Audra came to wake us up exactly 90 minutes after we'd laid down, just as I'd asked. I was already awake and thinking. Since we hadn't planned on sleeping, I hadn't really calculated our exact down time into the splits or our final finishing time before we started the race. I had a laminated sheet in the boat with all of the distances to the checkpoints and other major landmarks. I also had all of our splits and approximate arrival times on the sheet. I made a copy of the sheet and put it in a notebook for Audra with a bunch of other information so that she'd have a better idea of when she needed to be at the next checkpoint. I was trying to recalculate the splits in my head when it was time to get up. I told Audra and Robb that our splits were going to be off from now on because we'd stopped. I worried about that a little because knowing when you are going to arrive at a checkpoint or meeting place is an important part of avoiding the problem of missing your TC and doing without more water, which could have devastating consequences. I also worried that we were going to finish well back of my projected 25th place. It was not an arbitrary position. Based on all of my research into past results and a comparison of our race times with other teams, that's where I thought we should come in. It was a goal of mine and even though the main goal was simply to finish, it was a psychological thing that would either boost me or bring me down. At that time we were in 31st place.
I got out of my blanket and stood up and immediately felt chilled. It was probably in the low 70's, but my damp clothes and the fact that I'd been laying still probably dropped my body temperature. I started shivering and yawning. I was cold, extremely sore, tired and facing a long day of paddling and then a long night of paddling and then, well, I couldn't really think about it. I put away my sleeping gear and rearranged some other stuff on the boat. I asked how many boats had passed while we slept and they said 6 or 7. We got our water jugs ready and were set to take off again. It was about 5:30 in the morning.
We had never paddled the stretch from Gonzales to Hocheim, so this was all new territory. We hadn't paddled the stretch after that either, from Hocheim to Cheapside. This section of the river is mostly wide and uneventful, which is why we didn't make it a priority to train there. Gonzo to Hocheim, as it is called, is notable in that it is the longest section of the entire course without any public access. So you had to be very certain you had enough water because there was no way to get any more. We could carry nearly 6 hours of water for each person in 2 jugs. Plus, we had an emergency supply of about 1 hour for each of us. Still, if we were really slow or had some problem that caused us to take longer to get to the checkpoint than it should have, we would be in big trouble. The other thing is that since the river is mostly wide, flat and deep here, it's just a grind. Nothing but paddling in the heat for hours on end; no portages, no stops, no nothing. It was the section that I was dreading the most.
We got back in the boat, said our goodbyes and paddled off. It was still dark and we were in unfamiliar territory so it took a little while to get comfortable. A few minutes after we got underway we passed a sandbar where 3 or 4 boats had pulled and the teams were asleep. It was a much better place to pull over and sleep than where we'd been, mostly because it was quieter. Mark that one down for next year.
It started getting light around 6 and we settled into a rythm. We worked our way around what few obstacles there were, but for the most part we just paddled, paddled, paddled. We saw another boat pass us. I figured they must have been one of the teams sleeping on the sandbar. We talked with them a little. I took note that they looked dirtier and more tired than I felt, but I probably looked the same to them.
After a couple or three hours of constant paddling we were hurting pretty badly. It had started to get hot and my muscles were on fire. The base of my neck was totally numb most of the time, but the sensation of someone stabbing me with an icepick right there came and went. I tried to take long, reaching strokes to stretch out the muscles in my back, shoulders and arms, but it was little relief. Robb's butt was hurting him pretty badly. A few comments were made about how the Safari was a pretty dumb idea and questioning why we were doing this, exactly.
I had gotten some advice from a Safari veteran named Grady Hicks before the race where he told me to just pull over and swim every now and then when you get hot or you are hurting real bad. I told Robb that we should pull over and get in the water. He agreed. We looked for a nice place to pull over, preferrably a gravel bar. I wanted to wait until the top of the hour before we stopped and we passed up some nice beaches as a result. Of course, when the top of the hour did come we couldn't find a good place. When we finally did think we had a place to pull over we came around the bend only to see the landowner fishing there with his kid, so we couldn't pull over there and blatantly trespass. So we kept going. It was pretty much agony. Finally we came upon a good spot. We pulled the boat over and secured it. I walked out into the deeper water and just went limp. Aaaaaaaahhhhh. It felt SO GOOD. I just floated there trying not to use any muscles whatsoever. I dunked my head a couple of times. It was heaven. Robb and I agreed that it was a great idea to stop and swim. I made a mental note to thank Grady the next time I saw him.
We were refreshed and getting ready to get underway again when we saw another boat coming. They pulled over where we were and got out and swam too. We talked with them a little then we got back in the boat and headed off again.
Pretty soon after that we bunched up with two other boats. Boat number 6040 and boat 259, a soloist and a tandem. I tried drafting the tandem boat for a while, but eventually we pulled up alongside and chatted with them for a little while. Our natural pace was a little faster than theirs at that point, so after a half hour or so we pulled ahead.
Another couple of hours went by and we were hurting again. We pulled over and swam and it helped. We kept going. The miles peeled off. 12 miles to the checkpoint, 10 miles to the checkpoint, 4 miles to the checkpoint. We reached the mileage on the GPS where we should have been there, but it wasn't there. I had already noticed that the mileages on my chart were a little off from what the GPS was reading, but it had only been off by about a mile or so. I told Robb that the checkpoint had to be about a mile further. We kept on. We heard traffic on a highway so we knew we had to be close. Then the river bent and we were paddling away from the traffic noise. A mile went by and still no checkpoint. Then two miles. Then three. We started getting agitated. We just wanted to get there. Every time we'd come around a bend in the river we expected to see the bridge, but every time all we'd see is more trees on the banks. We were about ready to start believing that this was some cruel-ass joke and there was no Hocheim checkpoint; that it was just something they tell children and novice paddlers to get their hopes up. Or worse, that we'd undertaken some Sisyphusean task by entering this damned race and now we were in a mythical hell paddling forever in the heat and pain toward some nonexistent destination.
Right about the time I stopped caring if we ever got there, and 5 miles beyond when we should have been there already according to the GPS, there it was - the highway bridge at Hocheim. I could see Audra and my parents jump up when we came into view. The race officials asked for our boat number when we pulled up.
The Hocheim checkpoint is a farm-to-market road bridge over the river between the towns of Gonzales and Cuero. There isn't much of a town there as far as I know; maybe one gas station. Below the bridge at the water's edge is just a pile of large pieces of jagged concrete with patches of mud in between. I can't express how disappointed I was to finally get to the checkpoint only for it to be this shithole where you couldn't even walk. I almost cried. We swam a little and got the latest news. We got our water jugs and bottles and faced the inevitable that we had to get back in the boat and keep going. I asked Audra what place we were in and she reluctantly told me we were 30th. She knew I'd be disappointed in that, and I was. The checkpoint was no relief and now we were facing the second-longest stretch between public river access. It was going to be another hot, painful grind. It was definitely a low point of the race. I just hoped the Cheapside checkpoint was better.
It's amazing how us first timers have many of the same thoughts. My low point was later that night at Cheapside when I asked my TC the exact same thoughts that you did, "Why am I doing this again?" This race is defiantly one of those adventures were looking back it may be fun, but during the race, it is defiantly not a fun event.
I also remember hearing the cars and thinking the bridge should just be around the corner. I did not have my GPS on, so I really had no idea how close I was. Every time the river would bend to the right I expected to see the bridge. Like you, I eventually gave up hope of seeing the bridge and begin to wonder if the bridge existed at all. That was a horrible checkpoint, I never even got out of the boat there, just took my water and found a better place to get out. Great race by the way.
Posted by: Grady | July 15, 2008 at 08:59 AM