Life is Too Short to Sit on the Sidelines

Approaching middle age, I have become determined to become the fittest person I know.  I have resolved not to become entangled in the slothfulness of the sedentary lifestyle that so easily besets many others today but rather to live the best possible life that I can.  The life I want demands health and strength, so I have fully embraced an active lifestyle.  I have become enamored with the outdoors.  I run regularly, having completed several half-marathons and many 5K races.

Fitness is also why I joined Blazing Paddles’ dragon boat racing team. Sea wind in my face; sea splash on my brow; the sparkle of ocean water in the sunshine, moonlight or city lights; the close proximity to salt life – these are powerful motivators!  Why wouldn’t anyone want to get on a boat?  Dragon boating offers all of these perks and a whole lot more, in a slightly more aggressive fashion.  It not only offers the opportunity to be up close and personal with water but it also challenges you to face yourself, explore your limits and reach your ultimate fitness goals.

Joining Blazing Paddles was a “no-brainer.”  Dragon boating combines my love of water with the prospect of adventure.  This sport has given me the opportunity to become a better-rounded athlete.  It is the perfect complement to the other sporting activities I enjoy.  Taken as a whole, my sporting activities have transformed me in the most literal sense, physically and mentally.  Dragon boating with the Blazing Paddles team has become a major part of that transformation.  Being part of their team offers something extra, something not found in the solitary disciplines of running, cycling and swimming.  It delivers camaraderie!  Here is an opportunity to get to know other sports-minded individuals from varied backgrounds and bond in ways that only a team can.  Practice sessions are intense but fun, and most of all, my teammates are supportive.  It didn’t take me long to feel at home.

My next challenge is the completion of my first full marathon in about 6 months.  I cycle; I can go the distance on a road bike and handle my own on a mountain-bike trail.  I also swim.  Last year, I completed my first sprint triathlon; I plan to complete another this year and hopefully an Olympic-distance triathlon next year.  In addition to these activities, I enjoy tennis, snorkeling, canoeing and camping.  And, of course, I now paddle!

What’s my advice?  If you’re sitting on the sidelines and you feel like life is rushing by and you need some adventure, get active.  Life is way too short!   If you love being near water and nature, consider dragon boating.  You will experience the outdoors in a unique way that only this sport can offer. Hey, even the British Royals are into dragon boating these days; you’ll be in great company.   If you want to surround yourself with an awesome bunch of people who love to compete, thirst for adventure and are committed to reaching the top of their game, join Blazing Paddles.

David Fletcher

Blazing Paddles Member since February 2011

Post Race and Meet the Crew

(last time we finished the race, third overall and setting the race record for the voyageur division which includes all boats with a crew of 7 or more)

Post Race
I slept for thirteen hours.  After I woke up and ate something, well, a few things, several of us went to move the boat to a ramp about a mile downstream from where we left it, to a place where we could take it out.  The ramp at the finish line had been obliterated by mud.   As we set out, Eric Farris called out to the folks on shore “On to New Orleans!” Of course, we were all tired and sore and weren’t going anywhere far, and it got a good laugh.

The next day most of the paddlers went to the Shriner’s Hospital.  A young woman who had been a patient there gave us a tour.  The hospital treats children without charge.  It is mostly focused on orthopedic diseases.  They have many of the best specialists.  Our guide told us about some of the diseases and disorders they treat there, and how the doctors had come with some amazingly effective, often rather simple treatments.  She also took us to where they make prosthetics.  The designs were innovative.   She also showed us how the hospital makes things as easy as possible for patients and their families.  There were strategies and resources for distracting kids from their troubles.  The specialists were gathered in one place so instead of a kid having to go all over to see doctors, they could come to one place and seem them all.  And Shriners would give them rides, often early in the morning and over great distances, to make sure they could get to the hospital.  I think it is laughable that people suggest no one would do stuff like that if not forced to.  Shriner’s does not take government assistance – their resources are all gathered without force or coercion.

We then visited a brewery/restaurant by the finish line which had sponsored our team and had lunch.  Some of the crew also sampled the brews.  From there we went to the finish line, where the easterners on the team toured the small Lewis and Clark Museum.  Soon it was time for the awards ceremony, which was held in an open air space beneath the museum.  The organizers acknowledged every finisher.  Everyone got a medal.

The Pirate Crew
Jeff Barrow  Columbia, MO
Jeff is very knowledgeable about the river, and it is obvious he deeply loves it,

Michael Maples  Branson, MO
Michael was recruited late in the game.  He took the challenge having very limited paddling experience.  He was very coachable and open and improved a lot in the course of the race.  He was always positive and friendly. He is a personal trainer and during a period when many of us were sleepy called a spirited cadence that kept the crew going.  Great sense of humor.  Kind of guy that tries to learn and apply what he learns.

Barry Brown  Ft. Worth, TX
Biggest man on the team  Brought serious power.  The strong, silent type, I never heard him complain about anything.

Ryan Mason (Steer)  Davie, FL
As always, Ryan was unflappable and virtually tireless.

Sean Butler  Pittsboro, NC
He took this on having never seen a dragon boat.  He was steady throughout.

Will Murphy (Steer) Hollywood, FL

Lisa Grossman  Lawrence, KS
She sat row one the whole way.  I only got to interact with her a bit on the penultimate leg.  She was friendly and in good spirits.

Joseph Ringling  Chesterfield, MO
He was instrumental in getting a lot of the practice and other prep taken care of, and was johnny on the spot with equipment and other details.  He even had a back up steering arm and steering oar made.  He was so generous to give five of us a place to stay for several days, among other things.

Mark Handley  Holt, MO
Mark picked us up from the airport.  Quiet, we never heard any complaint from him about anything.

Kelly Sumner  Harrisonville, MO
Genuine, kind, patient and coachable.  Accomplished adventure racer.

Krista Patterson Harrisonville, MO
Another accomplished adventure racer. To use her favorite expression, she was “AWESOME!”  Upbeat, warm, coachable.

Joseph Heger  St. Louis, MO
Young engineer looking for race experience.  Intelligent, coachable, diplomatic, wise beyond his years.  I think he could be a future winner of this race if he sticks with it.

Scott Swafford (Steer)  Columbia, MO
Kind. Knows the river.  Entertaining.

Ken Tilford   Edwardsville, KS
In the latter part of the race, I rode Ken like a rented mule, and he didn’t hit me with his paddle.  Maybe he was just too tired, but I think he is a patient, kind-hearted guy who really appreciated being part of this.

Black Coffee
I was disappointed I didn’t get to talk to him more.  He has done this race in a boat he and his teammate made out of a garbage bin, and has done it while carrying his bike and a homemade trailer, riding home on the Katy Trail towing his boat.  Huck Finn.

Doug Jennings  Kansas City, MO
Opened his home to us, always calm, always steady.

Rick Wise  Columbia, MO
Strong man.  He threw us for a loop when he shaved shortly after the race.  “Uh, do I know you?”  Man’s man.

Christina Glauner Lawrence, KS
Without her, there is no BnB. Dedicated, organized, mature.

Jonathan Redfern Scott AFB, IL
Funny guy, excellent skills and boundless energy.  Probably the best racing resume on the boat.

Eric Farris Branson, MO
Intelligent, fun guy to talk to (the Great Communicator) and a prodigious pee-er (the Great Urinator).

The Ground Crew
Kelly Barth Lawrence, KS        Maurita Collins Kansas City, MO
Maria Crusius St. Louis, MO        Dianne Maurer Holt, MO
Bob Collins II Kansas City, MO     Lisa Swafford Columbia, MO

If you’ve  never done a long, support race you know this, but without a good support crew, you’re screwed.  They get no glory, lots of work and little sleep.  We had to have a GREAT crew to keep such a big team well-cared for and moving through CPs.  They were excellent at a hard job.

To the Finish!

I really started pushing the crew here, trying to keep our speed up so that there would be no way for a paddler to catch us in this last stretch of 39.4 miles from Washington to the finish.  As we passed the halfway part of this leg of less than 40 miles, I told the crew we might be able to break 38 hours, something I had been hoping for all along.  I was seated next to Jonathan Redfern and we were both urging the paddlers in front of us to “keep the shafts vertical” and otherwise use good technique.   They were tired and it was hard for many of them to maintain good form.

As we got to the last stretch, some of the crew were checking the time, trying to make the 38 hour mark. Once they thought time had expired, I reminded them that the race had started 5 minutes late – they should still have 5 minutes to finish.  I went back on the tiller for the last couple of miles.  Redfern knows this area very well and was talking me through what I would see.  At one point he was advising we bear to the left a bit and I told him I would as soon as we passed “that structure.”  It took me another minute or so to figure out the “structure” was just the tree line.  I had had almost no sleep in over two days, and was starting to hallucinate.  We went under the last bridge, and could soon see the blinking light that marked the finish.

By now, the crew was yelling in unison with each stroke.  We were traveling over 10 mph and the energy was amazing!  We later learned that the folks on shore could hear us coming from over a half a mile away.  I had to ask others to confirm that there was nothing in front of us, as there were some shadows and they were starting to look to my sleep-deprived brain like some kind of manmade structure in the water in front of us.  I aimed just a hair upstream of the light, unable to make out the shore and relying just on Redfern’s instructions (which were excellent).  I could not see it at night, but there was a powerful eddy near the finish and the boat veered left. I had to call to the crew to the hold the boat, and use draw strokes and the oar to turn us to the finish, and we touched in at 38:05 – we had held onto our 3rd place finish!  In fact our final push had lengthened our lead to 39 minutes.  We were about an hour behind Los Humungoes, and about 73 minutes behind the overall winners which were, no surprise, West Hansen and David Kelly.

(next time – post race and meet the crew)

The Race Continues wherein we face barge wakes and the San-terminator . .

I think the stretch from Noren to Hermann was a pivotal one for us.  We left Noren at 8:51 am of day two.  We arrived into Hermann in 3rd place and were on our way at 2:30 pm.  We had now amassed a lead of an hour over Joe Mann.  We passed Condie and had 20 minutes on him.  (We didn’t know it at the time, but he stayed at this CP with stomach issues and was there for hours.)  Our podium finish was within reach – if we could hold off Santo.  He had gained ten minutes on us and was just 24 minutes behind us!

I moved to row two for the next leg of the race. A strong paddler had aggravated a shoulder injury and felt he would do better further back.  I wanted a chance to interact with some of the folks up front, including to help one of the paddlers up there with his stroke.  I also wanted to show that I was complying with the discipline we had been imposing to keep up our speed, and encourage others to do so.  And I was paddling pretty well and felt I could help out, including by setting the cadence when row one was on a break.  Also, Scott needed a break from paddling and by removing myself from the steering rotation for a while, I gave him that break.  I moved a couple other paddlers around as well.

Our plan was to resupply at Washington and then fly the CP at Klondike (that is, have our crew check in without us needing to stop, as permitted by the rules this year).  At Washington, the currents around the ramp were very strong.  I was back to steering as we left and asked the ground crew to walk us upstream a bit as we would need to get around a rocky outcropping and I didn’t want to risk hurting the boat.  They got us forward just a few feet when Missouri mud bogged them down.  I decided that they had given us enough room, and had the crew paddle us up and out and we were easily into the current again at 5:55 pm.

Perhaps six miles downstream, I saw it coming – a very big, laden, upstream barge.  This one was much bigger than the one we had encountered earlier.  It was coming around a bend, staying to the outside where the channel was.  I formulated a plan, ran it by the other steers, who agreed, and went for it.  It would keep us further from the barge, and it would mean we would encounter a wake it had left some time ago, shortening the time we would need to travel through troubled waters.  It worked perfectly.  We encountered the wakes head on.  By the time we got back to the channel we were through the worst of it.

At Klondike, we had a bit of concern.  As we approached the CP, we could not see or hear our ground crew.  If we didn’t spot them, we would have to put in and send someone from the boat to sign us through.  It would cost us only minute or so, but with the race nearly over and Santo not far behind, we didn’t want to risk getting caught.   But the ground crew either arrived as we were approaching or revealed themselves at that time, and we were able to fly by without stopping. We were still in 3rd, but Santo was like the Terminator, relentlessly closing it down.  We now know he reached Klondike just 16 minutes back.   The fact that at the time we didn’t know precisely where he was only made it worse.

(next time — on to St. Charles, and the finish line)

The Race to St. Charles is ON!

(Last time we got to the starting line after a sleepless night in Kansas City)
The Race
We headed straight for the Missouri River and then, as per my discussions with Barry, turned to the right to try to hit the confluence at just the corect angle.  That worked perfectly, but a solo paddler was close to our starboard and our crew reached out to keep her boat from getting run over.  The crew paddled and we got into the Missouri!

The current is roughly 3.5 mph so our boat was traveling at almost 10 mph.  There were boats around us for a couple miles and then things started to stretch out, with us in about 10th place.

There were three of us that would be steering – Ryan, Scott Swafford and I.  Scott is a local and knows the river quite well.  He is generally soft-spoken and has a gentle manner and his assistance was very helpful when Ryan and I were steering.  Ryan and I had studied the written materials on the navigational markers for the river.  The Missouri is managed – there is a channel, and there are wing dikes which project from the banks and direct water into the channel (and help control erosion).  Markers are there to help the tugs pushing heavy barges stay in the channel.  But this was my first time actually seeing the markers and the river.  I watched what the other race leaders did and also asked questions of Scott.

Santo was riding our stern wake, his bow just 4-6 inches off our stern.  At times 3-5 other boats where in a line behind him.  I started referring to the following boats as “the goslings.”  The weather was about perfect.  Cool for this time of year.

The first CP was at Lexington. We arrived in 5th place, but we spent 8 minutes resupplying.  Thus we started the next leg in 6th.  We knew before the race started that it would be very challenging to get in and out of CP’s quickly with such a large crew.  We ended up doing pretty well in this regard, and most of the credit should go to our fine support crew: Maria Crusius, Bob Collins II, Maruita “Mo” Collins, Dianne Maurer, Lisa Swafford, and Kelly Barth.

The competition was a Who’s Who of the best ultramarathon paddlers on this particular planet. West Hansen had entered a different division in the MR340 in each of the four prior years. And he has WON a different division every year, too.  His teammate this year was David Kelly, a top-flight adventure racer, who races with Robyn Benincasa (who was doing this race as a soloist).

Los Humungoes appear at ultramarathon races wearing face masks, tights and capes, a la Nacho Libre.  But don’t let the light-hearted antics fool you – those boys can GO.

Aquaholics were in a Huki SX2 with the gull wings.

Joe Mann was racing under the inaccurate title of Dark Horse Paddler.

All these folks are serious paddlers.  So we were in good company.  We left Lexington at 1:24 pm.

The next CP was Waverly.  Our ground crew checked us into Waverly in 6th.  We had passed Santo, but were caught by Andy Condie.  We called him “Brawny” throughout the race due to his full beard, which reminded one of our teammates of the marketing lumberjack for Brawny paper towels.  We passed Condie (Brawny) on the way to Miami, Missouri, and were back in 5th.

We resupplied again at Glasgow. We arrived in 5th place but Joe Mann was faster in the CP and left before we completed our resupply, our slowest of the race.  It was 11:23 pm

By this point I had already been thinking that we could finish on the podium in this event.  That would be HUGE.  This is a very competitive race and there were over 200 boats in the race (and those were largely the most dedicated folks out of the 340 crews signed up before the race was rescheduled.)  I started to encourage the crew to think about this possibility.

Below Glasgow was the part of the course the veterans all seemed to approach with some trepidation: Lisbon Bottoms.  I had studied some satellite images of the area.  There is a chute on river left.  From the satellite, it almost looks like a tempting shortcut.  The main river makes a sweeping, ox bow turn and the chute cuts across.  But descriptions, including the story of a strong paddler ending up in the chute and getting broken ribs trying to extricate himself, made it clear that the route was not safe, especially not in a dragon boat in the dead of night.  As luck would have it, I was on the tiller when we got to this section.  I could hear the water in the chute even before I could see it and got us past it.  About two thirds of the way through Lisbon Bottoms, my turn on the tiller ended and Scott finished it.  By then there was fog on the water, but he knows the river well and had no trouble.  By now I was getting sleepy.

In this section, even before Lisbon, we got into a duel with the Aquaholics.  This tandem team would sometimes wake ride for a few minutes, but would then launch a major attack, often getting so far out we could barely see them or their lights.  We would continue to grind ahead at a fairly constant speed and perhaps 40 minutes or more later would pass them.  A few minutes later they would launch another attack.  Their ability to put such big gaps on us so quickly was worrisome, but at one point when they were drafting I overheard the bow paddler tell the other “Dude, I’m paddling as hard as I can.”  I felt then that we would grind them down eventually.

At Katfish Katie’s we were 5th.  We left 34 minutes ahead of Santo, 8 minutes ahead of Joe Mann and 12 minutes behind Condie aka Brawny.  We were still behind the Aquaholics here. We were on our way at 4:44 am

Soon after Katfish Katie’s we were in sight of the Aquaholics and saw them pull into Cooper’s Landing.  Cooper’s is a popular stopping point with good facilities.  We didn’t know if they were going to resupply and be on their way in 5 minutes, or stop to sleep.

At Noren (aka Jefferson City or Jeff City) we were still 5th.  We had held our lead over Santo and put two more minutes into Joe Mann.  But Condie was now 20 minutes ahead of us.

(next time — the rest of the race)

Sleepless in KC (where everything is up to date)

(the prior post described our “last supper”)

Sleepless in KC
After a largely sleepless night in anticipation of the race, we were back at the Kaw River early.  Things were hopping there, with hundreds of paddlers, about as many support people, plus race officials and the media and spectators.

I had spoken to teammate Barry Brown and Imperial Commandress Christina Glauner the night before and we had decided that our best bet was to turn the boat to face the start, and then only load up the crew shortly before the start.  That would allow the team to be as relaxed and comfortable as possible for as long as possible.   We just had to back up a bit to get behind the boat ramp that is the starting line.  The gentle flow of the Kaw pushed us forward, and I had to have the crew back us up periodically as we waited for the start.  This required a little finesse, as there were so many canoes and kayaks in the area.  A paddler named Santo was nearby in his Huki SX1 with gull wing stabilizers.

At 8:05am they had finished the national anthem.  Gentlemen dressed as if contemporaries of Lewis and Clarke fired their muskets and we were off!

I secretly felt we were unlikely to take longer than 40 hours and could probably run it in 38 hours if all went well.

(next time — The Race!!)

Last Supper

(see the prior post for our arrival into KC, and our first “encounter” with the Mighty Mo’)

Last Supper
By the time we got things squared away with the ground crew, it was time to go to the pre-safety meeting dinner.  Most of us went to the dinner that was at the same location as the safety meeting.  The food was good and plentiful. The safety meeting itself consisted mostly of a video.  I gather it is a challenge to make it engaging, since the warnings are the same from year to year, but they had used an Indiana Jones theme in which they cleverly interspersed clips from those movies with clips of the race organizer, Scott Mansker, discussing the various hazards of the race: hitting things like buoys and wing dikes, fog which could make it easy to hit things like buoys and wing dikes, bugs, fatigue, Asian carp which jump and sometimes injure people from the impact, sleep deprivation.  Also hitting things like buoys and wind dikes.  Actually, Mansker himself suggested that the video could be used for a drinking game based on the phrase “high, fast water.”  While levels were not as high as they had been in July when the race was originally scheduled, they were still high.  And fast.

(next time — sleepless in KC)