowing race. There are the six lanes, neatly arranged side-by-side, and the standard distance, familiar in every excruciating, lung-burning detail. There are the referees with their blue blazers, red flags and precise timetables. All that routine is as comforting as anything so closely associated with extreme physical exertion can be. We rowers are creatures of habit. But every so often, it's good to break the mold, to row a race distance that is completely unfamiliar. It's good not only to push ourselves physically, but to push ourselves away from the comfort of routine. Thankfully, there is no shortage of regattas that give us the chance. Following are some of the most off-beat and interesting rowing races anywhere. Our picks include head races with unique course features, as well as events that defy categorization. Some attract defending world champions, while others draw an aging crowd in recreational boats. These classic races have just one thing in common. They offer something completely different. Corvallis to Portland Row The two-day, 115-mile Corvallis to Portland Row is the brainchild of Tiff Wood, whose legendary appetite for pain was documented in the classic rowing book The Amateurs. Wood and a handful of co-conspirators completed the first event-known aptly by its acronym, CPR-in 1999. Remarkably, the list of participants has grown every year since. The 85-mile first day begins at 5:30 Saturday morning with a 35-mile first leg and two 25-mile segments. The rowers get about 45 minutes to stretch and eat between stages. They camp that evening at Champoeg State Park, where they recharge their energy stores courtesy of sponsor Buster's Barbecue. They're back on the river at 5:30 Sunday morning. A 19-mile stage brings racers to the locks at Willamette Falls in Oregon City, where the rest interval lasts as long as it takes to descend 45 feet through five locks-usually about half an hour. From there, Wood says, it's "an 11-mile dash to the finish." The race is open to anyone willing to tackle 115 miles in a double, four or quad. Athletes who have finished a previous CPR in a team boat are also eligible to race in singles. Athletes accustomed to seven minutes of anaerobic burn will find the CPR comes down to a different kind of pain tolerance: maintaining proper technique when hands and seat are burning from 12 hours of abuse. Competitors invent new techniques, such as sculling with knees outside of elbows or singing show tunes-anything to relieve the pain of repetitive motion. In addition to as much Texas-style barbecue as they can handle, every finisher receives a medal designed and crafted by CPR co-instigator Bill Byrd. Recent medals have been modeled after the anvil that pile-drives Wile E. Coyote into the canyon floor in old Road Runner cartoons-a not-so-subtle homage to finishers' post-race physical state. The medals come suspended from a hangman's noose and stenciled with the Acme logo and the CPR motto: "No Whining." Details: The Corvallis to Portland Row takes place over the weekend after Memorial Day. http://www.newworldrowing.com/ Also Try: The Death Row, Duluth Minnesota. The name says it all: 18 miles upstream from a mass start. The first boat to arrive alive wins. The entry fee includes admission to a party for all survivors. September. http://www.duluthrowing.org/ Green Mountain Head, Putney Vermont More than a century ago, scullers ranked among America's most celebrated professional athletes. The iconic image of that golden age, Thomas Eakins' "The Bigelow Brothers Turning the Stake," adorns dorm rooms and boathouses from coast to coast. But few 21 st century rowers know what it's like to compete in a stake race. Those who wish to find out can still do so at the Green Mountain Head on the Connecticut River in Putney, Vermont. The course is a classic stake race-a straight mile and one-half upstream dash, followed by a 180-degree turn around the stake, and then a mad sprint home. The event is limited to singles and doubles because of the difficulty larger boats have making the turn. "Large rowing shells turn stakes with the grace of a Holstein at a contra dance," explains George Heller, who founded the event 26 years ago with his brother Peter. The event regularly draws more than 400 athletes from around the Eastern United States and Canada. The race coincides with New England's fall foliage season, when the Connecticut River's banks are colored in brilliant shades of red and orange. "There's nothing more beautiful than this stretch of the Connecticut River in the fall," says Heller. New England's seasonal bounty is a big part of the race's draw. When racing ends, competitors graze tables loaded with Vermont specialties including homemade breads, cheddar cheese, and apples, as well as the regatta's trademark import, Chinese-style egg rolls. Winners take home a quart of Vermont maple syrup; second and third win a sack of apples and a gallon of cider respectively. Despite its low-key country charm, the Green Mountain Head draws world-class talent. Past winners include 1996 Olympic sculling champion Xeno Muller, and 1997 World Champion Jamie Koven. The master's competition is also fierce. Stake racing demands new tactics and skills to negotiate the buoy turn. Nineteenth-century professional scullers would sometimes catch the buoy chain with their inside oar for a gut-wrenching high-speed turn. That tactic won't work at the Green Mountain Head because the buoys are moored with lightweight lines, but competitors try almost everything else. "People row around them, they row into them. Some people fall in on their own," Heller says. "Nobody suffers, except getting wet." | Details: The Annual Green Mountain Head takes place on the last Sunday in September. Entries limited to singles and doubles only. http://www.rowgmh.com/ Also try: The Toda Long Race, Toda Japan. This race covers 3,000 meters on the 1964 Olympic course. The artificial lake is too small for a conventional head race, so the Long Race is actually two short ones: 1,500 meters, followed by 90-second spin break, then another 1,500 meters. February. The Marathon Championships: Natchitoches , Louisiana Natchitoches has the feel of a community that time passed by, and in a way it is. Nearly 200 years ago, the settlement's advantageous position on the Red River made it the economic hub of the new Louisiana Territory. Eager to improve navigation, town fathers began to remove a 160-mile long logjam that blocked upstream commerce. The project took forty years to complete-after which the newly freed river carve a new channel, bypassing Natchitoches. It's been pretty quiet ever since. The old riverbed became Cane River Lake, a 32-mile watercourse averaging only 250 feet in width. It's an ideal setting for a 26-mile, 385-yard rowing race: pretty, protected from winds and free of current. The high banks are lined with pastures, and the occasional houses are framed by ancient oaks and magnolias. Twenty-six miles is a dangerous distance to row. It's long enough to seem as if it will never end, yet short enough to be raced wire-to-wire. The meandering course also can be challenging to steer, and has the effect of narrowing the margin between large and small boats. The top eights usually finish in just under three hours; the best singles about 25 minutes later. Celebrating its 18 th year in 2007, the Marathon Championships is organized by the Northwestern State University crew. It's a daunting task for the club program, but the team manages with style. Organizers provide water stops, shuttle competitors' vehicles from the start to the finish area, and lay out a Creole-style feed for 400. The race is open to all human-powered boats, and draws a large contingent of canoes and kayaks as well as rowing shells. In the regatta's early years the fastest boats started first, but organizers soon discovered that the early finishers devoured all the gumbo before the small boats arrived. They reversed the start order, an arrangement that allows faster crews to pick off a succession of other watercraft, ranging from boy scouts in old Grumman canoes to Louisiana pirogues and even an Irish Curragh. "You go by and say hello, and they'll shout something encouraging," says University of Texas coach Jeff Mork, who won the race in his single in 1999. "We're all in it together." JAMES TOMKINSDetails: The Marathon Rowing Championships take place on the second Saturday in November. Also try: The Boston Rowing Marathon, Boston, England. You don't have to run to compete in the Boston Marathon, you just have to make a trip to England-and be prepared to race for 31 miles. The race from Lincoln to Boston on the River Witham began as a dare in 1946, and has become With respect to the Head of the Charles, Victoria, British Columbia's Head of the Gorge Waterway is the quintessential coxswain's course. Starting amid the bustle of Victoria's working waterfront, the crews race through a winding, glacier-carved channel lined with spectacular homes and well-tended gardens. The course passes under four bridges, including a railroad trestle wide enough for only one boat. The channel is well marked, but the penalty for missing a buoy is frequently a lost skeg, or worse. All of that is just the warm up for the main attraction, a boat-wide tidal bore called Tillicum Narrows. Think of it as a river rapid, except that it's in the Pacific Ocean and changes directions with the tide. Crews must negotiate the turbulent straits twice, including an upstream run to reach the start. "The current really screams through. You can actually see the crews rowing uphill on their way to the start," says University of Victoria men's head coach Howie Campbell. A horde of spectators gathers at the narrows to heckle and cheer as crews claw upstream. Local news cameras record the mishaps for the evening broadcasts. Racing back through the narrows with the current is no small thrill either. Sweep oars clear the rocks with about six feet on either side. The crowd noise grows as the shoreline closes in. Then the current grabs the boat and catapults it forward. The rush of the shoreline, seemingly no more than a hands breadth from the oar tips, amplifies the giddy sense of speed. The Head of the Gorge has all the makings of a carnage-fest: a winding course, incredibly tight squeezes at the trestle and the narrows, swirling currents, and a highly competitive environment. Organizers have seen plenty of flipped boats and a few shredded hulls, but no serious accidents. A cadre of experienced course marshals keeps the competition running smoothly and safely. The narrow course that makes the Head of the Gorge one of North America's premier regattas also limits participation to about 180 boats, split into morning and afternoon flights. To allow as many athletes as possible to participate, race organizers give priority to eights, fours and quads. Though each club is allowed only one single or doubles entry, the competition is anything but thin. Victoria is home to Canada's national training center, ensuring that plenty of Canadian team athletes race the Gorge. Details: The Head of the Gorge Waterway takes place on the third Saturday in October in Victoria, British Columbia. http://www.regattas.uvic.ca/ Also try: Wye Island Race, Annapolis Maryland. This twelve-mile test of navigation and speed consists of one lap around Wye Island in the Chesapeake Bay. From protected estuary to the open bay, this all-comers race offers the full gamut of conditions, and a variety of competition: It's the best place on the mainland to test your speed against a six-man Hawaiian outrigger canoe. September. | |
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