Two Northwood students and two teachers competed in the 35th Annual Adirondack Canoe Classic, a 90-mile race featuring 600 participants from 22 states, in 260 boats. Cisco Delliquadri ‘20 and Lars Kroes ‘21 were the students and and Jeff Nemec ‘05 and Tyler Eaton ‘00 were the teachers who competed in the annual paddling event from Old Forge to Saranac Lake. They placed fifth out of eight boats in their division, crossing the finish line in 17 hours.
Mr. Eaton approached the others with the idea this summer and they all jumped at it. They didn’t prepare as much as other competitors, but they had a great time and worked really well together as a group.
“I think we wanted to create a mix of both faculty and students,” said Mr. Nemec. “I think Mr. Eaton had always wanted to do it but there is always a conflict with opening weekend of school and it didn’t make it possible, but by making it a Northwood event and by representing Northwood we were able to pull it off and we are grateful for the accommodations the school made to let us do it,” added Nemec.
The four paddlers didn’t train much for the race. “We would have prepared more but you could say that about anything,” said Nemec. “We got put in a bracket with some real pros but we went for it and you have to go for something like that,” he said. “But we completed it and it was definitely memorable. It was a really cool experience and I’m just fortunate that the opportunity presented itself and we all jumped at the chance to do it. 5th out of 8 boats.”
Lars Kroes was one of the students who competed. “It was a very cool experience to have with not just my teachers but my friends,” he said. “We created a very strong bond. The start of the race was crazy everyone was stoked and we were really nervous but excited,” added Kroes. “Eaton hurt his shoulder in the first 8 miles so we had to paddle with three men for a while. It was a setback but we came back from it,” he added.
Kroes enjoyed his experience and hopes to compete in the race again. “I loved doing this race and I will remember it for a very long time. We hope to do it next year and beat our time,” he said.
Here’s a video of their experience (provided by Mr. Rich Kroes):
