This weekend was the annual Moxie Festival in Lisbon, ME. For those of you unfamiliar with Moxie, it's a soda kind of like Coke but notorious for having a weird taste. Mainers still love Moxie though, and it is made just 20 minutes from Brunswick in Lisbon. One of the events of the Moxie Festival is a 6 mile canoe/kayak race on the Androscoggin River. After finding out about it we decided to give it a shot. Neither of us have ever canoe raced before but we've both spent a lot of time paddling so we weren't sure what to expect. It was also Nat's 21st birthday celebration the night before and a good time was had by all, but perhaps too good a time by some of us. Our last and most legit excuse was the boat we borrowed was your standard plastic canoe and we borrowed some pretty basic aluminum paddles. A lot of other people showed up with streamlined fiberglass racing boats and carbon fiber bent shaft paddles.
The race started off with a strong head wind and very tough going. We had a pretty good start compared to the other non-racing boats but were quickly dropped by the fastest looking people. Once it got sorted out we were fighting it out with the "intense women team"; Bill Yeo (former Bowdoin Ski Coach) and his wife; 70 year old guy in a kayak; the old couple; and two canoe teams of middle aged out of shape guys. We thought that the two of us being young, fit athletes training 500+ hours a year should really not be hurting so much to keep up with this competition. The boat in this sort of flat water race makes a huge difference though and the 70 year old kayaker paddled away from up almost effortlessly. Eventually the wind shifted to a tail wind and the current in the river picked up to include some ripples and rocks to dodge. Nat's expert steering in the stern and some angry flailing out of me in the bow resulted in us getting away from the two canoe teams of middle aged canoeists. We tried our very best to get ahead of the other folks around us but it just wasn't happening. Finally we got in sight of the finish line but we were kind of in the back of this little group and it was a full out sprint for at least 3-4 minutes. The "intense women" looked like they would get us but an error on their part sent them pointed off towards the bank and out of the sprint. The old couple and the Yeos were still right there and although we might not be great canoeists we do know how to kick it in to a finish line. We ended up taking the sprint by no more than a boat length and getting second in our non-racing category category. Overall it was a hilarious adventure and a solid hour threshold/sub-threshold upper body workout.
-Nick and Nat
Nick and Nat post-race with their Moxie.
1 comment:
more accurate description of moxie might be motor oil and cough syrup...
Post a Comment