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My wife and I are both from Ironton, Mo. a teensy town smack dab in the-middle-of-nowhere Ozarks. We live and train on the St. Francois River (cl-III) near our home. We are both the current Missouri DR Champions and I have several National DR medals and titles, and 18 Missouri wins. Di is an ex-marathon runner/ adventure racer. She's been the missouri DR champ 5 times. Because she broke her ankle on an 18 foot waterfall in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison she is now relagated to distance kayakking! She's the 50 part of our 105 years. She's a beautiful redhead, and the toughest woman I ever met in my life!   Race Journal The Missouri 340 On August 3rd, exactly 61 years ago, my Dad was rescued from the Indianapolis sinking. He had been in the water with no food, water or survival gear for 5 days. He had fought off sharks. A Navy PBY had done an untested, open sea landing, damaging the plane beyond take-off capabilities, solely for the purpose of rescuing the sailors, whom they brought on board, filling the cargo area, and then covering the wings. There were many men, who seeing their salvation and being hundreds of yards away, died from pure exhaustion just trying to swim to the plane. My Dad somehow had the strength to go back out and grab men, pulling them in, and saving several lives. One of whom contacted me years later to tell me how my Dad got his bronze star. On August 3rd , 2006, Di and I were in day 2 of the Missouri 340- a race I had dedicated to the men of the Indy and the Indianapolis Museum Fund. I figured there was a mile for each of the 313 survivors, and the last 27 would be just Di and I. I thought of the Indy often during the race and hoped their heroic and epic survival would give me inspiration for my own effort, which in comparison was paltry, but nevertheless challenging. How would I guess how hard that last 27 miles would be! Vigilance Vigilance- is a word that comes to mind when I look back on our effort. We had poor lighting, so at night we had to be hyper alert to river sounds. In our 26 foot long fragile eggshell of a boat, crashing into a buoy in the middle of a quarter-mile wide river would be the end of the race, and perhaps even life-threatening to ourselves. We couldn’t see these buoys until we were right upon them and we missed one, during the first night by only a few feet, which shook our confidence for night time paddling for the rest of the race. Vigilance- to our bodies. A ball of the softest, fluffiest cotton, exposed to moving skin- 70 strokes per minute, 4200 movements per hour, 50,000 movements per twelve hour… by day’s end can painfully rub through several layers of skin, just like sandpaper. Any blister, any abrasion, any cut had to be attended to ASAP, with tape or protective covering, or else it could knock us out of the race. 10 blisters on my left hand, only 7 on my right, but one several layers deep (which will take a long time to heal). One huge blister/raw spot just under my belly-button caused simply by the tie string knot on my shorts. Next year- no knots, no folds of cotton- everything will be snug and tight. Vigilance- Strangely at night, we heard water rushing over rocks. It looked as if the wing dykes- perilous places in themselves where the river slams upon a rock wall, then races out to the middle of the river with huge sucking vortexes just on the inner curve- were under water. In the moonlight we could see the tops of rocks sticking out, all in a line, a feature that again could cause our boat great damage. I never saw anything like this in the daylight, and to this day I don’t know what they were. Without the moon we could only listen intently for them. Other racers mentioned seeing this. Vigilance- I’d give us a ‘A’ for effort. We get a ‘B’ for reading the river- too often we got tired and just didn’t go where we should have been. A ‘C’ for preparation as we did no night training, nor did we have proper lighting. Walmart headlamps just didn’t do the trick and only attracted bugs and bats to our faces. And we get a “D-” for sleep. Of the 18 hours we were out of our boat- we got less than 10 hours of sleep. We just totally blew this aspect of the race. (At least we know we can produce the same results in 10 hour’s less time!) We did find a sandbar below Cooper’s landing, mile 210, that was high, dry and quiet. We got 6 good hours of sleep and we awoke feeling like a million bucks- and chewing leather to get on down the river, and the headwinds that awaited us. I remember very specific things…Especially the storm! We were somewhere upstream from Miami with absolutely no idea what was coming. It was a major disappointment that the lighted river crossing system was not in place- we had chosen minimum lighting and so depended upon it. We gathered some solace in knowing that our support team would be at Miami and would shine a light for us. To the east, ahead of us was clear sky and moon. Behind and to the sides was utter chaos- chain lightening and thunder rolling down the river, so close we could feel it in our chests. Even though we had received no reports,… and I was urging Di to paddle above pace….we couldn’t be caught on river by what I knew was coming. Each bend we rounded showed utter black darkness from the bank, and every time I looked over my shoulder the storm was nearer. We had trouble hearing the water- something we depended upon heavily in the absence of good lights. This was when we missed a cone buoy by 2 or 3 feet, and this really spooked us. Tired after 100 miles of paddling, we became fueled by the lightening around us, literally jump-starting our bodies to continue. Then we saw the Beacon, and our light. Miami…but how far? Impossible to tell in the night. We paddled still harder and after what seemed like 25 minutes we made the ramp. West had just pulled away 15 minutes ago we were informed. Should we go and try to reel him in? Or was that an impossible dream for a mixed tandem team. Charles and Jan Bruns, Di’s parents, our support team, informed us a major storm was just behind us. That made the decision- we pulled the boat out, and literally tied her to the shore, got up a parawing tent, and then the fury hit. Our parawing wasted no time in taking flight, tree limbs began crashing in the 60 mph winds. One tree fell over the ramp road, blocking our support team’s exit. Tornadoes? We didn’t know. I struggled to the boat to make sure she was safe and covered my head from the stinging debris. The storm lasted most of the night, and we got less than 2 hours sleep out of six hours that we were there. Others pulled up throughout the night. Marek was there, a veteran distance racer. We had been caught by at least 3 teams…. Our support team informed us, morning of the second day that we were only an hour behind West. We couldn’t figure this out…and to this day still think it was misinformation. I’d watched West take off from KC, paddling hard. His speed didn’t concern me at all- I knew he couldn’t keep that up- but his forward stroke form was perfect. I knew if he didn’t sleep we would not catch him, and our plan was to catch sleep each night, so we held to our own schedule. I remember just settling in on the afore-mentioned blessed sandbar, second night, when James Fawcett paddled up. He had been ahead of us at Glasgow, but somewhere we had passed him. He too decided to rest, but he got up at 2:30 am and pushed off. I heard a noise and awoke, watching his boat, seemingly in a drift as the light was swinging all around. It was eerie in the fog. Was he sleeping in his boat? Just drifting and resting? We did not know. On the third day, we landed in Jeff City in the morning. We were informed we were in 4th place, James was an hour ahead, and someone else had slipped by us in the night. I felt so strong from the good night’s rest that I didn’t let it worry us. We soon caught #3 and passed him, then an hour or two later, James Fawcett popped up behind us! He did not look good and reported sickness. He was paddling erratically. I thought of giving him permission to draft us- but then realized we were in a race and he was a competitor. We slipped into second place and stayed there. It was soon after that he pulled out (our support team had given him assistance trying to keep him in the race- but they thought he’d caught a stomach bug). We had hoped to finish on the 3rd day. We had the power and rest, and we were very familiar with the river from the Osage on down. River headwinds had a different ending in store. They were the deciding factor for us. When I was a downriver racer I always welcomed headwinds- they tended to keep your boat straight (a downriver boat projects high off the water- it has to survive a class four, whitewater pounding). Headwinds were cooling, they made you think you were going faster than you were, and it affected everybody equally, so why worry? I had no problem at all with it. Di complained bitterly about it. Our speed dropped to 6.5 mph and she could feel a third day finish slipping away. Di is also an arm paddler, something I have as yet been unable to change in her paddling style. The wind was tiring her beyond what she could endure. She was dipping her paddle gamely in the water, but I knew, towards evening, she wasn’t contributing anything. We hit New Haven at dusk. We had survived two barges going up river, only to be nearly dumped by a show-off wake board boat who came within ten feet of us at full speed just upriver. Di was really acting tired. We spent 30 minutes there as our support team readied the boat for night time travel and placed sleeping mats/parawing in our holds. The wake boat came in and told us to hurry up, we were in his way! (expletive from me deleted!) We paddled into Washington at about 11 pm and Di bonked. (Bonked is a term we use in adventure racing. While I have never bonked, I’ve been with people who have, and basically they just sit down and refuse to move.) I have a hereditary heart defect. I simply don’t bonk. My heart never exceeds 170 beats per minute, even during all out sprints. (The U.S. team physiologist had all kinds of fun with me at National Downriver team training camps). I asked Di to get in the boat and just sit upright and let me paddle a half hour to the next sand bar. She couldn’t do it. While I don’t understand what it feels like to bonk- I know what it does to people and we camped at a gravel bar directly across from the Washington ramp, with good moon still in the sky, and trains coming every 10 minutes blaring their horns at maxi-decibels. I knew I would get no sleep, and I didn’t. (We were there six hours and I tried to rest, but no REM. The trains never stopped.) I could feel the race coming to an end for us- perhaps Di could sense my despair. She saw me looking upstream for the lights of our competitors who I knew were just upriver. She began crying. I felt so bad for being a part of making her cry- for my part in ALL of this, for being such a competitive lunkhead…Where were my priorities? I told her, I didn’t care who passed us, we’d just take our time and finish. It wasn’t important anymore. It wasn’t even important IF we finished. We left at the earliest morning light. Di is a good sleeper. The last 27 miles…. I had joked about this: 313 for the Indy survivors, 27 for Di and I. It became our own ordeal. I had eaten very little the day before- it just wasn’t there. The very thought of food made me nauseous. Before starting for St. Charles, I tried a small bottle of boost and it almost incapacitated me with sickness. We got in the boat and headed for our last stop at Weldon Springs.  I don’t remember hardly anything. There was a fog. There was the Labadie Smokestacks which took forever to get to. And there was Russ’s boat, and I kept seeing ephemeral shapes in the fog that weren’t anything real. I was dizzy. My mind, with no REM just wasn’t working and I kept feeling electric flashes going through my body. Di was hardly paddling, just keeping balance and steering. Every time I paddled too hard, I got nauseous and dizzy. I could also see other paddlers, far downriver…how had they gotten by us? Was it Marek, or Brian? I knew they weren’t far behind us- but how had they done this? But then, Russ would have been upriver with them, not with us. I’d blink them away, turn my head, and see Russ, drifting along with us. I couldn’t keep track of mile markers, or do the math to interpret them. We made Weldon Springs at 9:30 am. We had averaged just 4.75 miles per hour- barely faster than the river flow. By now our support team was as efficient as a Nascar pit crew. They had our boat dried, cleaned, and every non-essential piece of gear gone. We rested on mats. I slowly drank an energy drink and took a no-doz. We rested- but no sleep, for 45 minutes. I’m not sure what happened, but I miraculously felt better. We got in the boat and left. Di and I were having a tough time. We had to stop 3 times so Di could get out of the boat and just sit in the water cooling down. Her stroke rate was getting chaotic, uneven, and she was having balance problems. She would say things that made no sense- or I was incapable of understanding- it could go either way. I thought of my Dad and his shipmates and wondered if he was aware of this. I silently asked them, if they could, to grant Di a little bit of energy. Di was on her last leg and I had the real fear that she would slump sideways and tip us. I could feel her trembling unbalance through the boat as we approached Page Bridge- just five miles to go…five stinking miles…it couldn’t end here… And then, a small miracle. Natalie, a friend of ours, was at Page Bridge and she started cheering for us! It literally revived Di…she came alive. I will always wonder about the psyche mechanism involved here. Di started whooping and hollering in return, and everything smoothed out. We paddled under the I-70 bridge and I told Di where the finish was. She started a beeline for it, even though the current dictated we swing out to the right and then curve in. She was not to be persuaded and thankfully there were no obstructions, and it worked out. We came in at 76 minutes and change. It was over. FINISHING is a good feeling!   |
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