WWTBAM Bored

Kayak racing season that is.

Tomorrow I head out to Kansas City to take part in the MR340 kayak race. Kansas City to St. Louis on the Missouri river. Last year I was a rookie and finished in 17th place (out of about 230) in the mens solo division in a time of 48 hours 40 minutes. This year I'm looking to break into the top ten. The race will start at 7:00 am on Tuesday 7/19. If anyone is interested in watching how it unfolds, the race is updated at every checkpoint (about every 5 to 6 hours) and can be seen on-line by doing this:

Go to Raceowl.com and link to the 2016 MR340. Once there, hit the "view all" link. From that page, you can search via any of several filters. Go with 'male solo' in the division column and it will pull up all the 225 boats in my division. Or, type in my boat number - 3489 - and my info will come up. There should be a Spot tracker footprint symbol on the line with my name - hit that and it will bring up a river map that shows my progress in ten minute intervals. The - 1111 - boat should always be right there with me as my paddle buddy Ryan and I plan to travel the entire race together. My ideal float plan is to finish in 46-1/2 hours which should see me hit St. Charles about 5:30 am on Thursday. This is assuming we can maintain a 7.5 mph speed and only stop for five 15 minute resupplies. In comparison, last year we managed 8.1 mph while paddling but were on the bank for a total of 6-1/2 hours. Last year we came in 17th place. This year the target is to break into the top ten but it will take some nice weather and the ability to not sleep for two days to do this.

Once again the lovely and talented MrsJaybee as well as my brother (AB - go figure) will be driving the van from checkpoint to checkpoint to log me through and dole out water and food as needed. Over the two days of my planned race schedule they will sleep about as much as I - which is none. They are quite dedicated and I would not have a prayer of placing high without them.

Good luck! Sounds interesting, and fun.

Good luck, jaybee! Lizbit, BeBe and I -- plus Lizbit's chickens -- will be rooting for you all the way.

Luck! The good kind!

Good Luck. That sounds like fun.

Good luck, and have a great time!

After-race update:

Not as great a result as last year but I still had a good time. For anyone who was following on RaceOwl you will have seen that I dropped out of the race (DNF) at the 5th checkpoint.

The short story: It was very, very hot and humid. As I was staying in the boat it made it very difficult to eat. By midnight, just the thought of eating was enough to make me sick. So I wasn't eating very much. I'm diabetic. Add those two together and you get a low blood sugar situation. And that's exactly what happened. By daylight of the second day I was still paddling but was starting to slow down off my pace a bit. We decided to stop at checkpoint #5 for an hour to sleep, cool down and eat. After sleeping for about 40 minutes as planned I realized that I was doing some serious damage to my body that could not be fixed with a one-hour break. I tried to get my paddle partner to go on with the race without me but he refused, so we stayed on land for another 1-1/2 hours. During this time I did get some food in but I also passed out several times. Frankly, much of that day is a blur and I only know what really happened by talking to my wife and brother.

After the second break, I made the smart but painful decision to drop out of the race. This at least freed up my paddle buddy so that he could continue on without me. Even with the extra delay that I caused, he managed to finish in 10th place with a total time of just under 55 hours.

A couple of days of sleeping, AC and food and I'm all good. While I'll always have some regrets, it would have been stupid and dangerous to continue on so I am OK with my decision. When I DNF'd, I was in 8th or 9th place. I paddled 188 miles non-stop in 27-1/2 hours. Even with the DNF, I finished 118th out of the 225 male solo boats. I'm not sure if I will be in this race next year but I know I will be in it again with the next time having a few different nutrition options and schedule.

Whoa. That sounds like a dangerous situation to be in with that medical condition. You made the right call in not continuing.