N.S. Marathon Canoe Home Page - Chebucto Community Net

was undoubtedly that magic.My water is gone. While I drink for fluid replacement, it always seems that a drink of water helpswith my wind. We are on a short rest. The boat is noisy with my breathing and Jean's belches.The inevitable question comes from the stern:"Are you ready?""Yes, lets go."The canoe leaps forward and I concentrate on my technique. Keep the boat smooth. The packahead is breaking up.The day before the longest day of LaClassique is a day of resting, waiting,concentrating, watching, marvelling,showing off, and eating. It is the daybefore paddlers march down to the St.Maurice River at La Tuque, Quebec, andline up to start the first of the one hundredand twenty miles downstream. It is the daywhen one discovers how fast is fast in amarathon pro-boat over a circularkilometre. It is a day of food preparation asfruit is cut, potatoes boiled and drinksmixed. It is a day for bars and jells to becounted and placed with water bottles in acooler and handed over to the pit crew. Itis the day of the sprints in which teams competing in La Classique must sprint a kilometre and so it isalso the first day for the clocks and their accumulating time. For me, it was the beginning of myparticipation in a race I have heard about as long as I can remember and the day before I view the St.Maurice river for the first time from the start line of the most famed canoe race in North America. It is aday of tension.My day started early with packing and driving upriver to La Tuque while accessing feeding areas for thepit crew. This consisted of me looking to see what a bridge looked like so as to recognize it from thewater and remembering how two years before I had served as pit crew alongside my father for JeanMarien and Dave Lewis. In reality however, my primary concern was staying warm under a heavyfleece jacket and pants, and hoping it would not rain in the afternoon. Arriving in La Tuque, we madeour way down to the sprint and boat measuring area. I spent my time looking at boats and merchandiseand meeting people. Time dragged even as one canoe after another began the sprint. Finally it wastime. I watched my arm extend, felt my muscles tense and then nothing else mattered as the obnoxiousblast of a horn sounded behind. The boat surged and everything worked as my eyes levelled on thefirst buoy. Then for a brief moment we fell apart as something shook Jean and I. The boat lurched. Mypaddle sprang on instinct to a brace. So quick it might not have happened except that Solomon andReal Carrier had pulled ahead just a bit on the other side of the pond. Rounding the first buoy we weresmooth again. The second buoy quickly followed, then the third. We crossed the finish line and I beganto think again. For a time the tension left and I was just excited to watch the top teams complete theloop. But all time passes and after a huge amount of spaghetti, later that night, the nervousness beganto work its way back into my stomach.