MR 340

I’m not really sure where to begin with this. Starting from the top and drawing out every detail, as much as it would suck for you readers, would likely bore you and therefore give you an idea of how we felt many times during the race. I think I’ll probably just recap my personal highlights.

Day 1 – Kaw Point, KS to Miami, MO

Distance: 105 miles

Time: 9:30 a.m. to 2:51 a.m.

Driving to Kaw Point Tuesday morning and getting prepped in a torrential downpour was our first challenge. Nothing like getting soaked to the bone to really get you excited to be in a boat for 4 days.

Needless to say we loaded the boat and set off on the river anyway. A line of Civil War reinactors fired black powder rifles over the river to start the race, and we were off.

This went pretty smooth, aside from being bumped by some zig zaggers who needed a physics lesson. Hit the first CP after a long 50 mile haul in the heat, and then pushed on to the second, Waverly. This CP was a balancing act between keeping the boat on the rocky shore, getting our lights set up, checking in, DEETING, and a couple other tasks. While using the nature bathroom I spat, and remembered immediately after that that I had already put on my mosquito head net, so that was nice. We got the heck out of there and headed into the black unknown. This was our first time on the river at night and it was pretty amazing. Full moon, clear sky, just followed the nav lights of boats in front of us while keeping an eye out for the black shadows of a buoy.

A couple hours into this we hit some really thick fog and could only see about 20 feet around the boat, but like Carol Ann we just continued to follow the light. There was a really windy stretch that seemed to last forever, and eventually, around 3 a.m. we spotted the checkpoint flare. The boat was too heavy for 3 men to get up the ramp, so they allowed us to stash it in some mud just next to the ramp. Set up camp, slept for a few hours.

Day 2 – Miami to Cooper’s Landing, Columbia, MO

Distance: 92 miles

Time: 7:18 a.m. to 12:57 a.m.

Woke up, saw Keeven’s grinning mug first thing, they headed out a few minutes after that. Checked my phone, got a few text messages that reminded me that it was my birthday, 24. Got some pancakes, packed up and headed out. Got to Glasgow, pushed on to Franklin’s Island, which was a few miles before passing under the I-70 bridge.

Heading into Cooper’s Landing was probably one of the toughest stretches for us. After it got dark the sleep deprivation caught up with us, we almost dumped the boat when John made an instinctive lunge for a dropped paddle. Ran into a couple of sandbars, not a lot of things in the river more discouraging than a sand bar bringing a nice pace to a grinding halt. Shadows and reflections looked like whatever your mind tricked you into seeing. After yelling “BUOY BUOY BUOY” at John and paddling like a maniac to avoid it, I realized it was just the reflection on the water from a red light on a radio tower far in the distance. The lights from Cooper’s were really deceiving, and could be seen from over a mile away. At one point it seemed that we weren’t moving at all. Finally pulled into the boat ramp, unloaded our heavy stuff and then were able to get the boat up the ramp. Ate some delicious Thai food from a dingy looking trailer cooked by a little Thai woman that was hopped up on coffee after being up much later than her bedtime. Thanks Chim. Set up camp and listened to some drunks stagger around outside our tent.

Day 3 – Cooper’s to Hermann

Distance: 74

Time: 7:15 a.m. to 10:02 p.m.

Woke up in the morning to a symphony of farts coming from the tent next to us. I was torn between laughter, early morning crabbiness, and the urge to join in. Headed downriver to Jeff City. Pulling into that CP I saw a handwritten sign on the shore with our team name and number on it…we had a fan. An old friend from my internship a couple years back was on a project in Jeff City, and turns out that they had timed our progress to coincide with their lunch break. It was lifting to see a familiar face, plus we ate some delicious hotdogs with homemade relish, followed by some free apple pie.

Moving on we were both a little more full than usual, hoping none of that food was planning a return trip. Paddled and paddled, this being our shortest day we pulled into Hermann just after 10 p.m. Things got weird again that evening because the Hermann bridge can be seen for over an hour before you’re actually under it. We pulled our boat up that ramp and were greeted by a good friend that decided to come by and see us on his way to the Lake of the Ozarks.

Hung out and ate for an hour or so, called the parents to let them know we were alive. I found out that my mother, who was at one point strongly opposed to me doing this race, had now made her entire school aware of our journey and was giving them updates as often as we updated her. Slept next to a train that night. It couldn’t really be avoided...and we didn’t really sleep well.

Day 4 – Hermann to St. Charles

Distance: 69

Time: 4:00 a.m. to 4:32 p.m.

We got up and out by 4 a.m. sharp, and were on the way home. The last CP before the finish was at the familiar Klondike Park. We pulled in there, took a bathroom break and then ran into Chris, who then followed us down the river via the Katy Trail until we made it to St. Charles.

I only know one person that would sit down and create a spreadsheet with our speed and approximate locations, as well as his own speed and approximate location on bicycle, the locations where he can pull off the trail to catch a glimpse of us and at what time that should happen. Big thanks to him; if he were not the extremely prepared man that he always is we probably wouldn’t have seen our families at the finish. Once we passed under I-64 it was on, the finish was relatively close. Eventually we passed under the Hwy 364 bridge to see my screaming family above, and within an hour we were on the beach and finished, with a party of 15 or so waiting to congratulate us.

We walked up the street to a nearby brewery/restaurant. This was one of the happiest moments in recent history for me, being surrounded by loved ones, food, and beer after accomplishing something like that. Looking back on the experience I will say that some day I want to do it again, but not next summer, and maybe not for a few more years. It was different than any other challenge I’ve been a part of, not a lot of adrenaline involved but very mentally stressful. As far as recovery, I was surprised that delayed muscular soreness was minimal, and my back, which I’ve had trouble with in the past, was not in bad shape at all. There were extreme highs and lows of emotion. Times when I could sit up, grin big and really dig the paddle in, and times where I slouched back, paddle in a manner that probably slowed us down, and was a real dick to John. I was pretty lucky to have a teammate that has been my friend since grade school. The conversation was always pretty entertaining, especially after heat exhaustion and sleep deprivation kicked in and singing and stupid ramblings began. At one point we sang the Fresh Prince of Bel-air theme song to a random cutie that had been paddling with us for a little while. And that was the first day, to give you an idea of how that behavior may have progressed. At night we froze in our tent, no sleeping bags were packed, and you could always expect a cool breeze off the river. The emergency blanket that I started using the second night (after sleeping in the fetal position the first night) was loud enough to keep your average camper awake all night; luckily I was surrounded by zombies. If boats were sumo wrestlers, ours was Yokozuna, the heaviest of them all. We had enough peanut butter and honey sandwiches to feed two families, but somehow didn’t make a huge dent in the stack. We started with 52ish liters of water between the two of us, and even though I had wanted to take in a liter every hour on the water, we never refilled and I dumped out over a quarter of my water at the finish. Still managed to keep the urinal (Gatorade bottle) full somehow. Between my teammate and I, we had well under 50 miles of paddling experience, and the 8 miles I contribute to that number happened the Sunday before race week. If its something you want to do, get a boat and do it. Prepare for a year out or just deal with things as they hit you, regardless you will have a great experience to look back on.