Climbed stairs up from river. Legs were a bot wobbly.


No training. Wrong boat. Not practicing with partner. No pre-race planning.
The lack of anything before this race is pretty comical actually.


This was a fun race. We probably should have done some kind of training. Work got in the way and the last exercise of any kind for me was a 1/2 IM in June, so at least I had a little residual fitness.
My partner had been doing masters swimming but had a large cyst removed from his back a couple of weeks ago so he was not at 100%.

It was like Laurel and Hardy go canoe racing. We both have numerous IMs under our belt and I have done a couple of 24 hour mtb races, so our total lack of preparation and training was ridiculous. We laughed at ourselves several times.

Next time I will try to either buy or otherwise locate a racing boat. The lead brick we had was incredibly slow. I know it was the boat and not our lack of training that slowed us down :-0

At one point during the race, a much faster solo canoist passed us. Inexplicably, his boat just dumped over. He clung on to the side and was starting to hyperventilate. I don't think he could swim.

We went back and got him in his boat. No other racers stopped. This race was basically unsupported (can't really have support along a river). So it would seem people would look out for each other. It cost us maybe 5 minutes out of a 24 hour event. That was 5 minutes well spent. I am also surprised that someone who apparently could not swim would not be wearing a pfd. Much of the river was not deep, but this section was.

Kayaking at night was very interesting. Especially the one set of rapids we went through. A thick fog made our lights useless.

I had a 1/2 gallon water jug. Next time I will gerry rig a Camelbak or daisy chain a couple of larger jugs. I saw a few boats with that set up.

At the 43 mile check point, we got asked if we were continuing on. What the heck? we were just finishing our training and getting ready to race!

After each stop, my shoulders would sieze up. The first 10-20 minutes of paddling right after stopping was excrusiating and then my shoulders would go numb and paddling got easier.

This was a fun race. Overall, there was good comaraderie among the participants. Next year I will try to do a little training, some planning, and get a lighter boat.