Silver Blade Regatta

I’ll admit it.

I’m really bad with numbers. Ask anyone who’s kayaked a coastal with me; I’ll be peaking at their Garmin asking how far we’ve gone, amazed at the ease with which they punch a series of buttons to learn not only distance of 14.2 but over time, how fast our average speed was. Simple for a calculator: distance over rate x time? For my brain? Not so much.

I have a girlfriend training for a half ironman. On a short bike ride hill climb the other day, she called out the slope of our ride: 3.7….. 8.2! At the top she adjusted the strap of her heart rate monitor, which dictated when she should slow down or pause for her oxygen intake rate to catch up with demand.

All I know is the SDCKT kids training under former Olympian Coach Chris Barlow paddle K-1s in the 200M sprint in the blink of an eye.

I know when I raced the 200M and felt my heart pounding at the finish like 20 tribal warriors on coca leaf tea, I can guess what the heart rate monitor would say: zero O2. I can handle simple numbers.

Really simple. Like integers of one. I can unfactor a quadratic equation, but simple math gets me every time. When my buddies and I, the folks over age 20 in surfskis, were resting on the benches after the 2000M surfski race and someone asked how old I am, I forgot, and said I was older than I am. I had to go home and do the math on paper. Sad but true!

What wasn’t sad is how consistently supportive everyone on the water is to each other. One tribe. Barb and Mark came down just to offer homemade turbo charged cookies and take pictures (all the pics of us on surfkis, including the 200M race, and onshore are Barb’s and Mark’s).  Jon Brindle was nice enough to lead us down the course, Ken was nice enough to wait til I rounded the second buoy to pass me (and not look back).

Teresa kept reminding us we were there for the kids, and certainly everyone there was. Debra also got up early and came a long way to paddle with friends and Rose didn’t rub it in our faces that she was racing grueling SUPs heats and finals all day long between our surfski finals.

SDCKT parents were up till 3:00 a.m. making sandwiches and cookies. Susie and Les Hopper got an extra birthday cake: one for their son and one for friend Thomas Maximus. Someone built the podium stands. Time keepers, organizers, coaches and trailer drivers volunteered their expertise. The Olympic Training Center let us use their facility.

Three-time Olympian Rami Zur paddles the 200M on a SUP as fast as I do in a surfski (One minute flat). And he probably wasn’t even trying.

It’s a thing of beauty to watch standout Southern California watermen and women like Zur, Thomas Maximus, gold medalist Krisztina Zur,  Sofia DeWolfe, newcomer to So Cal Austin Kieffer, in perfect form streaking across the surface of Otay Lakes like so many graceful Canadian geese  launching into flight with barely a splash.

Upcoming stars from SDCKT Jonny Espinosa, Michael Holmes, Noa Hopper, Sammie Barlow, Daniel Chevallier, Parker Roberts, Devin Bartlett and Juliette Clark all had one excellent day in the sun at the Silver Blade Regatta, a benefit for these young athletes in their quest for the top of the podium at National Team Trials the last weekend of April in Oklahoma.

I wondered just quickly they might be living here at the OTC themselves; replacing the posters of young hunks I could never name in the locker room with even fresher faces. I never got to see who the pin-ups were in the men’s locker room. More important than eye candy was the sobering reminder on the inside of every stall to be properly hydrated for your workout.

Youth have reserves from the last peanut butter cookie stored somewhere in their wrists that release when they grab a wing paddle. But at the OTC they grow from adrenalin-laced spirits to finely-honed specimens; the very best, all the time.

Somewhere in the middle of that night I woke from a dream wherein wires trailed from my wrists, knees and around my scalp, gathering data. Is it enough to just grin from ear to ear on a following swell and shout into the wind? Yes, but you have to be fit to do it. Gotta love events like SBR to bring the tribe together and remind us: with or without data gadgets, you have to be in great shape to have great fun on the water.