Hmmmm - Friday evening PST has got to be one of the worst times to post a thread to Slowtwitch, but for those of you who may care, I give you my race report for Oceanman 2004.
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Oceanman 2004
I was first made aware of Oceanman about two weeks before the race, when I saw a poster for it at Kits pool. Intrigued, I went to the website and looked it up: a 1k open water swim, followed by a 6k paddle (kayak, surfski, outrigger canoe, etc), and an 8k run. Hell, I can do that! Easy! No, really – that’s what I said to myself. I was once a decent paddler who could hand roll and hold his own on a small to mid sized river. Nothing crazy like the guys who hand paddle class IV rapids, but I could get myself in and out of trouble. Of course, the last time I was in a boat was over six years ago, and I hadn’t paddled consistently for closer to nine years. No matter. I arranged to rent a kayak from Ecomarine (one of the title sponsors) and was good to go.
Package Pick-Up. You could really tell that this was a small event. Pick-up was easy, and the goodies were all spread out on a table, with empty bags. Take what you want for your goodie bag. If they had done this at some of the bigger events, all hell would certainly have broken loose. No matter, we’re all civilized West Coast Canadians here. No pushing or shoving, nobody greedily taking everything or filling 2 bags to the brim, just a bunch of fun loving water fanatics signing up for a great day of racing.
I should have noticed that this was a “different” event when the (cute!) girl handed me my run map. Uh…. Ok. “Is the run course going to be clearly marked, and will you have flag volunteers?” I naively asked. “It’s marked with orienteering markers – they’ll be hanging at each checkpoint where you’ll get your card stamped”. Okay… Cool.
Race Day. The weatherman had predicted rain, but the sun was peeking through the clouds and it wasn’t raining. Score! But it was pretty damn windy… And the Ocean was choppy. Big waves. Not regular sets of big waves, but big, sloppy, messy waves coming in from all directions. Hmmmm… Oh well – I’m a strong (albeit rather slow) swimmer. No biggie. Besides, I have a wetsuit.
The second indication that I got regarding the size of this race was when I showed up at 8am for a 10am gun. Yes, there were a few people there. There were even a partially erected tent. But nothing approaching the level of organization I’ve come to expect as a triathlete. Oh well – I’ll just set up my transition area… if I can find the transition zone… or a volunteer… - hey the Race Director! Turns out I was standing in it. Well, where I was supposed to leave my boat, anyway. By virtue of being “so early”, there weren’t any other competitors there yet. Ok… I’ll just wander down and pick up my boat then. Only the rental place hadn’t opened up yet either.
Finally I got my boat, paddled it over to the “transition area” and found a decent spot. Then I grabbed my gear and started to suit up. There was a quick pre-race meeting, where the swim and paddle routes were laid out and the “mystery events” outlined. I put my top on, barely squeezed out a short warm up, and we were ready to go.
This was my first time swimming in choppy seas. It wasn’t particularly difficult, but I had to adapt my already poor sighting skills so that I was looking at the crest of the waves, and not in the troughs. Given that there were only maybe 40 participants, finding clear water was not a problem. I got used to the rolling pretty quickly, but found that my pool-developed “low arm recovery” wasn’t cutting it. I switched to a higher recovery and had no more clearance problems. After the 2nd lap, there was a “mystery event” which involved paddling an inflatable pool mattress around a buoy maybe 50m out. Now I have no idea how some of these people managed to swim/paddle one of those things efficiently, but I swear that “mystery event” took me at least as long as one of my 500m swim laps, if not longer. I ended up sabotaging the mattress by biting a hole in it, which turned out to be a bad idea as it then filled up with water. Now I had a water-filled inflatable mattress to lug around the choppy seas. So officially and for the record, my advice is to never intentionally puncture your mattress even if paddling it is proving to be a pain in the ass. It will be much worse. Trust me. My time for the swim + 1st “mystery event” was 38:34 – good enough for DFL in the solo men’s division. I suppose I’m going to have to work on my strategy for next year a bit.
On to the paddle. The first part was easy – a straight shot out and around a marker, 1k downwind – but sheltered by a bit of a rocky outcropping. After turning around, we had to come back and dock our boats on the beach for the 2nd “mystery event”, 4 wickets of croquet. While no official records were kept for this event, it is my belief that I had one of the fastest rounds of the day, and that I would be on the podium had this been an individually judged part of the race. I even got a “post in one”, nailing the post with my first shot after going through the last wicket. Yes friends, the rumours are all true - I rule. Back in the boat for the second part of the paddle, which was out and around the shelter for 2k into the wind. This is where the race got interesting. Having lost my protection from the waves, paddling out became much more difficult. I was able to catch a few people (including a team in a double – score!), but was expending more energy than I had anticipated. After rounding the 2k marker buoy, things got hairy. Apparently paddling into the waves is easier than with them. This is because if you are not going as fast or faster than the waves, they attempt to pick up your boat and carry it. The waves were not breaking however, and un-surfable (for me). This meant that the waves would pick up the back of my boat, and try to accelerate it – but the front of my boat, sitting in relatively still water, would resist and stall. Paddlers, as well as hanggliger/paraglider/ultralight pilots all know what happens when one end of the boat (or wing) stalls – you go for a ride. Or in this case, a swim.
Now rolling a kayak is not a particularly difficult thing to do (rolling refers to righting a tipped over boat, not tipping it in the first place). In fact, I used to be quite good at it. USED TO. Rolling a kayak is also a skill that, unlike riding a bike, does not immediately come right back. As a matter of fact, even my “wet exit” skills were less than sharp. Eventually I freed myself from my overturned boat, and proceeded to get back in. I grabbed the float bag that had been given to me as a part of my rental and discovered that it was in fact a throw bag. Hmmm – perhaps I should have looked over my gear beforehand. Rope, while useful to have out at sea, is not particularly helpful for getting back into one’s boat. Solo rescue is a skill that must be practiced, and can be relatively difficult even in flat water for the unpracticed. In a choppy ocean, it outright sucks. Luckily, some of the support crew in a boat saw me and called over a jet ski to come around. The dude on the jet-ski reminded me of Dennis Leary, but he neither swore nor did he make fun of me. He did help me back into my boat, and held it steady while I bailed the water out. I thanked him, and he was off.
Ok – maybe I should get in closer to shore, where I might be able to get out of the wind a bit. With a new plan in mind, I started off again – only to be dumped once more. Jet-ski man returned, and the process was repeated. Now – to the shallows. Nope. More wind, more waves, and I went over a third time. Dammit! At this point in time, the dudes in the boat came over and decided to pull the plug on my race. Concerned about hypothermia, and having just attended to a woman who was disoriented and extremely freaked out (I had actually heard her screams whilst bobbing next to my kayak), they wanted to take no chances and my assurances that the water was just fine fell on deaf ears. I can’t blame them. They had a job to do, and if something bad had happened, “well the guy said he was fine” might not hold up so well under scrutiny. I got into the motor boat, and was given a ride back to shore (along with my boat).
Thus ended my first attempt at Oceanman. I never did get to try my had at the orienteering route, or the final “mystery event” which turned out to be a second orienteering route. This might actually be a good thing, as the closes thing I’ve ever done to orienteering is the fact that I am Oriental, or perhaps trying to find driving shortcuts (which all of my friends will tell you is never a good thing). Also, a lot of people got lost and/or ended up adding mileage to the course, having missed the markers.
Wow; my first ever DNF in a multi-sport event. At least I can say I didn’t give up of my own accord, and I am glad that it didn’t come as the result of an injury. I’m looking into a few of the local paddling clubs, as I am somewhat annoyed that I used to be a decent paddler and now suck ass. This needs to be remedied. The ocean is not something which can be tamed, or brought to submission. It cannot be conquered. Instead, it must be finessed. Not being a particularly “finesse” kind of guy, I have my work cut out for me.
Epilogue: As I stepped out of the motorboat and carried my kayak up the beach, I looked back at the water. It looked calmer. Must be the perspective, I thought to myself. 45minutes later, the water was calm, with only a few tiny rippling waves. An hour after that it was downright glassy. Apparently, Mother Nature has a sense of humour – and she’s laughing at me.
<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
Get Fitter!
Proud member of the Smartasscrew, MONSTER CLUB
Get your FIX today?
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Oceanman 2004
I was first made aware of Oceanman about two weeks before the race, when I saw a poster for it at Kits pool. Intrigued, I went to the website and looked it up: a 1k open water swim, followed by a 6k paddle (kayak, surfski, outrigger canoe, etc), and an 8k run. Hell, I can do that! Easy! No, really – that’s what I said to myself. I was once a decent paddler who could hand roll and hold his own on a small to mid sized river. Nothing crazy like the guys who hand paddle class IV rapids, but I could get myself in and out of trouble. Of course, the last time I was in a boat was over six years ago, and I hadn’t paddled consistently for closer to nine years. No matter. I arranged to rent a kayak from Ecomarine (one of the title sponsors) and was good to go.
Package Pick-Up. You could really tell that this was a small event. Pick-up was easy, and the goodies were all spread out on a table, with empty bags. Take what you want for your goodie bag. If they had done this at some of the bigger events, all hell would certainly have broken loose. No matter, we’re all civilized West Coast Canadians here. No pushing or shoving, nobody greedily taking everything or filling 2 bags to the brim, just a bunch of fun loving water fanatics signing up for a great day of racing.
I should have noticed that this was a “different” event when the (cute!) girl handed me my run map. Uh…. Ok. “Is the run course going to be clearly marked, and will you have flag volunteers?” I naively asked. “It’s marked with orienteering markers – they’ll be hanging at each checkpoint where you’ll get your card stamped”. Okay… Cool.
Race Day. The weatherman had predicted rain, but the sun was peeking through the clouds and it wasn’t raining. Score! But it was pretty damn windy… And the Ocean was choppy. Big waves. Not regular sets of big waves, but big, sloppy, messy waves coming in from all directions. Hmmmm… Oh well – I’m a strong (albeit rather slow) swimmer. No biggie. Besides, I have a wetsuit.
The second indication that I got regarding the size of this race was when I showed up at 8am for a 10am gun. Yes, there were a few people there. There were even a partially erected tent. But nothing approaching the level of organization I’ve come to expect as a triathlete. Oh well – I’ll just set up my transition area… if I can find the transition zone… or a volunteer… - hey the Race Director! Turns out I was standing in it. Well, where I was supposed to leave my boat, anyway. By virtue of being “so early”, there weren’t any other competitors there yet. Ok… I’ll just wander down and pick up my boat then. Only the rental place hadn’t opened up yet either.
Finally I got my boat, paddled it over to the “transition area” and found a decent spot. Then I grabbed my gear and started to suit up. There was a quick pre-race meeting, where the swim and paddle routes were laid out and the “mystery events” outlined. I put my top on, barely squeezed out a short warm up, and we were ready to go.
This was my first time swimming in choppy seas. It wasn’t particularly difficult, but I had to adapt my already poor sighting skills so that I was looking at the crest of the waves, and not in the troughs. Given that there were only maybe 40 participants, finding clear water was not a problem. I got used to the rolling pretty quickly, but found that my pool-developed “low arm recovery” wasn’t cutting it. I switched to a higher recovery and had no more clearance problems. After the 2nd lap, there was a “mystery event” which involved paddling an inflatable pool mattress around a buoy maybe 50m out. Now I have no idea how some of these people managed to swim/paddle one of those things efficiently, but I swear that “mystery event” took me at least as long as one of my 500m swim laps, if not longer. I ended up sabotaging the mattress by biting a hole in it, which turned out to be a bad idea as it then filled up with water. Now I had a water-filled inflatable mattress to lug around the choppy seas. So officially and for the record, my advice is to never intentionally puncture your mattress even if paddling it is proving to be a pain in the ass. It will be much worse. Trust me. My time for the swim + 1st “mystery event” was 38:34 – good enough for DFL in the solo men’s division. I suppose I’m going to have to work on my strategy for next year a bit.
On to the paddle. The first part was easy – a straight shot out and around a marker, 1k downwind – but sheltered by a bit of a rocky outcropping. After turning around, we had to come back and dock our boats on the beach for the 2nd “mystery event”, 4 wickets of croquet. While no official records were kept for this event, it is my belief that I had one of the fastest rounds of the day, and that I would be on the podium had this been an individually judged part of the race. I even got a “post in one”, nailing the post with my first shot after going through the last wicket. Yes friends, the rumours are all true - I rule. Back in the boat for the second part of the paddle, which was out and around the shelter for 2k into the wind. This is where the race got interesting. Having lost my protection from the waves, paddling out became much more difficult. I was able to catch a few people (including a team in a double – score!), but was expending more energy than I had anticipated. After rounding the 2k marker buoy, things got hairy. Apparently paddling into the waves is easier than with them. This is because if you are not going as fast or faster than the waves, they attempt to pick up your boat and carry it. The waves were not breaking however, and un-surfable (for me). This meant that the waves would pick up the back of my boat, and try to accelerate it – but the front of my boat, sitting in relatively still water, would resist and stall. Paddlers, as well as hanggliger/paraglider/ultralight pilots all know what happens when one end of the boat (or wing) stalls – you go for a ride. Or in this case, a swim.
Now rolling a kayak is not a particularly difficult thing to do (rolling refers to righting a tipped over boat, not tipping it in the first place). In fact, I used to be quite good at it. USED TO. Rolling a kayak is also a skill that, unlike riding a bike, does not immediately come right back. As a matter of fact, even my “wet exit” skills were less than sharp. Eventually I freed myself from my overturned boat, and proceeded to get back in. I grabbed the float bag that had been given to me as a part of my rental and discovered that it was in fact a throw bag. Hmmm – perhaps I should have looked over my gear beforehand. Rope, while useful to have out at sea, is not particularly helpful for getting back into one’s boat. Solo rescue is a skill that must be practiced, and can be relatively difficult even in flat water for the unpracticed. In a choppy ocean, it outright sucks. Luckily, some of the support crew in a boat saw me and called over a jet ski to come around. The dude on the jet-ski reminded me of Dennis Leary, but he neither swore nor did he make fun of me. He did help me back into my boat, and held it steady while I bailed the water out. I thanked him, and he was off.
Ok – maybe I should get in closer to shore, where I might be able to get out of the wind a bit. With a new plan in mind, I started off again – only to be dumped once more. Jet-ski man returned, and the process was repeated. Now – to the shallows. Nope. More wind, more waves, and I went over a third time. Dammit! At this point in time, the dudes in the boat came over and decided to pull the plug on my race. Concerned about hypothermia, and having just attended to a woman who was disoriented and extremely freaked out (I had actually heard her screams whilst bobbing next to my kayak), they wanted to take no chances and my assurances that the water was just fine fell on deaf ears. I can’t blame them. They had a job to do, and if something bad had happened, “well the guy said he was fine” might not hold up so well under scrutiny. I got into the motor boat, and was given a ride back to shore (along with my boat).
Thus ended my first attempt at Oceanman. I never did get to try my had at the orienteering route, or the final “mystery event” which turned out to be a second orienteering route. This might actually be a good thing, as the closes thing I’ve ever done to orienteering is the fact that I am Oriental, or perhaps trying to find driving shortcuts (which all of my friends will tell you is never a good thing). Also, a lot of people got lost and/or ended up adding mileage to the course, having missed the markers.
Wow; my first ever DNF in a multi-sport event. At least I can say I didn’t give up of my own accord, and I am glad that it didn’t come as the result of an injury. I’m looking into a few of the local paddling clubs, as I am somewhat annoyed that I used to be a decent paddler and now suck ass. This needs to be remedied. The ocean is not something which can be tamed, or brought to submission. It cannot be conquered. Instead, it must be finessed. Not being a particularly “finesse” kind of guy, I have my work cut out for me.
Epilogue: As I stepped out of the motorboat and carried my kayak up the beach, I looked back at the water. It looked calmer. Must be the perspective, I thought to myself. 45minutes later, the water was calm, with only a few tiny rippling waves. An hour after that it was downright glassy. Apparently, Mother Nature has a sense of humour – and she’s laughing at me.
<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
Get Fitter!
Proud member of the Smartasscrew, MONSTER CLUB
Get your FIX today?