Cursed With Ambition

Safari Training Calendar: San Marcos to Luling 90

Saturday was the first time we took the Raptor out on the Safari course.  Our plan was to run the approximately 40 miles from San Marcos City Park to Luling Hwy 90 bridge.  That stretch represents the first two legs of the Safari.  This training run was going to be our first real test.  Before, all we'd done was paddle on flat water.  We had done the City Park to Staples (first Safari leg - 16 miles) several months ago in a plastic tandem boat as well.  But running the Raptor in current with all of the obstacles was going to be an entirely different deal.  Of course, starting out we had a lot of things working against us.  I had to be back in Austin by 4:30 for an appointment.  I had planned on 7 hours for the run, which turned out to be grossly optimistic.  I figured we needed to be on the river by 8:30 if we had any chance of getting back to Austin in time.  We got a late start and decided to take out at Stairtown instead, about 9 miles short of our original goal. 

This run was going to be a first in a lot of ways.  We were going to try out single-blade paddles for the first time, we were going to be trying out the powdered food for the first time and we were going to be using other pieces of Safari gear and rigging for the boat for the first time.  So in a lot of ways, this was our first "real" training run.

For a little background, the first 90 miles of the Safari, from Aquarena Springs in San Marcos to Palmetto State Park is almost universally considered to be the most difficult portion of the race.  This is because there are fast-moving currents, the channel can be very narrow and there are tons and tons of obstacles that you can run into.  The obstacles are 90% trees half submerged in the river or protruding out from the bank and hanging low over the water.  These tree obstacles are referred to as "sweepers" and "strainers."  The other 10% are rocks barely under the surface or sticking out above the water.  Most experienced Safari racers will tell you that you only have to survive the first 90 miles.  After that, the river opens up wider and there are a lot fewer obstacles.  The bay is difficult if the wind is up and the waves get bigger than a foot because they can cause you to flip over or they crash over the gunnels and swamp the boat.  But the trees and rocks in the river are the hardest thing by far.  You would have to experience it yourself to fully appreciate what I'm talking about, but let me describe a pretty typical scenario:  First of all, you are in a narrow racing boat that is relatively difficult to stay in under the best of circumstances, so you are constantly paranoid about anything disrupting your balance and sending you over.  These disruptions can be as simple and bumping a rock as you go over it to banging into an exposed rock as the current pushes you into it or it can be running headlong or sideways into a tangle of branches and getting poked in the eye, having poison ivy vines rake over your body, getting covered in spider webs and spiders or worse, asps.  (Haven't had that happen yet.)  Flipping out of the boat is bad for several reasons - it can be dangerous since you could get injured or you could drown and you can damage or destroy your boat.  Plus, every time you flip you have to expend an enormous amount of energy swimming to shore, corraling the boat, dumping it, collecting and rearranging the gear and getting back in.  Damaging the boat happens when the boat turns over and the current continues to push the boat and the people downstream.  Eventually, the boat will hit either a tree or a rock and come to a stop.  Since no one is steering the boat, it will float perpendicular to the current.  When it hits a rock or a stump the current pushes on the boat until it "wraps" around the obstruction.  That's when you are fucked.  Most of the Safari boats, including our Raptor, are made out of expensive materials like carbon fiber and kevlar.  We got a pretty good deal on ours, but we still paid a lot of money for it.  Plus, add up the costs of all the gear and training time and it is a significant investment that can all be wasted if you wrap your boat.  The good news is that even if you wrap your boat it can probably still be repaired.  But the repairs are expensive and they add a lot of weight to the boat, which is bad for portaging and overall speed.  You can see the stress level here.  So you are paddling along and the river bends hard to one side.  The current is moving around the bend fast and pushing against the bank.  Of course, along the bank is a huge downed tree with gnarly limbs going everywhere.  Your job is to enter the bend and not allow the fast-moving current to push you into the tree where you will probably flip out of the boat and be pushed bodily under the tangle of branches by the current and your boat will wrap.  You have a rudder and two paddles with which to accomplish your task.  You don't really know how to use either one with any skill.  There you go.

Even really good experienced racers bang into obstacles, but when you are inexperienced like we are it's even worse.  Banging into stuff and flipping is inevitable, so what you do when that happens becomes important.  There are two rules when you flip out of the boat:  1.  Do not allow your body to get between the boat and any downstream obstacle, and 2.  When you fall out go immediately to the upstream end of the boat and grab it so the boat will float down longways and not crossways where it will wrap.  It's the basic, "Protect Yourself First; Then Protect the Equipment" strategy.

We started out at City Park in San Marcos and made the first portage at Rio Vista.  We were clumsy and slow with the portage and Robo didn't know what to do or where to go, but we made it back into the river allright.  We took the left fork and portaged Thompson's Island.  Again, we were clumsy and slow, but we made it okay.  Sometime shortly after Thompson's Island we flipped for the first time.  The current pushed us too close to the bank where overhanging branches swept us out.  The water wasn't as cold as we thought it was going to be.  Even though we should have expected it, we were still shocked.  With some difficulty we swam the boat to a small ledge where we could stand and try to dump the boat and get back in.  We achieved this with some difficulty.  We made it a little further when we flipped out again.  This time I was able to steer Robo around a big branch, but I steered myself right into it.  (The boat is 24' long, so the bowman can pass several feet from the spot where the sternman passes.)  The branch hit me about chest level and I couldn't duck under it and we went over.  I tried to grab it and push off from it, but we were going too fast.  The water was shallower so we were able to stand right there and dump the boat and get back in.  I should mention that the routine every time we flipped was to get to a spot where we had some footing, by swimming or otherwise, dump the boat out, situate all the gear again, get back in and start paddling again.  The seconds and minutes just peel off every time this happens.  From a racing standpoint, flipping is a disaster.  From a survival and finish-the-race standpoint, it's not as big of a deal.  We learned some valuable lessons about how to rig the boat and situate gear to cut down on the time required to get going again.

We came around another tight bend and the bow of the boat made it fine, but the stern raked along the bank and a bunch of branches and vines where the rudder mechanism got tangled up.  We came to a complete stop.  The force was pretty violent and I thought for sure we were going to rip the rudder off the boat and be fucked.  I managed to tear the vines loose and we escaped.  I was sure that the rudder was at least damaged, but there was no way I could check it right then.  It was still working anyway, for the time being.  I don't remember if, or how many times, we flipped before the next portage at Cummins Dam, but we made the dam and our first really serious portage.  The dam is a tall concrete structure and there is a twelve foot drop at the area where you have to lower the boat.  I had secured ropes to the bow and stern of the boat for lowering the boat at this portage and others like it.  There are angled concrete struts where you can slide the boat down.  We nosed the boat down and I got on the rope at the stern to lower it down as slowly as possible.  Robo got down below to catch the nose and to lower the boat the rest of the way.  For our first time portaging Cummins with the Raptor I thought we did okay.  It probably wasn't the fasted portage in history, but we didn't waste a lot of time and we didn't damage the boat.  We got underway again below the dam.  We passed through some of the other notable landmarks on the river:  Broken Bone, Old Mill, Skulls Crossing, Westerfield Crossing.  We made the next big portage at Martindale dam where we had to carry the boat about 100 yds down to the put in.  Painful.  I could tell we were making progress with sharp turns and overall maneuvering as we went.  We still banged into things and we might've flipped another time or two before making Staples. 

We pulled into Staples at the 3hr 40min mark.  For reference, the top Safari paddlers will do the same section in about 2-1/2 hours.  3:40 is horrible.  My GPS showed about 30 minutes of stoppage time, which we should probably be able to halve.  I have run the same section solo in two races in 3:06 and 3:09.  A tandem should be much faster.  My goal for the Safari is straight up 3 hours.

I had never portaged Staples dam, so I had no idea how to go about it.  There are houses on either side of the dam so you have to respect the private property and stay within the river boundaries.  We pulled over and got out to assess.  I put my hand in a huge pile of fresh dog shit as I was exiting the boat.  The dam was not nearly as tall as Cummins or Martindale, but there was no real "easy" way to do it.  Just as we were about to start lowering the boat a woman came out on her porch and told us we could portage though her yard.  I thanked her profusely since going that way was much easier than going straight over the dam.  We took a quick pee and food break and reentered the river. 

I had never been below Staples, so this was going to be new to both of us.  I had heard that Staples to Luling was the most difficult of the whole Safari, so I was steeling myself for it.  Right out of the gate we had to pick a right or left channel (neither was a good option) and shoot through a narrow between sweepers.  It seemed like we couldn't go more than five minutes without coming up on some tangled mess with current rushing into it.  We picked our way through obstacle after obstacle and progress was slow.  We flipped out a couple of times and came upon more than one spot that was simply impassable so we had to portage.  We switched over to singles about ten minutes after leaving Staples.  This was the very first time in my life I had paddled with a single blade.  I worried that we would be less stable in the boat, but the motion was very natural.  It was a little weird at first, but within 30 minutes I felt like I had it down.  Single blading is about 1mph slower than double blading and you have less overall stability since you can't brace on both sides.  The advantage of singling is that you can maneuver more deftly, if you are sufficiently skilled, and the most important advantage for the Safari - it is less taxing on the body. 

As the miles wore on and we encountered more and more obstacles we learned new tricks and techniques with the single blade paddles.  I got pretty good at using the paddle as a second rudder to really turn the nose of the boat sharply.  It was pretty obvious that there was no way we were going to make Luling 90, or Stairtown, by the cutoff so we changed plans to take out at Fentress.  This was only 9 miles down from Staples and 25 miles overall. 

Sometime after we changed the takeout point and arranged with our ground crew by cell phone, we had our worst mishap of the day.  The current was running fast into a sweeper and it knocked Robo out of the boat.  I was still sitting in the back, but the boat sunk so I had to bail.  Robo had the front of the boat, which violated Rule 2.  I was busy trying to adhere to Rule 1 as the boat was pushing my legs downstream as my upper body was caught by the sweeper.  I experienced a tense moment of fear.  The rudder housing and cables raked my calf as I extracted myself from between the boat and the sweeper.  As soon as the boat passedme I looked over and to my horror I saw the boat move sideways down the river and come into contact with a stump.  The boat instantly filled with water and I saw the center of the boat start to flex.  THE RAPTOR WAS WRAPPING!!  I screamed for Robo to help me as I grabbed onto the stern and tried to pry it back.  Somehow we managed to pull it back and the boat got parallel with the current again.  It seemed like it took forever, but it was probably only a few seconds.  I walked the boat to the bank and beached it and knelt beside it.  We had just avoided our first near-wrapping episode.  I was upset with Robo for violating Rule 2 and he was upset with me for being upset with him.  I sat there for a second trying to calm down.  I looked the boat over and it looked like there was no harm done.  We got back in the boat and didn't say anything to each other for a while.  I checked the GPS and realized there was no way I was going to make my appointment.  I was stressed about that too.  I think we might have flipped once or twice more after that.  I watched the GPS and sure enough, right about mile 25 we got to Fentress.  I was really happy to see the fiance' there with the truck.  It was about 5pm.

We took the boat out without incident and loaded all the gear.  The fiance' was very understanding about the time.  (The appointment I had involved her.)  I'm a very lucky guy.  I was pretty tired and I forgot to take a final look at the GPS, but I think we were on the water for 6-1/2 hours and had stoppage time of 1hr.  We made it about 26 miles and were 15 miles short of our original goal.  From a racing standpoint, this was horrible.  From a finishing and survival standpoint, not too bad.

There are a lot of things to take away from this training run.  I think we improved noticeably maneuvering the boat.  We had to have gained some fitness.  We tried our Safari food, got experience with the portages and a completely new section of the river.  I'm anxious to do the same section again to see any time improvements.  I bet we flip half as much the next time around.  We'll see.   

A Couple of Other Shits

Every now and then I think I have an idea that is really, really good.  I've had a few ideas for inventions lately that I think would be awesome.  I can't write here what they are for risk of some piece of shit cribbing my idea and making a million bucks.  But trust me, they're awesome.  Other times I'll have brilliant ideas about projects or goals.  My latest one:  Write a Series of Articles About the Texas Water Safari for Outside Magazine.  It would basically be the story of my evolution from desk jockey to 260-mile paddler.  Like I need any other things consuming my time, but still.

The other thing is that I think I'm gaining a newfound respect for the state of West Virginia.  You don't think much of West Virginia probably.  Neither did I.  But the WVa footbally team has been pretty good lately, what with Pat White, Steve Slaton and that new kid, Noel Devine (badass name, by the way).  Plus, the We Are Marshall movie.  Marshall University is in West Virginia for those who don't know.  Now, UWVa's basketball team is looking pretty hot.  I didn't pick them to beat Duke, but now I think they will.  I watched their fans after they won and the players were slapping their hands as they went down the tunnel.  There seemed to be a closeness with the fans that you don't see everywhere.  West Virginia has also been getting a lot of play with outdoor enthusiasts lately since a lot of the area is mountainous and undeveloped.  Anyway, you heard it here first - West Virginia is going to be one of the New Cool Places sometime soon. 

Random Shit Killing Time Waiting for The Tournament to Start

So here's a few things to kill time with before the tournament starts:

1. This is some seriously funny shit.
2. A few things that are not cool:  $3.30 a gallon gas, tramp stamps on dudes, being the golden boy governor of New York and messing around with some ridiculous slut to ruin your family, reputation and career.
3. This is scary to me. But true.
4. Speaking of really expensive gasoline, didn't we fight a war over this?  Haven't over 3,000 Americans and countless Iraqis lost their lives?  Shouldn't the war have stabilized oil prices or made them go down?  Why was it a bad thing for the U.S. to take Iraqi oil?
5. My 12-5 upset in the tournament is Western Kentucky over Drake.  You heard it here first.
6. I think today is Holy Thursday or some shit.

The Madness

March Madness is upon us.  I have really come to enjoy the bracket contests over the last few years.  I've got mine about 90% filled out.  Here are my takes:

General

One thing I've heard repeatedly that I've taken to heart and applied to my bracket is that this year's field is top-heavy.  So, the parity that has made Bracket Einsteins nervous is muted this year.  There appears to be more separation between the higher and lower seeds.  Put another way, it means that higher seeds are more likely to prevail over lower seeds than in years past.

The Tough Ones

I always really struggle with about 5 or 6 matchups every year.  This year they were:

1. St. Joseph's v. Oklahoma
2. Miss. St. v. Oregon
3. Davidson v. Georgetown
4. Miami v. St. Mary's
5. Memphis v. Texas
6. Western Ky. v. Drake
7. Duke v. Xavier

To a lesser extent, Butler v. South Alabama

My Horses

Everybody has teams that they've picked to go far that go against the grain.  Mine are:  Davidson, Clemson and of course, Texas.

The Numbers

You can really make your head swim with all of the information that is available.  In the interest of time, I usually focus on a few key areas.  I usually look at the schedule and results.  Most bracket contest sites will publish the teams' records against top-25 teams, but that's not quite accurate enough for me.  Wins over no.'s 17, 21 and 25 are not as impressive as wins over 4, 8, 15.  I used to pay attention to streaks - if a team was hot coming in to the tournament.  But not anymore.  For one thing, all of the teams most recent twelve games or so are all against conference opponents, for the most part.  If a team is from a weak conference then they probably haven't played anybodyin those most recent twelve games.  So that  winning streak isn't as impressive as it seems.  I also look at the matchups of the strengths of each team.  Usually, a team will either be a good backcourt or good frontcourt team; rarely both.  If a team whose main offensive weapon, say 3-pointers, is matching up against a team whose defensive strength counters the offensive weapon, I'm going with the defensive team on the theory that it's more difficult and unlikely that a team will find new ways to score or run their offense.  I usually disfavor teams where their big men are the scoring leaders (Georgetown, UCLA).  I almost always go with the blue-blood programs to go to the Final Four.  So I never take the George Masons, Marquettes, etc. to make it that far. 

HLSR

Went to see John Fogerty at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Wednesday night.  The way it's set up is the doors to the stadium open up at 6:45 and the rodeo goes on for a couple of hours.  They have all of the events you expect:  saddle bronc riding, team calf roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, bull riding, etc.  We got there in time to see the very last bull rider.  Nothing exciting happened, which means the guy on the bull didn't get his guts stomped out or paralyzed.  We also saw the wagon races where a miniature conestoga wagon pulled by a team of four horses and sponsored by Kroger or WaMu or IWMarks jewelers runs around a circular track of safety cones.  Last was the calf scramble, where a bunch of country high school kids from FFA groups around the state try to catch a calf and bring it into a marked area on the ground.  It sounds easier than it is, mainly because the arena is so big.  Some of those kids gave it up to catch those calves.  Full on tackling and rolling around in the dirt and shit.  But anyway, John Fogerty.  I love me some Creedence, so it was cool to hear all of the old hits:  Born on the Bayou, Bad Moon Rising, Fortunate Son, etc.  He played almost all of the hits.  He is a very polished performer and he has a very distinctive voice, even when he speaks.  Of course, I'm paying attention to weird details.  There was one song where he was supposed to play the harmonica and the first time he went to play it I think he actually had it backward on his mouth.  It was supposed to be a harmonica part of the song, but he cut it off after he fucked it up.  The band didn't miss a beat.  He picked up the harmonica again later in the song, but he just couldn't get it right and he threw it down on the stage.  I think he was pissed off, but I doubt many people saw that.  Dude also changed guitars a lot.  He had a guitar shaped like a baseball bat to play "Centerfield."  The roadie in charge of tuning and bringing the guitars out to him after nearly every song was Johnny-on-the-Spot.  The stage at the rodeo is this mobile rotating stage that they set up in the middle of the arena, so it's set apart from the stands by a good distance.  So you feel separated from the musicians.  But all in all, it was a good show.  The real treat, though, was the free concert after Fogerty at "The Hideout," which is a stage set up inside the Astrodome.  It was pretty cool being on the floor of the Astrodome, but even cooler than that was the free show was Billy Joe Shaver.  For those who don't know, BJS is in the pantheon of Outlaw Country singers and songwriters.  He's got a few songs out there that you'd recognize and he's written songs for some of the biggest stars out there.  But more than that, he's sincere.  He's got a genuine smile on his face most of the time.  He's been through the wringer - lost a couple of fingers on one hand, lost his son to a heroin overdose in 2000, lost his wife and mother to cancer within a couple of months of each other - but now he's got Jesus and he's okay.  He must've quit drinking a while back because he made the comment, "If yer not drinkin' water, yer oughter."  He also described a song as "belt buckle shining music," which I thought was funny as hell.  He's a bit of a goofy guy too.  During one song that had to do with birds or wings or something, he kept flapping his arms like wings forever.  It was almost embarrassing.  He dances around without the best moves (he almost stumbled once) and he makes some awkward gestures while performing.  But one thing you know for sure is that the man is sincere and he's one of the best songwriters I've ever heard.  And I'll take that over stage presence any day of the week.

34

I turned 34 years old on Sunday. It's weird to look at that number and think that's the number of years I've been around. 34 seems like a lot, when you're talking about years living. A lot has happened during that time; both to me and in the world at large. If there's one constant it's that time keeps passing. I've experienced periods when time seemed to move very slowly, but these days it seems to go by fast. The hours of the workday evaporate. The alarm clock goes off seemingly right after I close my eyes to go to sleep. I think once you reach a certain age and realize how short life is you want for things to slow down so you can take everything in and enjoy it. Really though, the sensation of time passing fast or slow is just an illusion and time passes at the same rate always.

Every birthday is a milestone; not just for me, but for everybody. Each age has some meaning or common experience tied to it. When you tell someone, "I'm 34" that illicits an automatic interpretation from people. When I was 24 I think 34 must have sounded pretty damned old, but I can't really remember what I thought. When my dad was 34 I was 15 and I'm pretty sure I thought he was an old man at the time. How wrong I was. When you tell someone, "I'm 21" that gets a response too. Usually a knowing wink or grin from someone who has already passed by there. Same with every age. It's like an identifier. Like a name or a career.

There are a lot of myths about youth. Most people look wistfully back at their younger days and wish they could go back knowing what they know now. That's impossible. The truth is, when you are young you are ignorant. I don't think I'd trade the ignorance for being a little more spry and having more hair. I'm curious what 44, 54 and 64 will feel like. I mean, I can certainly wait to find out.

I'm not really sure what the point of this post is. Reading it back to myself it sounds a little depressing, but I didn't mean for it to be. Overall I'm happy with where I'm at and I've got a great many things to be thankful for and to look forward to. Mostly, I'm just glad I got to live for another year.

Buffalo Bayou Regatta

This past Saturday I ran in my fourth canoe race, the Buffalo Bayou Regatta.  For those who don't know, Buffalo Bayou runs through the heart of Houston and empties into the Gulf of Mexico.  The city of Houston was founded on Buffalo Bayou, so it is sort of central to the city's identity.  For many years the bayou was severly polluted, but efforts of the last 30+ years have greatly improved the situation.  In fact, the race used to be known as "the Reeking Regatta."  Until Saturday I had only driven over the bayou or run by it, but I've never been really close to it and certainly not in it.  The water is silty brown and not very pretty and the banks are muddy or covered by brush.  You have to really love it to say that it is beautiful.  Still, I think the public's opinion of the bayou as a festering polluted ditch is incorrect.  But, I digress.

Weeks before, I convinced the fiance' (formerly the GF) to do the race with me.  She's not really into paddling, but we've been in the boat together before.  She's athletic and fit and she has good balance and she doesn't complain, so I thought she'd make a good partner.  Plus, I thought it would be something different and fun that we could do together.  A sort of team-building exercise if you will.  It turned out to be quite an experience.

The Race

The race is approximately 15 miles long and starts near Voss road west of the Galleria.  It wends its way through the Memorial neighborhood, the Galleria, Memorial Park, along Allen Parkway to downtown.  The Regatta is probably the most friendly to amateurs of all the Texas canoe races.  It draws by far the most participants.  Last year there were 250 boats.  It was said that this year there were a hundred more than that.  Like all races, the Regatta has several race categories based on boat type.  They are recreational canoe, USCA, recreational kayak, K-1, unlimited.  All of the categories are futher broken down by gender, tandem, solo, mixed, over 50 etc.  There are a handful of the usual suspects in the Texas canoe racing circuit who are serious racers, with serious boats, who are fast and usually also participate in the Texas Water Safari.   

The Start

We got to the check in about 8:30.  The race was supposed to start at 9:00.  We pulled up to the boat drop off area and there were hundreds of people milling around and more canoes and kayaks than you've ever seen in one place.  It was a little surreal to see all of these boats and outdoor enthusiast-looking people milling around an office building and parking lot in the middle of an urban area.  We unloaded our boat and gear and I started to rig the boat while the fiance' checked us in, got our boat number and picked up our t-shirts.  Once we got all the gear unloaded I went and parked the truck in a parking garage that the race organizers had received permission to use.  There were several categories of participants and they were starting at different times.  We were the last category, unlimited, so we were starting at 9:20.  The recreational classes all started before us.  So we would have a chance to watch the start.  A quick note here is that the start was "Le Mans" style, which means that you do not start in the water.  You have to either run to your boat or run with your boat or otherwise launch your boat before getting in and paddling.  Here is a video of a crazy Le Mans start.  I had never done a race with a Le Mans start and the fiance was pretty terrified by the idea.  I wasn't too worried about it because I had an idea in my head about how it would work.  Plus, our classification wasn't going to have very many boats so I didn't think the traffic and clusterfuck factor was going to affect us. 

We walked down to the water to try to find a good place to launch the boat.  What we found were steeply inclined banks that led to the water's edge and brown water of unkown depth at that point.  The channel was maybe fifteen yards wide.  There were also dozens and dozens of boats lining the water's edge and scattered all over the banks.  It was obvious to me that launching any boat, much less our 24' Raptor, was going to be difficult.  I tried to hide my horror so the fiance' wouldn't get scared.  I had heard rumors of the crazy start of this race and now I knew they were true.  I walked to the bank looking for any kind of beach or flat spot to launch the boat.  It was obvious that just a day or two before the whole area was choked with weeds and brush and that an army of city employees had come in with chainsaws and weedeaters to clear the area for the race.  It still smelled like wild onions that had been cut by a mower.  I settled on the best area I could find to launch the boat, which was a sliver of sand along the bank that we could lower the boat onto.  I showed the spot to the fiance' and explained the plan.  "Once the rec classes start we'll bring our boat down here and slide the rear end down first.  Then we'll get in on the sandy area and start paddling."  Satisfied with our plan, we walked back up to check on our boat and find a place to watch the start.

The race was delayed for some reason or other.  There was a guy dressed like Sam Houston who had a mini cannon that he was going to fire off to start the race.  There was also an enormous older black guy standing next to the Sam Houston dude on the bridge overlooking the starting line who I figured must have been a former Houston Oiler, but I don't know who.  The race was just about to start when we noticed a big sign that said "Even" on the bank.  Hmmm.  We asked around and discovered that even-numbered boats had to start on one side, the side we were on, and the odd-numbered boats started on the opposite side.  I could see the logic to cut down on traffic.  The only problem was that we were an odd-numbered boat (465) and we hadn't scouted the opposite bank for a place to launch.  Uh-oh.

We hustled the boat across the bridge and onto a knoll overlooking the bayou and walked down to find another spot to launch.  We located a spot that would do right before the race started.  I saw and talked to a couple of Safari racers that I recognized.  We watched as people of all shapes, sizes and colors lowered their boats toward the water with ropes down the near vertical banks.  A couple of people fell in even before the race started.  At about 9:40 the race director called out that the race was about to start.  He counted down from ten and the mini cannon was supposed to go off, but, of course it didn't.  Sam Houston's punk went out and he had to light it again.  By the time the cannon went off twenty or thirty seconds had passed and it was already complete mayhem in the water.  People were falling in the water and sliding down the banks.  Boats were banging into each other and people were laughing at how ridiculous it all was.  Surprisingly, I didn't hear any yelling or cursing.  You could tell that there were people with no paddling experience who were realizing that they were in over their heads; literally.

Pretty quickly the traffic thinned out.  Those who had tumped over righted themselves and paddled downstream.  Laggers made their way leisurely into the water and started off.  A second category of racers started about ten minutes later.  At that point we got our boat in position and started lowering it toward the water.  Before we were in position the cannon went off again for our start.  We were a little awkward and slow getting into the boat, but we made it without capsizing and got underway.

The Race

No sooner had we started paddling than we started to hit the slower traffic.  I expected this and actually looked forward to weaving in and out of the slower boats.  For one, it makes you feel like you are fast.  For two, it's part of the technical challenge of steering the boat to pick the right lines and maneuver around other boats.  My boat has a rudder on the back attached to foot pedals and it's actually quite responsive.  We came upon one guy who had just cracked a beer out of the ice chest in his kayak and another pair in a tandem rec sit-on-top kayak who each lit up cigarettes.  Quite a bit different than the other more serious races I'd been in. 

My strategy wasn't to try to win the race - I knew that was impossible.  We're not experienced or fast enough to compete with the really fast guys.  I did think we had a shot to win the mixed (male/female) unlimited category.  I looked around but I didn't see any other mixed unlimited teams, so we might've been the only one.  Mainly, I wanted to work on my paddling form and endurance as a part of my training regimen for the Safari.  So, I needed to push myself and go as fast as I could. 

We passed a ton of boats.  Every now and then we'd come upon an obstacle - usually a fallen tree spanning a portion of the channel.  Sometimes there would be other boats stacked up there because someone had gotten crossways in the current and plugged the channel.  Sometimes the traffic stacked up because people had to file singly through the slot.  Once, there was a narrow channel with a lot of boats stacked up waiting to go through.  There was a tangle of limbs sticking out of the water with one or two boats pinned sideways to them.  The current was carrying everyone toward the limbs.  I could see a disaster developing.  Getting crossways to an obstruction is about the worst situation there is for a paddler.  That's how you get your boat wrapped and broken.  Even though it wasn't the most sportsmanlike thing to do I made the decision to shoot the gap and cut in line.  We crammed into the opening between two boats and floated through three wide.

Another time we came upon a cluster of boats and these two bubbleheads in a huge green canoe decided they were going to pull over to the bank and rest, I guess.  The only problem was that when they turned they blocked more than half of the channel.  I tried to call out "On your right!" but it was too late.  We rammed them as they turned in front of us.  In a more serious race what they did would have been a serious foul.  But I knew they were amateurs and didn't know any better.  Still, I hoped the dirty look I gave them told them what they did wasn't cool.

About a third into the race we were paddling along at a decent clip when all of a sudden, WHAM!  We were thrown out of the boat!  I had just enough time to see the fiance' at the front of the boat go flying out, turn in the air and look at me with this surprised expression.  I glimpsed the barely submerged stump that we'd hit as I followed over the side and the shock of the water rendered me speechless for a few seconds.  "S-s-s-s-swim to shore!" I managed.  The fiance' instinctively tried to get back in the boat, but she didn't know that an open water entry in our skinny racing boat is near impossible.  "G-g-g-g-grab onto the s-s-side and s-s-swim to shore!"  I started to swim as other thoughts flooded my brain.  "D-d-d-do you have your p-paddle?"  "Yes!"  "O-okay."  We held onto the boat and swam to shore.  I could feel submerged limbs with my legs.  A couple of the boats we'd just passed came by and asked us if we were okay.  Finally we got to the bank.  "L-l-let's walk it down a l-little ways to that b-b-beach."  I was shivering.  The fiance's sandals stuck in the mud making it nearly impossible for her to walk.  I guided the boat down the shoreline to the area that flattened out so we could climb back in.  It took a few minutes for the fiance' to regroup and make her way down to the bow of the boat.  She climbed back in as I explained what happened.  She had no idea we'd hit something.  We started paddling again, a little shaken and definitely cold.  We paddled the rest of the race soaking wet, cold and uncomfortable.  I didn't have it as bad as the fiance'.  She gets chills when the temperature gets down to 75.  She craves warmth so much that I have an asbestos shield installed on our bed to protect me from the heat of her side of the bed at night.  Plus, I wore old running shoes, which are close-toed during the race and she was wearing open-toed sandals.  As the saying goes, "If your feet are cold, you're cold."  Needless to say, she froze the whole way.  But she didn't complain not once.  She's a trooper.

The rest of the race was relatively uneventful.  It was weird passing Houston landmarks from a boat.  We paddled and paddled and paddled.  I tried to focus on my form and my breathing.  We passed a lot of boats and chewed up the miles.  When we got to the Shepherd St. bridge there was a sign hanging from it that said there were 3 miles to go.  I tried to pick up the pace a bit at that point, figuring I could maintain until the end.  I picked several boats in the distance that I was going to try to pass before the end and we slowly reeled them in.  We came around the final bend and saw the finish.  The race officials were staged on one side recording everyone's times.  I had forgotten to start my stopwatch so I have no idea what our finish time was, but I think we were around the 2:20 mark.

Post Race

The take out was interesting.  Basically, there was no take out.  There were sheer concrete walls rising four feet above the water's edge.  There was no way we were going to be able to get out of the boat there because you can't stand up in the Raptor.  Can't be done.  If we'd have tried we would have fallen in the water and probably gotten injured.  They had some volunteers at the water's edge helping people out of their boats, but that wouldn't have helped.  Fortunately, just beyond the finish line there was a small beach and a many-tiered retaining wall that made like steps going up.  We pulled around and got out there.  As soon as we stopped paddling, the fiance immediately began shivering uncontrollably and turning blue.  I was cold too, but she was in worse shape.  Priority number one was getting her dried off and into dry clothes.  We hadn't planned the post-race supplies exactly right (we were optimistic about not falling in) so we could only piece together enough dry clothes for one of us.  And since I'm such a great guy I gave the fiance the dry change of clothes.  She went off with the towel and the clothes to find a place to change while I found somebody to help get the boat up the bank.  A nice guy from the UH ASCE Concrete Canoe Competition team helped me with the boat.  A little while later the fiance came back from changing, looking much warmer. 

There was a little festival at the finish line with booths set up and live music.  There were free hot dogs, Red Bull, Sweet Leaf tea, crap like that.  We went from booth to booth.  I picked up a couple of free water bottles from the REI booth and ate a hot dog in .5 seconds.  From there we located the shuttle back to the truck.  We fantasized about hot showers and soup.  We picked up the truck at the starting area, went back downtown to pick up the boat and finally made it home where we made the showers and soup a reality.