Adam Buckley was still seven miles short of the R10 buoy, off of Palos Verdes, when the crew of the Disappearance was ready to concede the race to him. Disappearance was the lead boat in 37th Annual Catalina Classic Paddleboard Race.
Until the air horn sounded at 6 a.m. that morning, signaling the start of the race, there was no clear favorite.
Buckley, 34, won the 32-mile race from the Catalina Isthmus to the Manhattan pier two years ago. But the previous year, in his first Classic, he finished 19th. He missed last year’s race and this year, he had not entered a single other race. Plus his training was suspect, a fact attributed to his September wedding date.
Sean Richardson, of Palos Verdes, though 51, was a popular favorite. He won the Classic in 2003 and had done well the preceding month in the Molokai Channel race, which is also 32 miles.
A third well thought of contender was Donald Miralle. The San Diego photographer had taken his paddleboard to London so he could continue his training while covering the Olympics.
During most Classics the favorites push one another at least to the R10, which is eight miles from the finish. But with the race still just half over, Buckley had built a half-mile lead.
“He’s killing it!” yelled Jay Russell, a 13-time veteran of the Classic who decided to sit out this year in favor of tweeting the race from Disappearance for his new website 31Click.com. “I can’t believe he’s doing this well. I know his training’s been off.”
Relative to most years, the water was flat and glassy, which favored the slightly built Buckley, whose speed comes from his efficient knee paddling technique. Bumpy water can give even the strongest paddlers trouble on their knees.
“I’m just hoping he’s not going too hard too early because he still has probably a good 14 miles to go,” Russell said.
Buckley’s early lead wasn’t an accident.
He wanted to build a gap between himself and the pack of 77 paddlers early. “It’s a good way to discourage the competition,” Buckley said later. “When you’re racing right next to someone, it adds a layer of tension.”
“It gave me a good adrenaline rush, I could tell I was way up from start. Even at five miles, I looked back and couldn’t see anyone close to me.”
Buckley’s underground training was also deliberate. Aside from providing time to plan for his wedding, training alone allowed him to set his own workout. “I could push it really hard, go at my own pace and not be waiting on other people,” he said.
Shortly after passing the Hermosa Beach pier, with just under two miles to go, Buckley’s asked his escort boat for a new water bottle and his crew handed him a cold beer.
He reached the Manhattan pier in five hours, 11 minutes, 44 seconds, just minutes short of the record 5:02:12 set by Tim Gair in 1999.
“Take your shirt off,” announcer Kevin Barry yelled over the loudspeaker, as Buckley rounded the red finish line flag at the end of the Manhattan pier.
Buckley sat up on his board pumped his fists for the crowd, then ripped his shirt off as he rolled off his board into the water. When he reached shore, friends hoisted him on their shoulders and carried him up the beach to his fiancée Ashley, who welcomed him with a long kiss as friends doused him in more beers.
Richardson finished, roughly a mile and a half behind, in 5:19:10, three minutes behind his 2003 winning time. Miralle was third in 5:25:10
Steve Shlens won the stock division with a time of 5:56:03. Rodney Ellis was second in stock in 6:03:27. Jack Bark, of Palos Verdes, was third in 6:06:34. Bark was first in the stock division of the Molokai Channel Paddleboard Race in July.
A mental game
Like most endurance races, the competition for most paddlers isn’t the other paddlers, but themselves.
“The mental game is the hardest. There’re a lot of points you have along the race where you think you’re almost there and get down on yourself,” said Brian Kingston, 38, who competed in his fourth Classic this year and finished 33rd with a personal best of 6:21:25.
“It’s a big watermen achievement,” said Conrad Scouton, whose surfing buddy Jex McCartney convinced him, over beers, to train for the race. “It’s a test of being in the ocean in all conditions and being able to handle it.”
Paddlers switch off between knee and prone (belly) paddling.
“Paddling on your knees is a lot faster because you could get your whole core involved. You’re using your arms, core, legs, everything,” Scouton said. “But it’s really hard to maintain it for a long period of time.”
Keeping a steady pace is key, Scouton said. “It’s easy to get excited in the beginning, find someone who is fast and try to stay with them. But you get tired fast if you try to stay with the wrong person. For me, it’s about my own personal game, my own personal challenge.”
Scouton also altered his diet in preparing for the race. His breakfast the morning of the race was oatmeal with honey, peanut butter and egg whites.
“It sounds gross, but it’s really good and gives you really good energy,” he said. “You really have to fuel your body to keep your energy going, hour after hour,” the Boeing satellite engineer said.
Training requires early morning paddles of four to 20 miles, four to six days a week over the four months leading up to the race.
“There’s no trick to a race of this distance, other than putting the time in,” Buckley said.
But it doesn’t hurt to have a good escort boat to supply nourishment, encouragement and a straight course.
“Having a good boat crew makes this race,” said paddleboard builder Joe Bark, who finished his 29th Catalina classic in 26th place, in 6:06:24.
Buckley had LA County Lifeguard Nils Nehrenheim and veteran Classic paddler Bill Herman keeping him on course.
Herman modestly minimized his role. “It’s up to you at the end of the day…no one else is going to paddle it for you,” he said.
A waterman, waterwoman family
Shortly before 5 a.m. on the morning of the race, Jamie Meistrell stumbled down the stairs of his grandfather Bob’s 60-foot boat Disappearance.
“Sup, you ready?” asked his uncle Billy.
“I’ve been up all night,” Jamie said, because of someone’s snoring.
“You should’ve slept on the deck, that’s the best spot on the boat,” his cousin Matt said.
“I would’ve snuggled with you,” Billy said.
“That’s why you get as much sleep as you can on Friday night, and try to stay away from buffalo milks on Saturday,” advised Russell, referring to the signature island drink that has seduced more than a few Classic paddlers on the eve of the race.
Jamie asked for a cup of coffee.
“Jamie, don’t drink coffee,” Matt said.
“I’m doing my regular routine. I’m not going to skip out on coffee,” Jamie said, as he sat on the couch and began wrapping duct tape on his feet and knees.
After a few minutes of stretching, popping a couple aspirin, rubbing Vaseline on his arms and armpits, and preparing his water bottles, Jamie and his escort crew climbed off Disappearance into their support boat.
This year’s Classic held special significance for the Meistrells, a family of accomplished watermen and waterwomen.
It would be Bob Meistrell’s 25th year driving Disappearance as the lead boat. Each year, at the end of the race he anchors his boat at the Manhattan pier until the last paddler crosses the finish line.
“At Uncle Bob’s age, if he’s doing something I’m tagging along,” Billy Meistrell said. Bob is 84.
And despite the Meistrell family’s many ocean accomplishments, neither Bob, his recently deceased twin brother Bill, their five kids nor 13 grandchildren had ever competed in the Catalina Classic.
That omission would be corrected this year when Jamie and his cousin Daley would finish the race 60th and 52nd respectively with times of 6:48:57 and 6:35:55.
When Jamie crossed the finish line his dad Ronnie jumped off Disappearance and swam over to embrace his son.
“Watching the paddlers finish is an amazing thing,” said first-year race director Francziska Steagall. “You see the emotion, families are so proud, the paddlers have a sense of accomplishment that brings tears to your eyes.”
When Jamie reached the beach, Steagall wrapped a Hawaiian lei around his neck. “Then he went from family member to family member. It was just emotional and you could just see how big this is,” she said.
The mermaids
Seven women, six of them members of the South Bay Mermaids, competed in this year’s Classic, equaling the largest women’s field in the history of the race. All of the women competed on stock (12-foot) paddleboards, which are significantly slower than the 17- to 19-foot unlimited boards favored by most of the male paddlers.
“The depth of female paddlers this year is the most it’s ever been,” said Jo Ambrosi, an Australian firefighter who teaches surfing in the South Bay during the summers. Ambrosi was the first woman finisher last year and finished fourth this year, and 51st overall, in 6:35:26.
Before the race, she got a pedicure — her toes were painted with ladybugs – and adorned her board with a lucky turtle sticker and a photo of her mom, who died about a decade ago battling breast cancer.
“You’re looking at it for seven hours, so anything that keeps you going,” she said.
Kelsey O’Donnell, 24, of Palos Verdes won the women’s division with a time of 6:18:28, beating the women’s record of 6:20:09, set in 1993 by Australian paddler “Queen” Reen Corbet.
The Los Angeles County Junior Lifeguard instructor and pre-nursing student was competing in the Classic for the first time. In June, she won the women’s division in the Rock 2 Rock, a 22 mile race from Catalina to Cabrillo Beach
“I was pretty nervous,” O’Donnell said. “I heard that it was a huge mental roller coaster, you’re going to hit a wall, you’re going to have ups and downs.”
O’Donnell credited her win to her boat crew – nine friends and family members. Halfway into the race, all nine jumped in the water to cheer her on. “It was so cool I almost started crying,” she said. “That’s when I picked up…that’s when I kind of realized I can win this.”
O’Donnell had spent the previous hour trying to reel in the early leaders. After finally passing them, her crew kept telling her that they were gaining on her. “I kind of had the impression they were right behind me the whole way, until two miles from finish line,” she said. “My boat captain knew I needed to be pushed mentally a little bit and he was right on.”
After passing the Hermosa pier, her crew told her she was on a record pace. “When I heard that, I was pretty pumped up,” she recalled.
O’Donnell said the number of women who participated in the Classic speaks for the future of women paddlers. “Any of the seven of us could’ve won it…hopefully it’ll kick off from here,” she said.
“From my experience, the girls are just as strong, just as motivated to paddle, and just as competitive as the men. I’ve been beaten by many girls,” said Edward Barbosa, 46, who was encouraged to enter the race for the third time by his lifeguard girlfriend. He finished 20 seconds behind O’Donnell and 32nd overall. Barbosa manufacturers Coastal Eddie paddling accessories, including the water bottle holders favored by most of the paddlers.
Wounded warriors
In addition to the 77 solo competitors, five members of the Marine Corps Wounded Warrior Battalion-West competed in this year’s Classic as a relay team.
Volunteer surfers and paddlers with the South Bay-based Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation offer ocean therapy, which includes surfing, to the Marines
“Members of the Wounded Warrior Battalion can no longer be Marines and that’s really hard to deal with, but we find other things they can aspire to and give them goals and mountains they can conquer,” said Marine Chief Warrant Officer 3 Shawn Dunn.
“We measure success when they no longer define themselves by their injuries and their focus is on what they can do, not on one what they can’t do,” Dunn said.
Each Marine on the five-man team rotated in and out for 15-minute paddles. Wounded Warrior staff member Doug Siers said Marines have told him they get more out of activities in the ocean than intensive outpatient programs.
“Being out with nature, clears their head, gives them time to think,” Siers said. “Surfing is physical, so when they get home at night, they’re tired and can actually sleep, and not sit awake and think about their problems all the time, which a lot of my guys do.”
David McCreary had never been near the ocean until he joined the Marine Corps. For the 28-year-old Wounded Warrior team member, the military was a family tradition. His grandfather served in Korea during World War II, and his brother enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating from high school.
“My dad was talking to me. ‘You can join any branch you want. You don’t have to join the Marine Corp.’ I’m like, yeah, that’s not going to be an awkward Thanksgiving table,” he said, with a laugh.
The eight-year serviceman has been paddling for three months and surfing for eight months. “That’s kind of got me more comfortable with the water,” he said.
But he was still jittery before the race. “Just paddling out in the middle of nowhere looking at all 360 degrees and seeing no land and I’m on this one-foot-wide board,” McCreary said.
“A few of us are overcoming a lot of injuries or PTSD and traumatic brain injuries,” he said. “It’s something we can come out here as a team and do together.” B
