Chicago’s first offi­cial SUP race will go down this Sat­ur­day at North Avenue Beach! The first (qual­i­fier) race starts at 9:00am CST with the top six qual­i­fiers from each divi­sion (men’s and women’s — we’re keep­ing it sim­ple) advanc­ing to the final race at 3:00pm CST. The Course will run from North Ave. Beach, pad­dle north to Fuller­ton and back to North Ave. Beach.

Reg­is­tra­tion is from 7:00 — 8:30am CST…come early to get park­ing. The $20 entry fee gets you a t-shirt, and all pro­ceeds go to the Chicago chap­ter of the Surfrider Foundation!

This race is in con­junc­tion with the Corona Light Wide Open Vol­ley­ball Tour stop in Chicago and is sup­ported by Surftech and our friends at Third Coast Surf­shop and Great Lakes Board Com­pany.

Click here for reg­is­tra­tion form.

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Hol­land Michi­gan was the only stop on the Great Lakes seg­ment of the “Where to Next?” demo tour that we had been to before. Local Surftech dealer, Out­post of Hol­land was host­ing an SUP race on Sat­ur­day in con­junc­tion with the tour. We knew there would be a pre-registration din­ner at Good Earth on Fri­day night where Can­dice Appleby and Endurance Ath­lete Dean Kar­nazes would make pre­sen­ta­tions to the crowd. We knew at 9:00am Sat­ur­day morn­ing the 1^st Annual Great Lakes SUP Clas­sic would be under­way at Hol­land State Park. The only real ques­tion we had was, would Dean be run­ning to Hol­land from San Fran­cisco or would he save his energy for the race and fly out?

When we arrived at Good Earth Restau­rant Fri­day evening, we met Dean and his fam­ily (they flew), Rich, Jim and the crew from Out­post of Hol­land and the 30 or so pre-registered pad­dlers eager to hit the water Sat­ur­day. Can­dice showed a short video show­cas­ing her incred­i­ble tal­ent and answered many ques­tions about her life. While Kar­nazes told mind blow­ing sto­ries of run­ning 82 hours straight and hal­lu­ci­nat­ing about an old minor pan­ning for gold and dinosaurs run­ning along with him in the desert. The guy is a good story teller!

Sat­ur­day we let Can­dice sleep in for the first time all week. The rest of us went down to the beach and set up the race site. The event fea­tured two races, a 3-mile short course where com­peti­tors com­pleted three loops around a one-mile course and a 6-mile long course in which com­peti­tors would com­plete six laps around the course. The long course how­ever, fea­tured a short beach run after laps one, three and five. The event was very well planned and well attended. There were com­peti­tors from as far away as Abu Dhabi, Hawaii, North­ern Cal­i­for­nia and Pennsylvania!

The nice folks from Out­post allowed us to pad­dle in both of the races along with the reg­is­tered pad­dlers. Can­dice was excited to get in some real train­ing to help pre­pare for the 32-mile Molokai to Oahu race next week­end. She pad­dled the short course on the 12’6″ Bark Com­peti­tor. She waited until all of the pad­dlers had hit the water then she took off. After round­ing the first buoy she found a racer had bro­ken his wooden pad­dle so she gave him her Quick­blade pad­dle and fin­ished the 1-mile lap knee pad­dling with­out a pad­dle. She stopped and grabbed a back-up pad­dle and pro­ceeded to pass the entire field with the excep­tion of the lead pad­dler by the end of the race.

After a short 30-minute break, the long course would be under way. Dean Kar­nazes felt he had a good warm-up in the first race and was stoked to get on with the longer race. Dean per­suaded Can­dice to let him pad­dle the 12’6″ Bark so she chose to pad­dle a 12′ Stock Surftech/Bark prone pad­dle­board in the race. With a 10–15 mph wind blow­ing diag­o­nally across the course and the dreaded beach run every other lap, this was not an easy “flat­wa­ter” SUP race! Dar­ian Hil­dreth of Chicago, IL lead the race from begin­ning to end. Dar­ian stands at least 6’4″ tall and proved to be a very strong pad­dler. Can­dice was in the chase pack along with the Out­post of Holland’s own Rich Mosher, Rob Pat­ton of New Era, Michi­gan and a few oth­ers. After 1 hour, 13 min­utes and 43 sec­onds of all-out pad­dling and run­ning, Dar­ian crossed the finish-line and stamped his name in the SUP his­tory books as the win­ner of the inau­gural Great Lakes SUP Classic!

After the awards were handed out, we held a two hour demo and allowed rac­ers to try out dif­fer­ent boards as well as the 30–40 peo­ple who had never tried SUP before. Every­one had a great time try­ing out boards and talk­ing story about the race and look­ing for­ward to next year’s event.

Spe­cial thanks to Rich and Lisa Mosher for their extreme hos­pi­tal­ity in let­ting us stay at their beau­ti­ful home. Thanks to Jim Misiewicz and every­one at the Out­post of Hol­land for bring­ing us to Hol­land, Michi­gan and putting on a first class event. Can’t wait until next year!!!

Long Course

Men — Dar­ian Hil­dreth (Chicago)  1 hour, 13 min­utes and 43 sec­onds beat­ing Rob Pat­ton (New Era, Mich.) by 6:07.

Women — Jen Scully (Abu Dhabi) won the women’s elite race in 1:31:22 with runner-up Kara Holsinger (Fairview, Penn.) fin­ish­ing 6:39 later.

Short Course

Men — Tony Paul (Spring Lake) won the men’s race in 37:27 with Holland’s Ben Van Enk fin­ish­ing runner-up in 38:32.

Women — Kate Borg of North Car­olina won the women’s three-mile in 42:01 with runner-up Mary Radtke fin­ish­ing in 46:18.

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