When the top-three guys in the Men’s 14-foot Standup division made the turn at the halfway point of the Long Beach Island Paddle Classic on Saturday, July 15, Ryan Oliver was in third place and knew something had to change.

“This is a hard race for me, for some reason,” said the 43-year-old from Toms River, who won the 4-mile, long-course race last summer. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s just not an easy race for me. And today, the pace was really fast. I was third at the halfway mark, but I made up ground on the way back out to the island.”

The leader at the halfway point, Mike Fithian, seemed to fade a bit on his stroke as the lead pack headed to the north…