On Saturday I paddled in the December Solos race; also known as the San Marcos Solo. It is on the San Marcos river from City Park in the city of San Marcos to Staples dam in the hamlet of Staples approximately 16.5 miles downriver. This is the same course as the Jr. Texas Water Safari that I did back in September and the first section of the Texas Water Safari that I will be doing tandem in June. The December Solos race was significant for me because I did it in a real solo racing boat - the Rainmaker carbon fiber hybrid canoe that I'm renting to train in for the Safari. I told the man I rented it from, Safari legend John Bugge, that I wouldn't take it on that section of the river because there are a lot of obstacles and it's easy to damage or destroy this type of fragile, lightweight, high-performance boat. I had to ask his permission to change our agreement and he allowed it. There are a few treacherous spots that are notorious for chewing up boat. They all have names: Rio Vista, Old Mill, Broken Bone and the worst of them - Cottonseed Rapids. I had already decided to play it safe and portage the two hairiest spots - Rio Vista and Cottonseed, but I was worried about Cottonseed because I didn't have the landmarks down. Someone told me there was a goose that lived at the head of Cottonseed, but I was skeptical of such a mobile landmark.
The GF and I drove to Martindale Friday night and got to Spencer's campground at about 11:30. We set up camp and pretty much went straight to bed since it was so late. It was hot and I woke up innumerable times. Several times I was awakened by the group of Mexicans camping not far away who were laughing and playing music 'til all hours. My alarm was set for 7:10, but I was awake and staring at the roof of the tent long before that. We had some breakfast, washed up, broke camp and left Spencer's for the starting line at about 8:30. I was one of the first few racers there. I recognized a few people from previous races. I signed up and paid my entry fee then I got the boat off the truck and started organizing my gear and mixing Gatorade. Here's a picture at the starting area: 
I chatted with a couple of people, including a really cool woman who photographs a lot of the races and has sent me pictures and given me pointers and encouragement along the way. Her nickname for me is "Poonanny" after I called myselft that in an email I wrote to her. I don't know if she knows what that means, but I hope that doesn't become my permanent race handle. They had a pre-race briefing to go over the rules and whatnot. The race director made a point of talking about stern hooking and whining and I felt lots of pairs of eyes on me. The briefing ended with about fifteen minutes to go until the start.
The December Solos is a handicapped race; meaning that your start time is dictated by your previous best time. If your previous best time was over 3 hours, then you automatically started at 10am. Then the next slowest guy would start, then the next slowest and down the line until the fastest guy starts last. (You could also pay down your start time by donating to the San Marcos PD's Blue Santa charity.) Here I am right before putting the boat in the water: 
The first people, including me, all started at 9:55. There were ten or twelve of us starting at that time. I figured I would be among the fastest in the group because I was in a fast boat and many of them were in bigger and slower canoes or plastic boats. I hadn't been in the boat in a while and I felt pretty shaky before the start. I normally paddle the Rainmaker with two 3 liter bottles of water in it for ballast. I had a 1/2 gallon water jug, 2 other small water bottles and a dry bag with some emergency gear in it but all of that weighed less than the ballast I normally had. I was a little worried about being less stable. I paddled upriver about a hundred yards just to get the feel of the thing again. I turned and headed toward the starting line and tried to ease my way up. It's not easy to hold the boat steady in current. Your rudder is causing the boat to turn sideways, you feel tippy without your paddle in the water, you drift too close to other boats - all bad things. The race director counted down to zero and everyone started paddling. Here's another couple of pictures from the start: 
My first couple of strokes were slow and timid - I felt pretty shaky and I knew I'd throw myself over with any kind of power strokes. I built up a little speed and then I was able to paddle as fast as I wanted to. Just as I suspected, a group of six or so boats broke away, me among them.
The very first obstacle you come to is a railroad bridge with wooden pilings holding it up that are spaced about four feet apart. This is about 100 yards into the race. You have to pick which set of pilings you are going to go through and not all of them are the same. Some have boards stretched across them that are lower to the water than others. Boat traffic makes it interesting. I went through the same opening that the boats in front of me went through, right on the tail of a K-1, which is a fast and skinny kayak, paddled by a guy known as Mad Moose. The next obstacle is about a half mile or so past the railroad bridge. It's Rio Vista, which is a three-tiered set of rapids that starts with about a four foot wide breach in an old dam that drops several feet. The second and third drops aren't nearly as dramatic, but you have to position yourself to run through the chutes just right. I had already decided that I was going to portage Rio Vista. I had never done it before, but I'd seen it on video and I'd been there before so I knew in my mind what I was going to do. There's a concrete wall and a ladder going into the water and that's where I was going to get out of the boat. The top of the wall is only about a foot above the water's edge, so you don't have to lift the boat up very high. There's a wide crushed rock trail along the river that ends at a bridge where you put back in below the third set of falls. The water is knee deep right at the bridge so reentry is pretty easy. I pulled up to the wall and got out without any mishaps (harder than it sounds), grabbed up the boat and ran with it to the bridge. I slid down the concrete apron under the bridge with the boat, straddled it and got back in. All in all it was a pretty clean portage. I hadn't lost any positions to the other boats around me, near as I could tell. I was winded, but I was back in the boat and paddling. There were no other boats visible to me at this point because of the twisty river, so there was nobody to follow. I didn't recognize any of the things I was passing and I started to get worried that I'd gone off down some tributary. Then I saw the next obstacle - the first mandatory portage at Thompson's island (Rio Vista is not mandatory and a lot of boats run it with varying degrees of success). There are two ways to portage Thompson's Island, which is a sort of short dam with water spilling over it with rapids at the bottom and trees growing up out of it all. There's the left portage and the right portage. I haven't ever seen or done the right portage, only the left, so that's where I went again. The portage is short, but it's no cakewalk. There's a concrete pad on the bank and the water is deep right up to it so you have to go straight from the boat to land, which is a difficult type of exit out of this kind of boat. There's a narrow ledge underwater tangled with roots that you can step on to get out of the boat, which is what I did last time and what I was going to try to do again. Another paddler came up behind me and was able to exit his boat faster so I lost a position to him. You then have to carry or drag your boat down a slippery incline to the water. I executed the whole portage better than the first time I did it, but I was still a little clumsy and slow. Again, I was back in the boat and paddling. This time I was really winded. Back to back portages and hard paddling in between had taken it out of me. I knew I'd get my wind back soon enough, but for the moment I was hurting. I knew I had to be one of the top four or five boats and I felt like if I could just make it to the flat water I might be able to catch those guys and try to hold off the fast paddlers who were chasing.
This is where the race started to suck. I was tired, which didn't help, but I was also dumb. This stretch of the river is narrow and fast and there are tons of overhanging branches, trees spanning the entire river and sometimes small rapids and rocks. You have to make quick decisions. I don't know if I hit something or took some waves wrong or what, but I was out of the boat. I secured the boat, dumped the water out of it and tried to steady it so I could get back in. This must have happened four or five times in succession. At one point I was so exhausted from fighting the current and lifting the heavy-ass boat filled with water that I was bent over with my hands on my knees, panting. Several boats passed me. I really didn't know how I was going to make it. Any hope I had of running a clean race and finishing well were dashed. Somehow I was able to get back in the boat and make some progress and get past that hairy section of the river. Once I got to open water I did pretty well, but I was pretty downtrodden since I'd given up so many positions and lost so much time from dumping out of the boat. I had no point of reference to know how fast I was going, but I was driving pretty hard. I caught a couple of the boats that had passed me.
Pretty soon I came upon the second mandatory portage at Cummings Dam. I had been really sloppy with my portage here in the Jr. and I really wanted to improve this time. It's about a 20' drop straight down with a narrow ledge running down beside the river. I got out of the boat, carried to the edge and I lowered it down with rope. I ran down the ledge with my paddle to the boat and carried it to the water. Right then I saw the first of the late-starting fast paddlers go by me. I was exhausted again. The river sped up and narrowed again and seemed choked with trees and limbs. I came upon another tree spanning the river. The current wasn't bad, but it was deep and I had no idea how I was going to get out of the boat, get the boat around the tree and get back in. To make matters worse, another paddler was coming up behind me so I didn't have the luxury of studying the situation, taking my time and being careful. Instead, I got out of the boat and tried to swim with it to shallow water, which I should have located in advance of getting out of the boat. I'm sure the guy in the other boat was wondering just what in the hell I was doing. If he was thinking I was a dumbass he didn't show it - he was telling me about the water mocassin he'd seen at the last portage. This as I'm swimming through branches and shit - prime water mocassin territory. "Thanks a lot," I thought as I scanned the water for snakes. I swam with the boat in one hand and the paddle in the other (not easy) to the bank, which was a sheer dropoff to six feet. I finally found a foothold a little further downstream where I could get back in the boat and I was off again, but I'd lost a lot of time by being a dumbshit. I paddled hard and eventually caught the water mocassin guy.
Pretty soon I came upon the last portage at Martindale Dam. It's about the same size as Cummings Dam, but the way you go around it is completely different. For one, you exit the boat at a bank that drops off into water too deep to stand. The bank is just a tangle of tree roots with a steep embankment from there. I found a foothold on the roots, got out of the boat and drug it up the embankment. From there you have to carry or drag the boat through what amounts to a pasture for about 150 yards to where you can put back in. I drug the boat through the grass at a run. Near the put-in there was a small group of people, including the woman I talked to at the starting line and a couple of the top paddlers who weren't racing that day, who were shouting, "C'mon Poonanny! Hurry it up!" That was pretty sweet.
The last major obstacle was Cottonseed Rapid - it's at the site of an old cotton gin that is now all broken up and strewn across the river. It's considered the hairest of the rapids and I'd already decided to try to portage it even though I'd never done it before and didn't really know how. I knew I had to be getting close to it and I was looking for any of the landmarks I knew. Just then I saw the goose and I pulled off to the right bank where there was an old concrete wall. The goose had tipped me off after all! I carried the boat up to the wall and eased it over. I then had to carry it through the brush for about forty yards to put back in downstream of the rapids. It took some time and I was exhausted, but I'm glad I did it instead of risking the boat in Cottonseed.
I breathed easy after that because I knew I was past all of the major obstacles. I had been passed by several of the fast guys already and I knew I had no hope of catching them, but I thought I might be able to catch some of the slower paddlers who had passed me while I was swimming. I bore down and paddled at a pace I thought I could barely sustain and still finish. Eventually I saw some boats up ahead of me. I made it my goal to pass them. I knew I was less than 2 miles from the finish line and I wasn't sure how long it was going to take to catch them so I just paddled as hard as I could to make sure. I caught one boat, then another. I was feeling the burn. Then I saw another boat up ahead. It was an Aggie I'd seen at the starting line. He'd passed me earlier when I was in the water. Well, I had to pass the damned Aggie. I knew it was going to be close because I was running out of room. The finish line was only about a half a mile away. I started to sprint, or at least, whatever my version of a sprint was at that point. There's a house on the riverbank that marks the last turn before the finish. It's about a quarter mile up from the finish line at the bridge right before Staples dam. I was gaining on the Aggie and figured I had him beat. I decided to take the inside of the final curve so I could be set up well for a final sprint. I notice that there were a lot of people at the house on the bend. I thought to myself that it must've been a family gathering at the house and wondered what they thought of the race. Then I saw one of the race officials at the house. She started shouting that the finish line was at the house instead of at the bridge. Shit! I didn't know if I had enough time to pass the Aggie. I paddled as fast and as hard as I could at that point. I saw another boat out of the corner of my eye and I thought it was the Aggie making a final sprint. I gave it absolutely everything I had as I crossed the line. I looked over and realized that it wasn't the Aggie I was sprinting against at all, I'd left him behind, it was one of the speedsters who had started well after me who had been coming up behind me the whole time. I don't know who crossed first, but I think he barely got me. But I beat the Aggie, barely. Here's a picture of the final sprint: 
You can see the Aggie in the far left and the fast paddler next to him.
Here's me happy that the race is over: 
I feel pretty good about how I did despite all of the falling out during the first third. Those mistakes cost me 10-20 minutes and a couple of positions, maybe more. I don't have the results yet to know for sure.
No more races until January. Not sure about training between now and then. Holidays and all. I'll be in the weight room and on the rowing machine as much as I can. After New Year's though, it's on. That'll be six months until the Big One. For now though, I feel better than I ever have about a race and about my progress.
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