RACING
Greg Barton's Blog
World's Fastest 5k
Greg Memphis Turn
May 3rd was the annual Outdoors, Inc. race on the Mississippi. With downstream currents up to 5 mph (8 km/hr) during much of the race, it’s a very fast event.
The mighty Mississippi presents some challenges. Because of the fast current, the water is full of swirls or boils. This makes for tricky balance in a skinny racing kayak. My toughest competition was Mike Herbert, former World Silver & Bronze medalist in K-1 500m. Since Mike was racing a sprint K-1, I opted to paddle an Epic Legacy L K-1. To help the stability issue, I lowered my seat by 10mm (3/8”) from where I normally have it set. I feel that people often raise their seats too high, thinking they will gain leverage on the water, but not realizing they give up much more by sacrificing stability. I also paddled with slightly wider and lower strokes than normal – again to improve stability.
The mighty Mississippi presents some challenges. Because of the fast current, the water is full of swirls or boils. This makes for tricky balance in a skinny racing kayak. My toughest competition was Mike Herbert, former World Silver & Bronze medalist in K-1 500m. Since Mike was racing a sprint K-1, I opted to paddle an Epic Legacy L K-1. To help the stability issue, I lowered my seat by 10mm (3/8”) from where I normally have it set. I feel that people often raise their seats too high, thinking they will gain leverage on the water, but not realizing they give up much more by sacrificing stability. I also paddled with slightly wider and lower strokes than normal – again to improve stability.
The day before the race was very stormy in Memphis, with several tornados in the area. Race day was beautiful and sunny with 10-15 mph side tailwind. However, there was a lot of debris that had washed down into the river. I taped a carbon weed guard fin in front of my rudder to prevent catching some of this debris. We started in the Wolf River. As expected, Mike Herbert sprinted to the lead at the starter’s gun. We quickly went out into the Mississippi and made a left hand turn downstream. Since I had passed Mike in previous years by going farther out into the current, Mike headed way out into the river. I stayed just inside of him and pulled up even about 4 minutes into the race. I then pulled into the lead as we hit a turbulent portion of the river.I built a nice open water lead are we turned off the Mississippi and headed up Memphis Harbor to the finish. This was about 750 meters of flat water into the finish. I completed the race in 16:01, which was 22 seconds slower than the race record (set when water levels were higher than this year).
Third place was Pete Green, followed by Memphis local Elmore Holmes. Check the Outdoors Inc website for full results and more. On Sunday we held a demo day from 10 am to 4 pm for all our boats & paddles with Outdoors Inc at Shelby Farms. It was a great weekend.
