MY RACE

elapsed time | time of the day | milage

00:00 | 09:00 | 0 miles ... Aquarena Springs

I was quite nervous about start at Aquarena Springs. 110 boats in 20 rows. As a paddler out of state I got 6th slot in 5th row. A fallen tree was just in front of me. I could hardly sleep during the previous night and I was quite tired right at the start.

The start and crossing the lake to the first portage wasn't that bad. Only one long boat was "going through" next to me. I took the portage on the right side (a scouting trip to a dinner at Joe's Crab Shack was useful). There was a traffic jam at the put-in below the dam.

No problems with portaging around Rio Vista and then the Thompson Island dam to the river. There was a leaning tree at the right turn just above the bridge. I believe that tree was featuring in the 1999 safari video: several boats hit it and one capsized. When I was trying to take a right turn it appeared that a tandem canoe following me was blocking my stern and I couldn't turn to clear the tree. I started to visualize a great video scene but in the last moment I decided to drag my boat on the left between the tree and the shore. My rudder cable got loose in this incident and I paddled to Staples with the rudder working for the left turn only.

There was a long line of boats on a very tight river and it was not easy to pass the slower boats. The portage over Cummings dam was quite smooth. I passed John Stockwell and a couple of other boats there. I got some fresh water and ice from my TC on a gravel bar below Westerfield crossing. I didn't run the Cottonseed rapid, instead, I carried my boat over rocks on the right side. I am sure that the spectators were dissapointed. Sorry ... I arrived to the Martindale dam a few minuted before Connie but I saw her running over the bridge.

The high waves of the Broken Bone rapid and under the low water Martindale bridge partially swamped my boat and gave me opportunity to exercise my electric bilge pump.

03:37 | 12:37 | 16.5 miles ... Staples

I took a long portage on right around the house. I hadn't had any opportunity to practice the shorter portages. I spent a few minutes fixing my rudder wires and when leaving I just saw Norm Thomas portaging the dam.

I had paddled the river between Staples and Palmetto only under high water conditions with a very few obstacles. Since I wasn't familiar with the current situation I was loosing a lot of time time trying to find my way around recent fallen trees. I was also concerned about low dams which were no problems to run at high water. One of them above Prairie Lea #2 was clearly marked by a wrapped aluminium canoe.

I got fresh water and ice at Fentrees and Prairie Lea #2. Unfortunately, I had to stop again to correct my rudder cables.

I was trading positions with the Zoom Zoom boat (Laura and Henry), David Kloesel in his C1, and the other soloist but I didn't notice his boat number. The official split times would suggest Michael Simmons, #889, who had very similar times to mine till Palmetto, then he went ahead, but I passed him somewhere between Cheapside and Cuero.

08:37 | 17:37 | 38 miles ... Luling

Untill Luling, I paddled more or less according to my plan, then I started to slow down. After portaging the Zedler dam I got water from my TC at Luling City Park.

I reached Son of Ottine exactly at 9:00 pm. I landed on the left side and found myself in an awkward situation, just at the entry to the mill run with a swift current. I managed somehow to walk through that channel, portaged over the dam remains, installed my light and paddled further into the darkness.

My first night on the river. Very noisy. A beautiful sky full of stars. No surprizes at the Ottine dam. About 10:30 I arrived at the party at Palmetto bridge and took a dinner break.

14.01 | 23:01 57.5 miles ... Palmetto

Running this river segment before the race was really helpful. My paddling was smooth though slow. 10W light was usually adequate for my speed. There was no need to turn on the second light in my double head. All major obstacles were clearly marked by orange paint. I ran into troubles only once when I needed to drag the boat upstream from a sweeper situation and lost a lot of time. I entered Guadulupe river together with solo kayak #1717 and portaged the Gonzales dam at sunrise.

During the first day I was suffering from a cold that I caught while driving to Texas. After starting to take aspirin and Tylenol the cold was gone but returned back after the race. At the beginning I was worrying that I didn't drink enough and that I could end up with dehydration. I believe that I had close to 1 quart of liquids per hour during daytime but much less during the night. Obviously, the old formula "if you don't pee every hour you don't drink enough" didn't work for me at least in the Texas climate. Despite of peeing only every 4 hours or so, I felt reasonably well and my urine color looked fine. Before Gonzales I got some nasty diarheria. What a weird way to compensate! The diarheria attacked again for a while on my last safari day. However, I didn't have any other stomach problems during the race.

The Palmetto-Gonzales run took me about 7 hours. It was what I expected in comparison with my 5 hour daytime run before the race. The Gonzales checkpoint was run very efficiently by Ginger Turner. I had met Ginger the first time just a couple miles below Gonzales on my training run during the previous year's safari.

I went to sleep in my hammock next to the Connie's tent but after 1 hour I was back to my boat, unloaded 10 D battery cells, had something for breakfast and took off.

23:43 | 08:43 | 82.50 miles ... Gonzales

I don't remember anything special about this very long part of the race course. Just paddling and paddling, switching between canoe and kayak paddles, trying to recall some landmarks from my kayak run. Hot. Some showers. And a lot of headwind. A longer nap in my boat hugged somewhere to the shore. At another stop, I found a nice skeleton of an aligator gar.

32:52 | 17:52 | 117.5 miles ... Hochheim

Paddling, paddling, paddling ... I believe it was evening before Cheapside when I passed, for the last time, the Zoom Zoom crew sleeping on the shore.

In the darkness, my boat was hitting a lot of fish and snakes. At Cheapside I spent 1.5 hour sleeping in my hammock and woke up with a new energy. Well, actually, my TC woke me up.

41:10 | 02:10 | 141.5 miles ... Cheapside

I entered the river part that I hadn't paddled before. The portage over the Cuero dam was well marked and relatively easy.

Before Cuero, I passed Tom Helm who had troubles with his rudder (a broken rudder cable). He left Cheapside 20 minutes before I arrived at that checkpoint so he had at least two hours advantage when I took off there. Later, I learned that he dropped out of the race at Cuero. Before the race I noticed some damaged wires on my rudder cable near the pedals, so I replaced the entire cable.

I reached the Cuero checkpoint at sunrise, woke up Connie and stayed long enough to take water only.

45:31 | 06:31 | 156.5 miles ... Cuero

During the previous year's safari a few boats were destroyed or damaged by the nasty sweeper above Thomaston bridge. When I was paddling my kayak at that time I took a shallow left arm of the river to avoid that obstacle. This time I decided to investigate it closer and paddled right. The sweeper was still there and I had to put in a very serious effort to escape the trap.

I am not sure when I had my first halucinations. At first, I was simply enjoying fantastic shapes of logs and trees. Many of them looked like some modernistic sculptures: horses, snakes, lizards, tigers. They were still logs. Things got a little bit more serious when I saw the Thomaston bridge. Well, I saw at least 10 Thomaston bridges in different versions before I reached the real one. Then, I started to see boats on the river. Quickly, I learned how to distinguish between real and imaginary boats. The imaginary ones were frozen and didn't move. A couple of times I saw my TC on the shore. But why she had a green face?

The first of the Nursery rapids was easy, but, mostly due to my negligence, I ran into a log and tipped over. The boat didn't take much water, so I just used the electric pump and continued to paddle. It was the only time in the race I ran into the obstacle except a few scratches in the shallow San Marcos river. The second, somewhat more complicated, rapid was fun to run, but it would be tricky to paddle there during night. I stopped somewhere before Nursery to cool down, replace my batteries and relocate my food supplies.

I speeded up a little bit before Victoria paddling together with the tandem kayak, #1096. I didn't have any rest at Victoria, just a short water stop.

56:44 | 17:44 | 197 miles ... Victoria

At Victoria I switched to canoe paddle and used it exlusively along the rest of the river. The kayak paddle started to cause me some serious sitting discomfort. Too much pressure on my tailbone?

Shortly after Victoria City Park I passed a group of teeneagers on the left shore, then I heard a laugh and a splash of the rock behind my stern. Not nice ...

I hadn't had paddled the Guadelupe river between Victoria and Tivoli before and wasn't sure about its character. The next 9 miles (or 12 miles according to Phil Bowden's GPS data) of the meandering Guadelupe were the longest miles in my race. I heard highway traffic for at least two hours before I reached the Victoria highway 59 bridge just before 9:00 pm. I was afraid that Connie could have troubles with that access point after sunset.

Mayflies attack! With or without lights I couldn't see very much. Fortunately, it didn't last longer than 1 hour.

The night was full of fantastic shapes and characters uncovered by the tiny beam of my bow lamp. Even without the help of halucinations the trees trapped in the web of vines created a fantastic and mysterious world.

Before midnight I took a sleeping stop in my boat. 2 hours or longer?. This boat was just too comfortable for sleeping. One team passed me when I was waking up but otherwise I didn't see anybody on the river during that night.

Shortly after 3:00 am I reached Dupont checkpoint and didn't find my TC! I couldn't find a checkpoint official either.

66:51 | 03:51 | 222 miles ... Dupont

I felt good, had still some water and was ready to paddle. Fortunately, Andrew Hyman, the race safety director, arrived with his rescue convoy, gave me some water and checked me out.

I remembered landmarks in this section from the course description but wasn't so sure about milage. No other boats but for a while I saw something like head lights searching the darkness far ahead of me. I passed railroad bridge at night and around sunrise saw the cuts to Aligator Lake. At that time I had to take another sleeping stop. When I was leaving, the kayak #1096 showed up. Very heavy showers after the Salt Water Barrier provided some nice refreshment. It was even nicer to see my TC again at Tivoli. Tore Shau was the race official at this last checkpoint.

72:59 | 09:59 | 243 miles ... Tivoli

It was hot and windy. I saw several huge aligator gars rolling at the water surface. The kayak #1096 passed me again. My paddling was slow due to headwind untill I reached the Traylor Cut and entered the narrow south fork of the river. There were a lot of cows in the company of white cattle egrets. I tried to load myself with calories before reaching the bay. There were some people on the wooden bridge but my TC was waiting for me a little further at the farm. Then, I met the team #1096 paddling upstream and screaming. They passed me once more on the bay. These guys had too much energy at the end of the race.

Finally, I entered the bay, stopped in the shallow water, put my life jacket on, closed my spray cover, had a last can of Ensure+, and switched to kayak paddle. My bay crossing was rough, windy and painfully slow. I turned on my GPS, so after the race I could analyze my poor performance and compare it to my training run. However, I enjoyed the last 15 minutes of the race when I finally stopped worrying about waves and sprinted directly to Seadrift. Mike Drost, #101, came slightly in front of me in the finish (I noticed him when it was too late ...) but I had some fun and my boat proofed to be really seaworthy.