Last night’s time trial didn’t look like it was going to be a good night personal bests. There was a very strong breeze coming from the north, and there were 2-3 foot waves on the bay. With no hope of setting a new personal best, Tom Murn and I decided to race head to head.

In the excitement, I forgot to hit the start button on my GPS, so no graphs this time. Tom is lighter and in a fast sprint boat, so he came off the start line ahead of me, and lead under the bridge. After the bridge, I was starting to pull ahead of him, so I cut over in front of him and relaxed for a couple of strokes yelling for him to get on my wake. I can’t really turn around and see behind me comfortably, so when I thought I saw him coming up on my stern in my peripheral vision, I started hammering again. My speed going up into the wind and waves kept dropping and dropping, and was hovering around 5.4 by the time I started to turn. At the turn, I got my first look back and saw that Tom was now 20 or 30 yards behind me. Oh well, too late to worry about that. Turning around, I expected the wind to push my speed up, but it seems that I could really only go the speed the waves wanted me to go, so I was barely going 6.2 mph on the way back in. 6.2 is pretty much my normal no-wind speed, so it was almost as if I was getting no benefit at all. My split at the half was 9.50, which is 0.12 minutes slower than my previous fastest split, or 0.07 minutes slower than last week when I set a personal best overall.

Coming up the creek, the tail wind without the waves helped and so my speed was up. I was passing people, and felt good. I didn’t make the turn all that well in spite of having practiced it before hand, but I was soon accelerating out of it. I saw Tom again, and he looked like he was fading a bit. On the way down, it was all a matter of trying to find maximum advantage from the current while minimizing the disadvantage from the head wind.

My final time was 18.97, which is only 0.02 minutes slower than my personal best. Now I know *exactly* how Lance Armstrong feels being 0.22 seconds out of the yellow jersey.

More significantly, it means that my second half was actually faster than the first half. Either my fitness level is getting better, or the surfing downwind on the bay helped me rest a bit.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Update: Steve Robbins has modified his widget to use JSON, and I’ve gone back to using it because it works right at any text size.

The Stack Overflow team is sending me emails saying that my use of the Robbins Stack Overflow widget on my blog is putting an “unacceptable” load on their huge 48 Gb RAM, 8 processor box. So I’ve switched over to their preferred solution, which is an iframe containing their own “flair” page. The problem with the iframe option is that it requires me to tell my system exactly how many pixels high and wide it is – and when I change my text size, it starts putting scroll bars on it, and it looks like ass.

Can you please look at my Stack Overflow badge on the right side of my blog, and leave me a comment telling me yes or no if it has scroll bars for you? If you know, tell me what OS/browser and font size you’re using.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: geekery, rant

On Thursday, I did some extensive work on the positioning of the rudder pedals on my kayak. I drilled some new holes in the boat, eliminated the extraneous rails, and moved the new pedal rails in order to reduce the way the rudder pedal wire guides have been gouging holes in my lower legs and to raise the pedals so that I can push better without pushing the rudder back and forth.

Today I went out to try to paddle the course of the Armond Basset Race, which takes place next weekend at the Genesee Waterways Center here in town. All I know for sure it that they say it’s “2 laps of 5 miles”, but Mike F says he thinks it’s 1.25 miles upstream in the river, 2.5 miles downstream, 2.5 miles upstream, 2.5 miles downstream, and then 1.25 miles upstream again. That makes sense, because it means that each boat passes the start/finish area 5 times, which would be good for any spectators – on the down side it means that we’re finishing upstream, and the stream is running pretty fast. So Mike and I tried to paddle it, but after 4 miles or so, my hips were really starting to hurt, so I gave up after 1 loop (5 miles). Maybe I went too fast trying to keep up with Mike (who is normally a much faster paddler than I am), but I think it’s mostly because of the new leg position. I’m really hoping that things are better by next Saturday.

I’m looking at my GPS track from today versus the Tupper Lake race, and my heart rate was much lower today. So I couldn’t have been working as hard. But man that current was strong – I was averaging 5.0 mph going up, and 7.4 mph going down.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, rant

Wednesday Night Time Trial

I then spent 30 minutes in utter panic trying to get the rudder pedal jury rigged to hopefully last the race, and do it in time to run the race. I did it, but only just, mostly thanks to Mike F who helped, partly in figuring out how things should go together, but mostly in telling me to calm down and don’t rush. After that, I managed a quick warmup, and got in the now very long line to start. Paul D made me go ahead of him again. With one minute between us, that means I got to see him at each buoy turn, but he got to see all four times I had to flip up my rudder because it felt like there were weeds on it. I think at least two of those times there were, because my speed immediately after was 0.2 mph faster than before.

Unlike when I’d warmed up, there were a few small wakes on the Bay during the event. Not enough to really make any difference to anything, but enough to notice. I pushed myself really hard, but I felt like I wasn’t going anywhere. My split time was 9.43, which is slower than both last week and the first week, both times when I’ve set personal bests.

Going up the creek was good – this time I remembered to hold to the banks of the river to stay out of the current, although Ginger B didn’t realize I was on-course and played chicken with me. Because of my problems with my right rudder pedal, I went around the far buoy the “normal” counter clockwise method instead of the Jim Mallory approved clockwise method. That probably cost me a few seconds, but not a lot. Turning down stream was great – my speed immediately increased from around 6.0 to around 6.4 mph.

My total time was 18.95, another personal best. Even better, this was the closest ratio between first half and last half times except for 17 June when my time was horrible both at the split and the final.

I know Paul D thinks I’m obsessed with comparing myself to him, but since he’s so close to me in time, it’s only natural that I’d use him as a benchmark to compare my own progress. And today he was once again a tiny bit slower than me at the split (0.04 minutes slower), but much faster than me at the finish (0.10 minutes faster). I don’t know what I’m going to have to do to beat him, but I’m pretty sure he’s doing it too.

After the race, and some of the after race socializing, beer drinking and hot dog eating, I was asked to get one of the buoys. I did, and as I was heading back, Steve B came along on a bit of a warm down paddle. I tried to stay with him, and I couldn’t. Then I tried to ride his wake, and that didn’t work either. But when I got in I was worried about how my rudder pedals were sticky, and so I was working them back and forth and the wire went “ping” again. Today (Thursday), I’ve spend some hours trying to fix that issue, but I guess only time will tell if that works or if I’ll need to order a new set of pedals.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/107267/pay-cut-cities.html

“Higher-wage people are likely being laid off to a greater degree than lower-wage people, or moderately high-wage workers are being replaced by temps or contractors who are paid less,” says Wial.

The picture is even worse in upstate New York, where average wages fell 2.3% in Rochester and 2.2% in Syracuse.

Shit, I’m never going to get a job that pays what I’m worth, am I?

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: job experiences, rant

The race write-up is on Epic’s web site and newsletter:
Rochester Open Water Challenge 2009 – News & Events – News | Epic Kayaks.

Ohhhh, fame and fortune. Well, limited fame and no fortune, but still…

A battle between Paul Dorscheid and Paul Tomblin both of the BayCreek Racing Team continued the full length of the course.

Dorscheid and Tomblin battled to the finish with Dorscheid edging Tomblin by a nose.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Ken Altfather and the Baycreek team and wives put on the most awesome kayak race ever (in my vast experience of three races). We had a good crowd and perfect weather – sunny, not too hot, and a good breeze providing lots of waves. I raced the short course and did really well. First things first, though.

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Today I got my official BayCreek Racing Team logo decals for my boat. Most of the other guys have these really large ones, like you can see in this picture of the team at Long Lake, but I don’t have the uncluttered space like they do because I’ve got all deck hardware. Ken ordered some smaller ones, and they fit my boat just right.

Tomorrow is the Rochester Open Water Challenge. I’m doing the short course, and I understand Dan’s son Tommy has been practicing so he can ride my wake. As long as he doesn’t try to out sprint me at the end, he’s welcome to it. I’m not going to try to shake him off, but I’m also not going to make it any easier for him. He’s been gunning for me ever since I beat him at Long Lake last year. I’m going to be concentrating on trying to stay with Paul D if he does the short course.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Baycreek Paddle Center recorded a great promo video for the Wednesday Night Time Trials. Since my videos show up ahead of it if you search YouTube, I’m embedding it here to improve its search ranking. And to show you how awesome it is.
embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct 

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Wednesday Night Time Trial

Yesterday’s was different. Ok, my rudder was still semi-broken. But it was the first hot and sunny night of the year. Big turn-out. While I was warming up, I went out on the bay to find that Paul D and I were dealing with this strange cross wave caused by wakes – it lasted for my entire trip up and back, nearly the full mile of the race course. There was also a lot of floating crud – much of it that algae that floats up during the day and sinks at night.

Once again, my over eagerness meant that I was warmed up early and had to start first. I don’t know why that always happens. Anyway, I had a really good start, and managed to keep above 7 mph for nearly the first minute. In the past, I’ve been alarmed by that speed and slowed down a bit to save more for the last half. Maybe I should have. The bay was flat as a real pancake, not a Dan pancake. But first things first – I had to pause in my paddling and lift the rudder to clear the crud that I’d picked up leaving the channel into the bay. By the time I rounded the buoy, I could see others who started behind me.

Coming into the split, I once again had to stop to clear the crud from my rudder, and then dodge a bazillion or so people, but my split was a respectable 9.38, compared to my previous best of 9.40. So far, so good. I was through the narrow bit and about the 1.4 mile point and wondering why it was so hard to maintain a 5.9 to 6.0 mph pace when it suddenly stuck me that I should be hugging the shore to stay out of the current. I immediately got a good increase in speed, and a sudden desire to slap myself in the head for forgetting this.

I made the turn and made another rudder clearing stop. I was making good time on the down stream – my speed was up over 6.5 for most of the way, but I had to clear my rudder again. And instead of making a good strong finish, I was actually kind of dead – which is why I said before I should have gone a little slower at the start. Another big crowd at the finish area, and I had to dodge a bit instead of making a straight run in.

My finish time was 19.00, a new personal record. On the other hand, Paul D was 2/100ths slower than me at the split, but 3/100ths faster than me overall, indicating again that my pacing wasn’t good.

So things to work on for next week – pacing, and maybe running with my rudder down half way so it’s at an angle, to see if it sheds the crud.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

I’ve got a team for the Great Race in Auburn. The race consists of a 10k run, a 20 mile bike, and a 4 mile kayak. Guess which one I’m going to do?

I figure I can do a 4 miler in about 40-45 minutes, as long as it doesn’t get too windy. Last year, 45 minutes would put me in the top 10, but I believe we’re going to get more members of the BayCreek team so I’m not going to count on that. But I’m going to give it a damn good try.

The team I’ve formed is called “Gasping Geezers”. I haven’t met the other two in person, and probably won’t until race day, but they sound like a fun group.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Last night the team went out on the lake for practice. From the parking lot, you can’t see the lake so I asked Dan what it was like, and he said “flat as a pancake”. Evidently in Dan’s world, pancakes have foot-and-a-half swells overlaid by numerous boat wakes.

Launching in the surf zone, I fell out of the boat once and got soaked, and while trying to get in a couple of waves came into the cockpit. The water in the cockpit made me unstable, and while I tried a couple of times to pump some out, I would have to take my paddle out of the water to pump and I was too unstable to do that except during breaks in the boat wakes, and those were few and far between. It was a real Catch 22 situation where I wasn’t stable enough to do the very thing that would make me more stable. So I ended up paddling the whole work out with about 3 inches of water in the bottom of the cockpit (and thanks to a lousy seal at the rear bulkhead, in the rear compartment as well).

After “playing” in the surf for a while, Dan told us to head to a head of land you could see. In the linked map, you can see the head just about where the two mile marker is. At about the one mile point on that map, Dan yells at me asking why I’m so far off shore, because he’s about 200 yards from the shore. I tried to explain that when he says to head directly somewhere, I for some strange reason took that as meaning to head directly to that place, rather than skulk along the shore line in the general direction of that place. But maybe that’s just me.

In spite of the feeling that I was going to dump any second, I preferred to be out off shore a bit, because when you get close in, you get the rebounds off the shore coming at you full strength, and when it’s boat wakes rebounding, sometimes the first of the rebounds is hitting you while you’re still dealing with the last of the direct wake. I hate that. And just to make this evening complete, we were getting attacked by nasty biting flies. One of them bit me high up on my inner thigh while I was trying to deal with about three waves from different directions, which did not help. We were in a soup of algae for much of the way, and I don’t envy Paul D who dumped into it once. Oh, did I mention that Paul D has gone over to the dark side and bought a surf ski, so I was the only paddler there with a decked boat? Yeah, sucks to be me.

Frank had come out with us, but some time after the point, I noticed he wasn’t there. I found out that he’d decided this wasn’t fun and turned back. Man, I wish I’d seem him turn because I would have graciously offered to paddle back with him. I wanted to turn back myself, but I didn’t want to be alone out there.

By the time we hit the 5 mile mark, my back was killing me. I suspect that if I’d been able to adjust my foot pegs I would have adjusted things to not hurt so much, but the jury rigging we did on the rudder pedals last week wouldn’t allow that. (As an aside, the new pedal track arrived as I was writing this, so I’m hoping Frank will help me install them in time for this weekend’s Rochester Open Water Challenge!)

On the way out, Dan had been promising that when we turned the swell would provide good surfing opportunities. I turned for home a few hundred metres before the pier that we’d been aiming for, expecting all these fast guys in their fast surf skis to surf on past me in no time, especially since I could barely hold 5 mph. It had seemed to me on the way out that even though the swells were coming towards us, I was actually getting a bit of speed from sliding down the back sides. But now on the way back, either the shape was working against me, or they’d slacked off some, because I felt like I was spending more time paddling “up hill” on the swells than sliding down them. It took a long time before any of the other paddlers caught up to me, but eventually Ken came sliding by and Ken and Bill and I paddled the long stretch home together – I was too unstable to look back, but I heard afterwards that Paul D was having trouble getting used to his new surf ski so Dan and Mike stayed back with him. My foot was cramping up, my back hurting, and the bugs were still biting and I just wanted to get back, but Ken kept zig zagging around to try to find some surf. It seemed like “rush hour” hit the channel between the lake and Irondequoit Bay, and every boat on Lake Ontario was either coming out of the channel and heading our way, or coming from behind us towards the channel. Lots of wakes to deal with.

My biggest problem with dealing with waves and wakes is, I think, my own mind. If I do what I’m supposed to, which is to let the boat pivot underneath me and keep myself loose, I think I’d be fine – the boat does have a lot of secondary stablity. But ever fibre in my being wants to slam my thighs into the brace position and take control of the boat. I know paddles on the lake like this are supposed to help me unlearn that reflex, but I can’t say I’m having fun yet. Maybe now the water is warmer, I should spend some time in the surf near shore, so I can dump without worrying.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

I don’t know if this is a comment on the sad state of Java, or the sad state of the way my mind works.

I’ve been a Java developer since 1998. I think it’s a great language and I love working in it. But when I’m starting a personal project, I look for excuses not to use it. I don’t know why. I can code up beautiful and powerful GUIs in it, but I usually choose not to. It’s so ridiculous that I’m going to a meeting to discuss a possible freelance project very shortly, and I think I’m going to end up deciding to learn Python and wxPython and coding the GUI in that rather than do it in Java. And I don’t really know why.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: geekery, rant

This morning, I went over to Frank’s to see if he could help me with my rudder pedal assembly. I had an idea of how to jury rig the pedal, but I wasn’t sure how to implement it. Fortunately, Frank is a lot smarter than me when it comes to fixing things, and he has the advantage that he installed this rudder assembly originally. It took us a couple of hours of reaching around into the depths of the kayak with screwdrivers and ratchets, but it worked.

It seems to be holding, but I’m looking forward to getting the replacement parts next week – the company that made the rudder system redesigned the tracks a few years ago to make them out of aluminum instead of plastic, and they tell me I can just swap out the tracks without changing any other parts – but of course first I’ll have to undo all the great jury rigging that Frank and I did. Tim of PaddlersSupply.com and Tom of TopKayaker.net got me hooked up and they are sending me the new parts, so I should have them in time for the Rochester Open Water Challenge.

The Time Trail kind of sucked tonight. First problem was that I forgot my GPS and heart rate monitor. Dan loaned me his GPS but I still didn’t have the heart rate chest band, and he took it home afterwards so I didn’t get to download the info. It was raining, but not too cold. The wind was blowing from the south, meaning that you started into the bay with enough tail wind to make waves, but not enough to really help you go fast. I think I was making around 6.2 or 6.3 mph. Turning in the waves was the usual adventure, especially when I wasn’t too sure about the rudder, and then coming back into the wind was slow, probably around 5.8 or 5.9. My split was around 9.9 minutes, compared to 9.53 last week. Going up the creek was a little better in spite of the headwind and the increasing rain, but it was a struggle to keep the speed up over 6.1. I did the turn the “normal” (counter clockwise) way – last week Jim Mallory convinced us that doing it the other (clockwise) way is probably faster because of the geometry of the final turn before the buoy, but I wanted to avoid full right rudder tonight. The way back was faster, of course, with a good tail wind and the current, so I was seeing speeds between 6.4 and 6.8. My final time was around 19.6 (compared to 19.20 last week), so my second half was faster than the first half. Paul D was a tiny bit faster than me tonight – I think Ken said he beat me by 7/100s of a minute. Oh well, when you’re only a few hundreds of a minute faster than a guy one week, you’ve got to expect that he’s only got to make a tiny improvement or you a tiny mistake to change the order the next. I’ll get him back next week.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: geekery, revelation

Remember how on Saturday I was having to hold full right rudder just to go in a straight line? Well, today we went out for a long paddle on the lake, getting to know the course of the Rochester Open Water Challenge. The lake wasn’t bad, and I was riding Dan’s wash the whole way, but the rudder problem was getting worse and worse. Just was we were getting back towards the beach, Dan wanted everybody to go into the Bay because that’s where he’s planning to take the race, but my foot was cramping up from holding so much rudder for about 7.5 miles, so I started heading for the beach.

I was about 300 metres from the group when my rudder when “ping” and I felt the cable fall onto my right foot. Oh, that is bad. Here I am, trying to ride the surf to shore when I’ve got full left rudder on. I raised my rudder, and that’s not much better – I remember when I bought this boat finding a review on-line that said that the biggest problem with it was that it was totally uncontrollable without a rudder, and so therefore not safe for a sea kayaking trip. Well, it took a lot of dragging my paddle on one side, sweeping on the other, and then repeating the process on the other side, but I got into shore.

And when I looked, as well as the cable coming off the rudder pedal, the foot peg had completely “burst through” the channel that it’s supposed to ride in. No doubt it was this that make the rudder misbehave. Unfortunately, there is no way in hell to fix this without a replacement part, and Baycreek doesn’t carry them, so I’m not going to have this boat working for Wednesday night.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, rant

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube Direct Wednesday Night

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: rant

Today I went out with a couple of guys from the team for a paddle around Irondequoit Bay. I think they do this paddle every Saturday, but it was a very long trip for me. We ended up going 10.85 miles. My longest work out to date was 10 miles, and that time I purposely set out very slowly. This time I was trying to keep up with one of our faster paddlers, Mike, and Paul D who eats miles and never stops. Looking at my GPS info, it appears that I went a pretty steady 5.8 – 6 mph for the first 4.5 miles or so, but after that we were constantly pausing and restarting. Part of that was that around that time we were going into this “side bay” with a lot of weeds and we had to keep clearing each other’s rudders. Plus I was having some sort of problem with my rudder – I was constantly putting on full right rudder just to keep in a straight line. I wonder if one of my cables has slipped? I’m not sure how to fix that, but I suspect I can’t do it alone.

There were a lot of wakes out on the bay, and we were often getting hit by two or three at once. That added a bit of challenge, especially when my rudder was acting funny. I’m really glad I was in a group and not out there alone. None of us dumped, but if we had, there were two other kayakers near by to help. You sure wouldn’t want to count on the power boaters for help – if anything, some of them seem to be trying to swamp you.

As we crossed under the bridge, I realized we only had 2.5 miles left, but I was really fatigued. Up until this point, I’d been avoiding riding the other guy’s wakes because I wanted a full work out, but now I was just trying to get home without slowing everybody down. Paul D offered me his wake, and I took him up on it. At least until we started getting a wake from behind and we both started surfing it. After it passed, he was 10 metres off to my left, and so I tried to grab Mike’s. He’s in a surf ski, which doesn’t have much wake, and he’s a much faster paddler than me, but I tried gamely to stay on it for a while. With about half a mile to go, I just let them both go and struggled in at my own speed.

I’d like to do this again, but maybe I won’t be so shy about riding wakes, and that way I might actually have some energy left at the end.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

If you look, you can see that the blade of my paddle doesn’t go all the way into the water. I need to work on my catch. I also think I need to get my paddle more vertical. I’m dropping my head too much. My right hand isn’t opening on the forward rotation. There’s always something to work on.

On the other hand, my rotation is definitely getting better.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Today was the second BayCreek Wednesday night time trial of the season. There was a bit of a wind on the bay, which kicked up a tiny bit of wave activity. Not much, but enough to slow things down a bit. Plus I was the first starter, so I didn’t have a rabbit or a wake to ride. Lots of people lost a few seconds, and I dropped from 19:08 last week to 19:12 this week. I lost 2 seconds on the first half in the bay, and 3 seconds on the second half in the creek, and my heart rate was about 3 bpm higher on both halves.

Paul D says that they recorded his time wrong last week, and was probably a lot faster than the 19.40 they recorded. This week, I barely edged him out as he was 19:14, so we’re still on a fairly even basis. It still astounds me how close I am to some of the other team members’ times - I still think of myself as being sort of a “B+ team” member, but really when you look at those times, I belong there.

It was great to see so many people there, including a couple of people who had never even paddled before, and I went out of my way to be friendly to all the new comers. I know the friendship of others is one of the reasons I kept coming back even when my kayak was broken.

The tail of the GPS and Heart Rate Monitor

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation

Unofficial results are up here. Results are split between “MO” (Men Over 50), “MU” (Men Under 50), “WO” (Women over 50) and “WU” (Women under 50). It appears that Mike’s rival’s name is George Bellerose, not Bellarus as I wrote. Also, “Nelo Guy”’s name is Peter Gaaserud. My time was 1:06:15. Paul D finished only 34 seconds behind me in 1:06:49.

Here’s a picture of me heading to the start line. The guy further from the camera in the white kayak that says “Razor” on it is Peter Gasserud, “Nelo Guy”. I don’t know if I’d recognize his face again, but I sure know what his back looks like. The guy closer to the camera is paddling a WSBS boat of some sort, and I think he’s the guy who ended up t-boned into “Mr. 45 Degrees”. (A lot of WSBS boats are the colour of bare kevlar/carbon with a diagonal stripe across the stern deck. Some others, like Mike’s EFT, are bright yellow. I’m not sure why that is.) I think the weird expression on my face is because Steve’s young son was using my camera, and he was twisting something on the lens unnecessarily.

This is a nice picture of Dan and Bill heading up to the start. Dan looks pretty relaxed. Maybe I’ll look that relaxed after doing the race for 30 odd years. Maybe I’ll look that relaxed when the person taking the picture isn’t a young kid using my expensive camera.

Originally posted at Rants and Revelations

Tags: kayaking, revelation