Press Release

2nd November 2008
Medals all round for Hemel Hempstead Canoe Club at Bishops Stortford
See Hemel Today report here

Sunday saw the start of the Essex Winter series of marathon races. There are six of them in total and they provide an ideal opportunity to keep fit through the winter months. The first one was run on the Stour river at Bishops Stortford canoe club and was held in glorious blue sky and sunshine. As with the waterside series of races these are held in classes rather than divisions so that there are four classes completing 8 miles, another batch doing 4 and even some 2 mile races for beginners. John Bennet and I entered the Male Veteran K1 class, although John is now eligable for the over 50 class "Super Veteran"

The midday start gives the best possible chance of a warm start and the numbers were reasonable with 7 or 8 in each class start. Consequently one would expect the start shenannigans to be kept to a minimum. This was not the case. Having heard just enough of the briefing I jumped straight into my boat to bag the best possible line off the start, an inside line around the first bend. It is helpful here to be able to sit comfortably in one place for ages and I sat there for well over fiften minutes without moving forward or backwards. Once the K2s got away and the senior male category set off the starter began to get rather power crazy and told us all that no-one would start until we did what he said. Eventually with the early classes get further and further down the canal he gave a new twist on the fast gabble start. This time we had "ten seconds" and a pause long enough to blink (possibly) and then "go". The only benefit is that everyone was caught off gaurd as much as everyone else, but none the less Chris had a quick start and John was taking a deep breath.

Almost immediately after the start there was a couple of twisting turns becasuse whilst the river is canalised there are no metal sides or straight lines in evidence. At this point former GB paddler Mark Adam had managed to hang onto Chris's wash and then took up the lead. He then put himself on one side of a tail end paddler and Chris on the other and moved away. Undeterred they pressed on over the three portages and down to the turn. Here a marshall decided to wind Chris up the wrong way by sitting on his backside instead of doing his job and crucial time was lost turning twice. By the time Chris and John met on the way back the air was turning blue around him. By this point a paddler called Tim Middlehurst managed to pull back the lead and overtake Chris and Mark to go on to win the Vet Class by two minutes. With hindsight had Chris and Mark worked together it is possible that this would not have been the case. Mark finished a minute down and Chris ninety seconds later in one hour four minutes. John Bennet did excellent work to finish fifth nine minutes later. This was especially noteworthy as John turned out to be the fastest "super vet" and whilst he was waiting for Chris to get his tin gong he was pleasantly surprised to recieve a medal of his own. The fasted K1 time of the day was Danny Beazley in jst under the hour at 58 minutes.

The next race is in three weeks on the 23rd November at Herts Young Mariners and is just up the A10 about 45minutes away. So do give it a whirl.