TWS Training Log: 30 Miles on the San Marcos and the Aquaterra Tri

This past weekend was a heavy training weekend.  Robo and I set out on Saturday morning to Staples on the San Marcos river to do a 30 mile run to Zedler Mill in Luling.  I got up a little before 7 to start getting the gear and food ready and the supplement drinks mixed.  I got into Austin the night before at about 1am and I was pretty tired from the week because I stayed up late working on the boat.  Nevertheless, I felt fresh and ready.  We were meeting a group of experienced paddlers at Staples.  For those who don't know, Staples is a small cluster of houses on the RM 1977 highway bridge that crosses the river.  There is also a dam at Staples that we will have to portage.  Staples is the first checkpoint on the Safari and is about 16 miles from the start.  It takes good paddlers about 3 hours to complete the first leg.  I wasn't sure what to expect for our first time paddling with others.  Most of these people know who we are and that we are novices.  Many have reached out to us with advice and tips and offers to train with us.  I wasn't sure if there was going to be heavy observation and instruction or if they were just going to do their thing and we'd observe and try to learn from their example.  As it turned out, it wasn't much of either.  We showed up to Staples at about 9:15, 15 minutes late.  The people there were still arranging shuttles and getting their boats rigged, so it wasn't a big deal.  One of the guys, an older man named Zoltan Mraz, was a little peeved and was trying to hurry us.  We unloaded the boat and gear from the truck and Robo rode followed the shuttle to Luling while I secured all the gear and rigged the boat.

The shuttle got back and we humped the boat down to the river.  We struggled a bit with the put-in because there was a big tree in the way and the current was pushing into it at the base of the dam.  Our boat is 24' long, so it requires a lot of space to put in and maneuver.  We poked through the branches and eventually made it out into the river channel and immediately started running sweepers.  The week before we had really struggled with this section of the river, falling out numerous times.  The river is choked with overhanging or partially submerged trees and branches.  We made it through the first couple of obstacles without falling out of the boat; already better than we'd done the week before.  Most everyone else in the group put in ahead of us and took off.  There were a couple of people who were lagging behind.  For the most part, we never saw anyone during the run until we caught up with a guy who waited for us after a couple of hours.  He's another one of the older guys, 70+ years old, and he goes by the nickname Omar, which I believe stands for "Old Man And the River."  He's a former CIA operative and very interesting character.  He's also a geek for all things Safari, especially boat design and performance.  Until we met up with Omar, we did remarkably well.  We fell out of the boat 3 times total throughout the day and all of those were within the first 2-3 hours.  Plus, they were what I call Level II mistakes.  Two of the turnovers occurred because the stern of the boat swung into branches that the bow cleared.  The other was my fault and happened because I didn't pull out of a rudder turn soon enough  and we got spun out in an eddy.  Robo and I agreed that each dump was preventable and probably wouldn't happen again.

I tried to keep us on an eating and personal maintenance schedule during the run.  For the Safari, fueling, hydrating and taking care of our bodies is going to be critical.  I know we didn't take in enough calories and I didn't drink enough, even though I never started cramping.  When you are paddling you just don't want to pause or stop to drink or eat.  I also learned how to pee in the boat, which is harder than you'd think.  Last Wednesday I asked two of the guys I paddle with every Wednesday how to do it.  One of the guys is the driver for the famous Cowboys Safari Team.  He's a bit of a character and a great guy.  He explained the "pee down the paddle" technique.  I tried it with mixed success.

We came upon Omar who had beached his boat and was laying on the gravel sunning himself.  I think he wanted to paddle with us and give us some pointers.  He helped us with our paddling technique and also explained what an experienced team would do in situations that we ran across.  The best thing I took away from what he told us was that it is okay to get out of the boat at certain times like when the water gets shallow and the boat drags on the bottom, or if there is a sweeper across the river that is easier to go around than through.  This was a good lesson for me because I was so fixated on staying in the boat at all costs that I failed to see the logic in this approach.  Sometimes you save time by getting out of the boat.

With about an hour to go until we got to the trucks at Zedler, we started racing Omar.  None of us said anything, but we were racing.  We were even for the first 15 minutes or so, but then he pulled away from us.  He was in a new boat that he'd built that he called the "Mugly."  It was a skinny kevlar canoe that he'd painted red.  It wasn't a work of art, but I didn't think it warranted the name "Mugly."  My plan was to keep him within striking distance and then mount a surge over the last mile or so to pull ahead, but he kept getting further and further ahead until I knew we weren't going to catch him.  Several times I tried to pull harder and increase my stroke rate, but we never got close to catching him.  Despite the good feeling we had from running the river so much better than before, it was still pretty humbling to be whipped by a dude over 70 years old.

We pulled into Zedler after about 6-1/2 hours.  That's not a bad pace.  Only about 30 minutes slower than what good teams turn in during the Safari over the same distance.

I was pretty tired after our run.  I was doing a little better than the week before, though I'm not sure if that's a factor of fitness or the fact that I expended a lot less energy since we didn't fall out of the boat as much.  Still, with the lack of sleep and strenuous exercise, I knew I was going to sleep well that night.  I was a little anxious about it because I was doing a triathlon on Sunday and I had to be in Bastrop no later than 7am.  I know, crazy, right?

The Aquaterra Triathlon was being run for the first time this year.  The race director puts on a couple of adventure races during the year and he also puts on the second most popular marathon canoe race in Texas behind the Safari, the Colorado 100.  The Aquaterra Tri is very much like the Martindale Tri that I did back in October.  The Aquaterra consists of a 6 mile paddle down the Colorado in Bastrop, an 11 mile mountain bike ride through jeep tracks and trails near the Colorado south of Bastrop, then a 4 mile run on those same trails.  I had studied maps of the course, but the bike and run trails had so many turns and switchbacks that there was no way I was going to be able to memorize them.  I prayed that the course was well marked so I wouldn't get off track.

Robo and his new wife and I went out for dinner when we got back to Austin after our Saturday run.  A hot shower felt really, really good.  We went to Threadgill's where I had one of the best-tasting Shiner Bock draft beers I've ever had.  I ate a pretty big meal and fell asleep in the truck on the way back to Robo's.  When we got to the house I went immediately to my bed where I bet I fell asleep within 30 seconds of my head hitting the pillow, no exaggeration.

I set my alarm for 5:30.  I didn't actually get up until about 6 and I got all of my drinks mixed and gear packed.  I left the house a little before 6:30 and prayed I wouldn't have any holdups on my way to Bastrop.  I got to the boat drop a little before 7.  I was the very last person to drop off my boat ten minutes before the cutoff.  The people who do these things are psychos.  I sped to the race finish area where I'd be leaving my truck.  They were going to shuttle us back to the boat drop where the paddling section would start.  I parked and tried to get my bike and all of my gear organized as quickly as I could.  I could hear the prerace meeting starting.  I was pretty anxious about missing any of the meeting since I knew they'd be talking about how the course was marked.  I didn't roll up to the meeting until it was almost done and I missed all of the important stuff.  I was going to have to wing it and hope for the best.

I signed in and got my race packet and number.  They told me to stage my bike and other gear at a flag with my number on it like all the other racers had done.  I wished I had gotten there earlier so I could have organized this a little better.  Other people had beach towels or small tarps spread out on the ground with their running shoes laid out and their bikes and helmets sitting next to it.  I actually had a beach towel with me so I ran back to my truck for the towel and my running shoes.  I put together a makeshift triathlete's pad and staged my gear as best I could before being hustled on to the bus.

There were some pretty formidable looking characters on the bus.  A couple of guys with buzzcuts could've passed for Special Forces.  Others were obviously experienced triathletes.  I didn't really care where I finished.  I was there to train for the Safari, that was it.  My plan was to hit the paddle section hard since my only advantage would be here.  I figured I would have one of the faster boats and I was probably better trained at paddling that most of the others.  I knew the biking section would be my worst.  I had trained maybe 3 or 4 times on the bike and always on flat roads.  I figured I'd be okay for the run section regardless of the course since I run a lot.

At the start everyone was instructed to paddle their boats to a long gravel bar out in the river and stand by their boats.  This meant getting a good position on the bar was important.  I found a spot near the middle and planned how I was going to start.  Here's a photo of me getting my boat in position.  The race director counted down to one minute and I started my stopwatch.  The next sound was the starting horn.  I pushed off the gravel bar a bit so that my rudder and stern would clear the bar and I tried to jump in the seat.  There were people close on either side of me splashing.  I was unbalanced in the boat and leaned way over to the left taking in about 5 gallons of water.  I righted myself pretty quick and started paddling awkwardly with short strokes to avoid the people next to me.  Pretty soon I separated because my boat was simply faster than the plastic tubs.  There were about 40 boats or so that started and within the first 15 seconds there were only about ten ahead of or beside me.  Included in those were the boats I knew would be fasted - the K1's.  These are Olympic style sprint kayaks that are very hard to keep upright.  The guys who paddle those are usually experienced and fast.  Right then I saw one of the K1's go over.  To my surprise it was a guy who I had favored to win the whole thing.  His name is Arild Jakobsen and he's Scandinavian.  He won the Martindale Tri, so that's why I thought he'd do well.  By flipping I thought his chances of winning were over.  Gradually the field thinned out.  There were 3 K1's in the lead, then a guy in a solo unlimited boat similar to mine and another K1 pretty close behind me.

Gotta go.  To be continued...