WWTBAM Bored

We've had trivia, tornadoes, shoe styles, travel adventures, poker, family angst and even IIRC - naked marathon running. So now it's time for ..........kayak racing!

More specifically, the worlds longest continuous kayak race. It's called the Missouri River 340 (MR340) and it runs 340 non-stop miles between Kansas City and St. Charles Missouri. This year, there are 430 boats entered and one of them is mine. While it's not a televised event, the race can be viewed on-line if anyone is interested.

The basics: The MR340 starts next Tuesday, July 28th at 7:00 am CDT. Boats head downriver from KC and will pass through 9 checkpoints on the way. Each checkpoint has a cut-off time that if missed, means that you are out of the race. The entire race must be completed in 88 hours. I'll be assisted by the lovely Mrs. Jaybee and the not-quite-as-lovely-but efficient Jaybee brother. They will travel in the van and meet up with me at the checkpoints to resupply me with water, food and any other supplies. They will get a little more sleep than I, but not by much.

I will be in the boat that is in my avatar, although it's been modified with a different style of wing on the back. It now has some blue and orange stripes as well as a few "Power 'T's". It's called a Surfski and is 18' long, 21" wide and weighs in at 35 pounds. That means that I'm an old guy in a fast boat so I'm hoping to finish somewhere in the 50 to 60 hour range. It will be continuous paddling with a few short naps on shore as needed. In other words, it's gonna hurt - a lot.

Starting Tuesday, the race can be viewed in several ways. The main method is this:

1. Go to http:www.raceowl.com/ and follow the prompts. There is no need to register or log-in.
2. I am in the men's solo division
3. My boat is number 3489
4. Raceowl will show the in and out times of all boats as they pass through each checkpoint. This information will be updated every 4 to 6 hours. The first checkpoint will start logging info about noon on Tuesday.
5. Raceowl will also have a real-time map of the river with pips for all the boats located on it. My boat is equipped with a SPOT tracker locating device that uploads every ten minutes, so wherever the map shows me to be will be pretty much exactly where I am at that point in time. Boats without a SPOT device will have their speeds averaged as they pass through the checkpoints so their location pips will be estimated.

There is also a professional photographer who covers the entire race and will be posting thousands of pics as the race progresses. Her homepage is here: http://cindyhilesphotography.com/-/cind ... yindex.asp Once there just look for MR340 2015 pictures. There is no indexing so you just have to click through what is there. New pics will be added throughout the race and for several days after.

I'll be wearing a blue hat, white & blue shirt and a grey & yellow life jacket. I should be real easy to find - I'll be the guy holding a paddle.

Googling MR340 will bring in lots of other information as well as live news footage. There is also a lot of Facebook pictures, although these are usually limited to a specific boat.

So if nothing else, think of me next week as I paddle down the Missouri River.

I'm waiting for poker playing during a naked kayaking marathon. --Bob

So you're planning to paddle for 50-60 hours over not quite four days? That's ambitious, to be sure!

I'll be following your progress. Good luck!

Good luck!

We do a lot of kayak racing in Colorado, but it's almost always the slalom kind. The challenge you're facing is mind-boggling to me. Hope everything goes just the way you want it to.

A quick update for anyone who was following along.

First off, the Raceowl information for the first few hours of the race was a bit skewed. The boats with SPOT trackers were giving accurate information while the rest were having their positions estimated. This made for what looked like some boats jumping way ahead or behind during the first half-day of the race. It settled down later on. Also, the photographer was so busy taking pics that she has only now started downloading pictures. This will take her several days. So, over the next few days, pictures will start to show up here:

http://cindyhilesphotography.com/-/cind ... sp?c=24675

The race went better than I had hoped, but it sure wasn't easy. Temperatures the first day (Tuesday) hit 100 degrees and other than a couple of seconds of shade when passing under a bridge, there was no escape from the sun. As planned, I started near the back of the pack of the 260 male/female solo boats in the first flight. When the boats began spacing apart after about three miles, I started moving my way through the pack and by noontime was in around 40th place. About 2-1/2 hours in, I partnered up with one of the boats that I caught. We had similar boats and although my cruising speed was slightly faster than his, we found that by paddling together we both increased our speed. It was also a LOT more pleasant having someone to talk with and take your mind off the pain. This is why anyone tracking my boat (3489) would also see my new buddy Ryan's boat (2121) right there with me throughout the race.

There was a second start for all tandem and larger boats one hour after ours. The fastest of these boats were faster than our single kayaks and many would eventually catch us.

By 1:45 in the morning on Wednesday we had stopped at the 4th checkpoint and were several hours ahead of our sub-50 schedule. Tired but feeling pretty good about it. But we had arrived just in front of a massive storm and as we were preparing to re-launch to head to checkpoint #5, it hit. Winds too high to go out in safely, some rain and lightning. A quick regroup and we grabbed a blissful 1-1/2 to 2 hours of sleep. By 5:15 am, the storm moved out and we hit the water 15 minutes later.

At this point, we were about 25 miles short of the halfway point and still had enough time to make our sub-50 hour goal - but there was no safety margin. So we started paddling at a slightly increased rate (averaging 8.5 mph) from 5:30 am on Wednesday and didn't stop until we hit the finish line 26-1/2 hours later. Ryan and I crossed the finish line together on Thursday morning at 7:40 am. Total time was 48 hours, 40 minutes. Good enough for a 17th place finish (out of 234 in our men's solo class) We also finished 36th overall out of over 440 original starters.

The fast river certainly helped us get our sub-50 hour time. This year, about 20 solo boats broke that time barrier for a total of 40 sub-50 record holders (out of about 2,000 attempts). No matter what, we will have our names in the record books forever. Three-days post-finish I am still sore and am catching up on my sleep. I assume that someday I will compete in the MR340 again, but at this point, not next year.

Yay! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

Well done!

WE'RE #17!!!

Congratulations! That's a very impressive accomplishment.

That is outstanding! Congratulations.

Awesome, jaybee!

Me at the start of the race:


http://cindyhilesphotography.com/-/cind ... earchTerm=

Terrific accomplishment! Congratulations!