Texas Water Safari 2008: Palmetto to Gonzales

We were in good spirits leaving Palmetto.  The night was still young, our light was working well, we felt okay and we were able to appreciate the day's body of work.  We had made nearly all of our goals, matched our projected splits almost perfectly, had no significant problems.  All in all, our first day of the Water Safari was an unquestionable success.  We were even in the approximate position I thought we'd be in (around 25th overall).  We left Palmetto just behind the two female teams, Ginsie and Debbie in their Raptor and Jamie and Stephanie in their C-2.  I might have mentioned this before, but we had a bit of a friendly rivalry going with Ginsie and Debbie since they'd beaten us in the Prelim and we'd beaten them in the Barrier to the Bay race.  Frankly, I was surprised that they were still with us at this stage of the Safari.  I figured we'd slowly outdistance them over time and end up several hours ahead of them by the time we got to Seadrift.  But there they were, running almost identical splits.  I still thought we'd end up wearing them down and they'd fade and we'd still finish the race well ahead. 

Stephanie and Jamie were an interesting team.  They were younger, 25 and 16, and they were also from the famous "Derrick School," which is a canoeing school in Dickinson, Texas run by Kathy and Peter Derrick for mostly homeschooled kids.  The "Derrick Kids," as they are know, always do well in the Safari as they are extremely well coached.  It was a good education for us to run near them and watch how they operated.  They cycled their light off and on, taking a quick bearing with the light instead of just running with a beam like we were.  Their form was impeccable and they were much better around obstacles than we were.  We decided to cycle our light off and on as well.

In the daylight you can see every downed tree, boulder and gravel bar and you stay a little anxious.  What's amazing about running at night is that you can no longer see those things as clearly so you relax a little bit.  You would expect that you would run into more stuff, but you don't.  You can hear water rushing around something or you can make out objects in the moonlight so you can still react when you need to.  We ran in complete darkness for a good part of this stretch and got pretty comfortable with it.

The river starts to widen and deepen when you get close to the Guadalupe confluence.  It's much like paddling in a lake, a long narrow lake.  You don't notice any current and there are few things sticking up out of the water.  I started getting sleepy at this point.  Robb started getting sick.  I told him to pop a Pepto pill and he told me that he'd been popping them for a couple of hours and that they weren't working.  We hadn't brought anything stronger.  He vomited over the side a couple of times.  I suggested that he try to eat something greasy, like the Fritos we'd brought, on the theory that the oil in the chips will coat and soothe the stomach - the same principle at work with Mexican food and hangovers.  He ate a few of the chips and gave it some time.  Meanwhile, I took a Vivarin because I was barely able to keep my eyes open.

We passed Jamie and Stephanie, then we passed another tandem male team where one of the guys was laying down in the front of the boat.  This is how some teams get around stopping to sleep - they'll have one guy in the front lay back and sleep while the other guy paddles.  At some point, they switch up.  I thought that's what those guys were doing, but I learned later that the guy in the front had gotten sick and was trying to recover.  We didn't have a set plan to sleep going into the race.  It was one of the few things I was leaving to chance.  I knew that if we stopped to sleep at all that we would be giving up several positions in the race, but I also knew that we were likely going to have to sleep at some point.  I had hoped that we were going to be able to get by stopping only once to sleep on the second night.  We had considered doing the thing where one guy sleeps in the bow while the other paddles, but both of us agreed that we'd be uncomfortable doing that and probably wouldn't be able to sleep much.  Plus, neither of us liked the idea of paddling that big heavy boat by ourselves.  We experienced that every time the other one took a break and it was taxing.  The thought of doing it for an hour or more was daunting, so we opted against trying to sleep in the boat while we were underway.

Robb's stomach settled.  He ate some more chips and drank some water.  He was out of the woods.  I was relieved because nausea can get so bad that it can put you out of the race if you can't keep anything down.  Before the Vivarin kicked in, I was having a reality check.  We we needed to stop at Gonzales and sleep.  It was a painful admission, but I kept reminding myself that the goal was to finish the race, not to win first place, or even twentieth place, for that matter.  I told Robb that I wanted to stop and sleep for 90 minutes in Gonzales.  I don't think he was disappointed with my decision.

We were meeting our TC and my parents at the Hwy 90 bridge, about 8 river miles from Gonzales.  From there we had to negotiate Gonzales Dam, which might have been more dangerous than Ottine.  It had a long steep bank leading back to the water that was covered in medium-sized boulders that were difficult to walk on under any circumstances and almost impossible to walk on while carrying a 100lb. boat while severely fatigued.

The Vivarin I took kicked in.  All of a sudden, I felt great.  My muscle pain was gone.  The burning pain at the base of my neck was gone.  I was alert and happy.  I had heard that Vivarin was a "One-hit Wonder."  That the first one worked great, but after that you'd get a severely decreased effect from each subsequent pill.  I had decided that I would use them sparingly and never in succession.  My plan was to take one only in an emergency and then wait at least eight hours before taking another one.  So for the last 3-4 hours to Gonzales, I felt great.  Robb had bounced back too, so we were rolling along pretty good.

We could see the light from our TC's headlamp and other flashlights from a long way away.  It was always a welcome sight to see them.  We pulled up to a little wooden dock under the Hwy 90 bridge.  They started giving us news from the race.  "Around 30 boats have pulled out."  "Bugge is leading."  I asked about a few specific teams and individuals I knew.  I was surprised at some who had pulled out.  We took on a fresh water bottle and I told them our plan to stop and sleep.  I asked them to scout us out a good place to bed down.

We paddled on and got to the dam in a little over an hour.  There is a reflective sign and a blinking light that the Safari people had put up to warn racers of the dam.  We'd been through here before on a training run, so we knew what to expect.  The takeout is sort of ridiculous.  At this low water level, the bank is vertical for about 3 ft.  There are a couple of ropes strung there that you have to use to scale up to more level ground where you can stand.  Robb got out of the boat first while I braced.  Then I got up and stood on some roots in the water and lifted the nose of the boat up so he could grab it.  I scrambled up the bank using the ropes and the two of us hauled the boat out of the water.  Water accumulates in the boat from the spray off your paddles.  You wouldn't think it would be that much, but it adds up.  We had two electric pumps in the boat that we would run before every portage to get as much water, and weight, out of the boat as possible.  I had even ground down the bases of the pumps and glued them in using a carbon fiber wafer to get them as close the bottom of the boat as possible so we could pump the maximum amount of water out of the boat.  Even still, with only an eighth of an inch of water standing it the boat it probably amounted to a couple of gallons.  We felt every ounce when we hauled the boat up that steep bank at Gonzales.

Once we got the boat up we bent over panting for a few seconds.  Another boat, the one with the guy sleeping in the bow, pulled up as we got ready to walk it over down below the dam.  I snapped on my headlight and we each grabbed out handles and carried the boat around.  The area below the dam is noisy because of the massive amount of water pouring through the dam.  And it's very dangerous because of all of the boulders you have to walk on.  There are a couple of large pieces of sheet pile (metal bulkheading material) and rebar sticking out between the boulders.  Not a safe place to walk.  I had reminded Robb that we were going to have to be careful here.  We picked our way down, each of us calling out "Wait!" on several ocasions when we had to stop and figure out where we were going to step next.  Finally, Robb made it to the water's edge, I'm still 24' above on the slope.  He stumbled and fell backwards into the water.  I thought for sure he was injured.  "Are you okay?  Are you okay?"  He didn't respond for a few seconds, probably to make sure he was, in fact, okay.  He was and I picked my way down the rest of the way.

We got back in and paddled the twenty minutes or so to the checkpoint at the 183 bridge.  It seemed like there were lots of people there and someone called out "Boat number!" when we came into view.  "8321!" I shouted back.  It always felt good to shout that boat number.  My TC and parents were there also, telling us to go over to the right bank.  We pulled up on a gravel bar there and got out of the boat.  I immediately started getting my sleeping gear out of a dry sack.  My mom asked us how we were doing and I told her that we were pretty tired, but otherwise okay.  We talked about other race news and who all they'd seen go by the checkpoint before us.  I messed with some gear in the boat and emptied my trash bag.  I asked where they found for us to lay down and they led us over to a bare patch of ground, strewn with gravel.  "This is it, huh?" I asked.  They assured me it was the best place they could find.  I don't know what we were expecting, but Robb and I just sort of looked at each other and laughed.  I had an emergency blanket and an inflatable pillow that was my emergency seat cushion.  Robb had jack shit.  He might've had his inflatable seat cushion, but no blanket.  I had told him about the extra space blanket in the first aid kit, but I figured he just didn't want it.  We laid down and I told our TC to wake us up in 90 minutes.  Once things settled down, Robb and I broke out into spontaneous laughter a couple of times over just how ridiculous this was.  We had just paddled about 15 hours straight and now, at 3 in the morning, we were laying on the river bank on a patch of rough ground with fire ants and mosquitos.

It felt good to lay flat, even if I was having trouble actually sleeping.  The river was rushing here and people were talking nearby, so it was a bit noisy.  I tossed around a little trying to get comfortable and finally I dozed a little bit.

Comments

[allbilly]

You took that week off to write this....

I'm enjoying the chronicle....but dude....this sounds like ZERO fun....PLUS...the fact that a home-learnin' academy of sorts for this kinda boat paddlin' exists adds an entirely new level of bizarr-o-ness to this event.

And finally....didn't you try VIVARIN back in the early 90's when they gave it out at the college book store?

(if you ever do this again...you should hit Rockstar or Monster ...or some energy drink up for a sponsorship)

[Ojo Rojo]

I can't really say that any of the points of the race you've read about so far were fun, but they were all part of the experience. I'm not really sure you do something like this for fun anyway. Do people run marathons because they are fun? Not too sure about that. I will say that the most fun parts are yet to come.

[allbilly]

I have found the half-marathon to be fun.....but i have not found the marathon to be fun. I did find the 90 mile Livestrong challenge to be fun...very challenging...but fun. So i totally get the "experience" part...but I'm not sure about the not sleeping part.

[llogg]

Definitely doesn't sound like fun, but probably a worthwhile experience anyway.