111km of fun, or the Hawkesbury Classic.

I have successfully avoided doing this race for 4 years, but this year the world conspired against me and I ran out of excuses. Somehow with a little bit of persuasion from Steve we found ourselves entered for the 2009 edition of the Hawkesbury Classic from Windsor to Brooklyn.  We did a bit of training including a 30km familiarisation, a 45km paddle to Parramatta and back from Glebe, regular Lane Cove Wednesday night time trials and morning paddles in Blackwattle bay. During training we tried various boats, before securing a Supersonic for the race (7.5m long reasonably stable weapon of a boat) ideally suited for the classic.
 
THE RACE

The tides in this race make a big difference to your speed, and more importantly your morale.  One moment you can be flying along in the 12s and a later you are struggling to keep up 9km/h.  River features come into play too, with a following tide you want to be in the main current - where it’s deepest. Then when battling against the tide keeping to the banks, using eddies at the corners all help to keep the speed up.
After 30km the first stop was at Sackville and the discomfort was already kicking in.  My bum was complaining after less than three hours on the hard seat. My pfd was chafing my chest as I hadn’t tightened it up at the start, with the 2l drink bottles hanging off the front it was swinging around a bit and not very pleasant. More padding put on the seat and we were off again.

Next stop at Windsor after 65km, we felt we had broken the back of the race at 65km – and it had almost broken us. It was a dark night with no help from the moon, and couple of times we had to stop and get out headlamps to check where the banks were.  At about 70km the tide was now in full swing against us, and after initially being on course for a sub 10hr progress slowed.

We past some great scenery, but it was dark so we didn’t see it. Eventually, the end was in site, my bum was in agony, and my chest chaffing was on fire. Last stop at the low tide pit-stop for a quick pee, (I refused to use the powerade bottle that Steve had been using!). The lights on the F3 bridge at Brooklyn finally appeared and we headed for the finish line, clocking in at 4:30am for a total paddling time of 10:35 minutes.  Getting changed I daw the full extent of the chafing, most of my stomach, shoulders, and back had been rubbed completely raw, the pain of washing and putting cream on the skin was too much for me, and I promptly threw up.

I was forced to call my boss on Monday and explain to him that I would have to work from home because I couldn’t wear a shirt – something he found quite amusing.  All up it’s a long hard race, where willpower needs to triumph body pain.  The pain of the annoyances wears you down eventually, even if your muscles still feel okay.