In Pursuit of a Paddler’s High
Despite the months of soakings as he battled to master the racing kayak, Club Member Eugene Saburi explains why he persevered with the sport.
Amid ever-encroaching employer demands, “work-life balance” has become a mantra of our times. But Eugene Saburi could be a poster boy for this elusive state of grace. When he isn’t juggling the expanding requirements of software giant Adobe Japan, where he’s been president since 2014, Saburi is often out on the water in one of the most tippy watercraft ever designed: a racing kayak.
“It’s a great sport that requires a combination of strength, technique and balance,” says Saburi on a recent weekday afternoon at Adobe’s office in Tokyo. “As a competitive junkie, it really appealed to me. And it keeps me from getting fat.”
Most people are familiar with river and sea kayaking. Kayak racing is less known even though canoe/kayak sprint has been an Olympic sport since 1936. Europeans, Canadians and Australians dominate the sport, which is contested in boats for one, two or four people. During the men’s 200-meter final at the 2012 London Games, spectators roared as kayakers exploded out of the start line in a flurry of windmill paddling and white water.
It’s an exciting event with high-tech gear. The super-sleek racing kayaks are delicate and designed for speed. Made of composite materials like carbon fiber, fiberglass and Kevlar and costing thousands of dollars, the 12-kilo, one-person kayaks measure 5.2 meters long and just 40 centimeters wide.
Aside from being unsteady on the water, the kayaks will sink if they tip over because they don’t have sealed air compartments. Athletes face forward on a cockpit seat that’s set relatively high above the water to allow them to use their double-bladed paddles with maximum power. The boats can reach speeds of 20 kilometers per hour, while four-person boats can move quick enough to pull a water-skier.
Saburi, 44, grew up in Yokohama and was educated in the United States. He joined Microsoft in Seattle in the 1990s after a stint in publishing, but only caught the sprint kayaking bug in 2009. He took his daughter sea kayaking one day and noticed some racing kayaks stacked on the rental shop’s wall. His interest was sparked.
“I told the owner I wanted to try one. He laughed at me and said, ‘Oh, you’ll never be able to paddle one,’” recalls Saburi, a former competitive weightlifter who immediately took up the challenge. Under the guidance of former US race kayaking champion Dan Henderson, he soon began paddling for up to 10 hours a week.
Starting with wider, more stable, intermediate-level kayaks, Saburi trained on Lake Washington for two years, falling into the water hundreds of times, before he was able to sit and paddle in a full-fledged racing kayak.
“A lot of people think it’s a sport for the upper body and shoulders, but it’s not at all. You use your legs,” he says. “Whether you’re tall or short, body dimensions don’t affect it much because it’s mainly a strength-to-weight ratio type of event that depends on conditioning. Japan is considering it a strategic sport for 2020.”
Saburi began seriously competing in 2011 and made it to the US national championships. He even managed to inspire his three children to take up the sport, and they all competed nationally before the family moved to Japan in 2014.
In Japan, the Club Member usually trains at the Toda Rowing Course on the Arakawa River in Saitama Prefecture, a facility that was originally built for the cancelled 1940 Olympics in Tokyo and expanded for the 1964 Games. Averaging speeds of between 10 and 12 kilometers per hour (and up to 17 kilometers per hour during races), he tries to paddle for about 90 minutes, once a week. He estimates there are about 600 people in the kayak racing community in Japan, and this year’s annual New Year race in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, drew about 400 boats.
Aside from meeting fellow paddlers, Saburi says he has encountered cranes, turtles and many kinds of fish on the Arakawa.
“You feel the glide on the water,” he says. “Because the hulls are so streamlined, there’s very little deceleration between each stroke. Especially early in the morning, when the water’s calm and there are few people around you, it’s just so peaceful. You’ve heard of the runner’s high. Well, there’s definitely a paddler’s high. You feel like you can keep paddling forever."
Author: Tim Hornyak
Photo: Steve Morin
