| Writer Bruce Steinberg, left, and his paddling partner Earl Peterson each hold up four fingers indicating the place they finished among the male masters at the Mid-America Canoe Race on June 4. Photo by
Peggy Steinberg. |
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Giving the paddle to last place
New canoe racer finds redemption on the Fox River by Bruce Steinberg After sending this magazine's editor my account of having finished in last place at the 2006 National Stock
Aluminum Canoe Marathon Championships held last May, I was informed that my tale would not soon be published in Silent Sports. It seems the previous issue of the magazine happened to include someone else's "last-place-in-a-canoe-race" story. It would be too soon for another semi-competitive paddler's tale of woe.
Great. Even when writing about coming in last place in a canoe race, I come in last place.
But what if I entered another canoe race and didn't come in last place? What if I actually placed third or better just a month after coming in last, hmm? I didn't ask this of the editor. Instead, I contacted Earl Peterson, my canoe partner in that earlier fateful race, to see if he wanted to enter the Mid-America Canoe Race on June 4.
"Why?" he asked.
"I want to place third or better."
There was silence. Then laughter. "You're serious?" he asked.
So, after registering for the 12-mile race down the Fox River from St. Charles to Aurora, Illinois, I met up with Earl for a tandem test of a more winning vessel.
This time we would not be racing in a stock aluminum canoe – the station wagon of its class and commonly available as rentals. Instead, Earl presented me with what he claimed was not a racing canoe. Something about the height of the bow and the widening at the stern, he explained, made it into a cruising hull canoe.
The canoe was that puke yellow-brown Kevlar, and it weighed under 30 pounds. The wetsuit he wore and the towels he stacked in his pickup truck left me questioning his confidence we could keep it afloat.
When I sat in front, all that remained in front of me was a narrow letter V squeezing my legs and feet. "How does it feel?" Earl asked.
"Where's the rest of the boat?" I asked. "I feel like I'm walking a tightrope on my butt."
While I sat petrified, Earl shoved off from a floating dock into the Fox River. "It would help if you paddled," he said.
"I'm afraid to blink," I replied.
My paddle moved through the water like a broken rudder, as I feared tumbling overboard from either side at any moment. This was exactly how I felt at age 5 learning how to ride a bike for the first time sans training wheels.
"Earl, this is crazy," I said. "Get the other boat. The station wagon." Earl responded the same way my father did after I fell off the bike – he ignored me and made me push on.
"Moving makes this boat stable," he insisted. "It knifes through the water."
In time, the boat (and me in it) settled down. I actually could feel my paddle stokes easing as we reached our out-distance, made a U-turn, and headed back. It seemed suddenly possible to complete this maiden
voyage – and maybe the race itself – without taking a spill.
June 4 was Mid-America Canoe Race day. We took our position at the back of a 10-boat wave just two minutes before the starting gun fired. I was amazed by the crowds of spectators gathered on every bridge and in the shoreline parks. More than 500 paddlers take part in this annual event, which provides quite a show for onlookers.
We had registered late so our wave consisted mostly of wide-hulled cruisers. Many of our competitors wore costumes. By comparison, our boat looked exceptionally speedy. But as "racers," we were at a disadvantage when we arrived at each of the three portages.
There we encountered less ambitious boaters exchanging pleasantries and creating bottlenecks. Fortunately, we were able to slide through to a friendly chorus of, "Oh, these guys are taking this race seriously!"
As we slipped along, it became clear to this nascent paddler why more committed paddlers love the sport: The sensation and look of a bow slicing through water, the different temperaments of the current (the fast and the sticky), the passing of the shore, a connection to nature, the paddler's rhythmic immersion, following surges and dropping waves. You can get lost in it all.
Then there were the paddlers dressed as Tonto and the Lone Ranger complete with a boom box playing the
Lone Ranger theme. And the boat decked out as a pirate ship with faux sails and a cannon. Other paddlers stopped to check out herons and flocks of ducks tending to their young. So there were many reasons to be out here other than our drive to improve on a last-place finish.
Yes, there was still last month's last-place finish to avenge. We got the Bronze Broom then. When we reached the finish of that May race on the Fox River, the winners had already pulled out, gone home,
showered, taken a nap and returned, still yawning, for the post-race meal.
That would not happen again.
On our quest to redeem ourselves, I took pleasure in seeing lower and lower race numbers on the boats we passed because it meant we were gaining on earlier departed waves. We even got one very sincere, "Oh, wow. They're really fast!" (Soon thereafter, a one-man racing kayak blew past us to a new course record of 1 hour, 10 minutes.)
Earl kept us on a straight line, guided us through the shallows well, and provided the encouragement to keep our pace going.
"Illinois Avenue," I said. "The finish is in sight."
"Let's catch that red boat up ahead," Earl said.
It didn't matter that before we reached it the red boat got caught in the current under the last bridge and spun. Its two elderly gentleman paddlers finished the race facing backward. We caught them.
This time, unlike at last month's race, my 4-year-old son did not have to ask, "Dad, why were you in last place?" All he said was something about wanting to go home, but that was better somehow.
Back on shore, Earl and I pondered whether we should check the results. Did we really want to know how we did? It turns out we finished the 12-mile race in 1:35:34 – fourth place out of 14 in the Male Masters
division. Better yet, we were 26th overall out of about 320 canoes – including those piloted by pirates and imaginary heroes of the Old West.
"No ribbons for fourth place," Earl said.
"Not for last place either," I answered. "And it was fun."
I ran into Jeff Palmquist who, with his wife, Christine, holds the course record for mixed couples. This year they took first in their division and fifth overall in 1:23. Humbling.
Still, Jeff is the sort of talented racer who instinctively encourages others. "Only three times out on the water before the race?" he asked, sounding genuinely impressed with our finish time. "How'd you improve so fast?"
I was about to answer with something about our training regime when Tonto walked by. He handed a beer to the Lone Ranger.
So the secret is simple: Find a great, colorful canoe race where many people are sure to have fun at an easy
pace, then go out and paddle fast. There's nothing wrong with either outlook, Kemosabe.
Bruce Steinberg lives in St. Charles, Illinois, with his ski waxing intolerant but otherwise loving wife and their young son.
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