Adventures continue

Sunday 8-12-12.
  my buddy andy and i got in another new stretch of missouri river. from just above the i-435 bridge down to kaw point. most of the adventure was getting the boat in the water. had to do a little portage/drag/bushwhacking  just to get into the water... pics were shot with the waterproof cover on so most are dingy.

one of the many benefits of an aluminum boat.

small hill no.1 no problem...

portage

train, that's andy in the weeds.

one more small incline to get to the river...

i got that shirt for canoeing across the fine state of missouri, official river rat shirt now.

being that i invited andy to get a little river time in i should have been better prepared, at the last minute we decided to go "a little further" upstream to check out a few things along the way. turns out it was more like 8 river miles upstream, our original plan was t just do 10 miles.  not that big of a deal but we didn't get in the water till almost 7pm, so it got dark on us pretty quick. we made time to stop and smell the roses though...

stopping to check out cool shit

and have a smoke

1 Down, 99 to go...

 well, maybe. either way this is a cool list:

America's 100 Best Adventures

M.R.340 Success!

we made it to st. charles! it was a great time, my brain is still a little foggy but here are a few pics and thoughts of the race along the way.
 

kaw point, monday around 5pm. it was cool to walk around and check out all the boats. alot of very nice boats but not too many 70's era aluminum boats?

kaw point, tuesday 6am. we arrived at 5:30. got our boat loaded up and paddled across the kaw and waited for the start. good strategy but hard to relax for 2 hours... this is a sticker collage from henry on my coffee cup.

my seat, and view for the 79 hrs and 56 min that is took us to finish. custom seats routered out of pink styrofoam and layered in green yoga mat, trimmed in duct tape. they performed damn good and they looked good too.

our boat on the south side of the kaw, waiting. boat ramp is looking hectic. glad we got in earlier...

night 1, somewhere between waverly and miami.you might notice that we are pointed in a westerly direction and you might be thinking to yourself, "shouldn't they be going away from the setting sun?"  yes, most times when we stopped paddling and floated for a few minutes the boat would find itself pointed upriver... i didn't mind a bit with sunsets like this...

dinner night #1, i made black bean, potato, and some kind of buckwheat grain burritos. they were tasty and did a good job of keeping me going. waterjug with a camelback bite valve worked out great, it is sitting in my custom styrofoam "console" trimmed in realtree camo duct tape that also has as a little tray in front  that i kept chapstick and my phone in. it came loose at some point during the second day, next time i'll glue it down better.

a few extra thoughts on food and things i will do differently, i brought simple foods, granola bars, tuna salad kit, pb&j, broccoli and carrots and beef jerky (the real stuff, imported from hatfield's near neosho,mo- thanks mom!) greek yogurt and granola for breakfast, some crackers and banana's.dinner was 2 burritos.  i had just a little too much food, 1 too many pb&j per day. and an extra granola bar per day. not too bad really.  i divided things up into servings then compiled a morning bag and evening bag for each day.  this made it easy to get out of the cooler and made it easy to see how much i was eating, which you have to keep on top of,  otherwise it's crash-aroo time. more of the veggies next time, they were cold and easy to get down in the heat of the day. chewing on a dry ass granola bar when you've been in the sun for 10hrs and it's 105 degrees is not that cool. i'll keep the banana's out of the cooler. they were probably still good but i have a hard time with mushy banana's...
  life jacket is the other thing that i would change, i'm getting one of the self inflating waistband style ones. my killer stay cool shirt was awesome except for the part that was under the lifejacket. i started to get what i believe was a bit of heat rash that led to the itching frenzy. not cool.

i took alot of self portraits, daybreak day 2, we got into miami at 1 am slept for 3.5 hours and were back on the water at 5am.  the self portraits document the progressive sleeplessness and general fade that occurred, which was to be expected.  overall i felt like i held up pretty well. it's pretty amazing what your body can physically handle. i had my moments that for sure but changing paddling technique even just slightly or changing how i was sitting made a big difference. i was very conscience of my posture, i have a tendency to slouch and after 12 hours in the boat a persons lower back just can't handle it. good posture made a huge difference and kept my back happy.  mentally i had my moments as well, when you start to feel itchy all over it can really lead to a feeling of legitimate craziness but a quick dip in the river and a snack helped get through those moments. the addition of a radio really helped, watching tenths of a mile go by is not a good way to spend a day on the river...

day 2, great day to be on the river, i was worried that day 2 would be a hard one to get through but it turned out to be one of the most pleasant in my memory. taking a break, sam is probably calculating something. one of the funniest things was our increasing inability to do simple math. "so we are at mile 132 and we are going to 125 that means we have 4 miles to go!" ha. happened to both of us and we laughed about it. we just stopped doing math by night 2. easier that way.
we really laughed alot on this trip, good laughing too. 

my mom also hooked us up with neck coolers, very nice to have on a hot midday afternoon. sam got fancy with a double windsor knot in his during a paddling break. did i mention that mustaches just magically appeared once we got on the river? a gift from from the river gods to help us on our way...

moonrise night #2, the moon was amazing. our other night excursion were with next to no moon and to have clear skies and a full moon it was like having a lamp on all night. almost weirdly bright. and in the evening the swallows were out eating bugs i suppose or doing whatever swallows do in the evening. they were cool see, at some points it felt like there were thousands of them flying around. here we are closing in on the I-70 bridge, we were probably 2 miles away from it and pushed a little too hard to get there while there was still light. we didn't make it and it wasn't as cool looking as we thought it would be. it was the only recognizable landmark on the river (for me anyway) and it put into perspective how far we had gone. the river was a bit of a mess after the bridge, you could spot the lights at katfish katy's but it was forever away, and the channel markers were nonexistent. not even really sure how to describe it but it was weird.

coopers landing! night #2 ,arrived 12am.  this was a destination for us, they kept the campstore and thai noodle kitchen open all night night and it was pretty sweet. i scarfed those noodles down and drank half a beer and almost fell asleep standing up. all i really wanted was to hear the beer open and have the first sip. and it was a good sip. we got a good 5 hours of sleep this night. campground was cool, makes me want to check it out again!

this is jon, ground crew extraordinaire. he was on point at all times, except for that time he got lost...

day 3 storms a brewin...

day #3, we encountered a little rain, not much really. it was like this for 15 min and felt pretty good. the wind after the rain was not cool though.

self portrait day #3 this is jefferson city check point and that is the capitol in the background. hanging in there. about a mile from here we encountered some gnarly headwind that we more or less sat out and once it passed we were smooth sailing again. later in the day the sun was back out and we were motoring along and i was saying to sam, i just love being on the river, all of it, the miserable parts come and go but at the end of the day i just really enjoyed being on the river.

hermann checkpoint night #3. got in around 8pm, took it easy then tried to get some sleep, not happening when you are 30' from the train tracks. train ran every 30min i think, or it could've been every 30 seconds. either way next time we motor past here and sleep on a sand bar... i did get a snowcone here that gave me the worst brain freeze ever.

daybreak morning #4 after a night of hit and miss sleep and getting back on the water at 3am. this was my low point. i was actually nodding off while paddling, i was out of sync, i couldn't keep the boat going straight, i just felt like a mess. luckily sam pulled us through, sam was a champ the whole way through this event, he had a great attitude and we really enjoyed ourselves.  after i got a few more doses of caffeine in my system, i finally started to come around at about 8am. and was some help, i think

this wasson knows how to float... lazy river time.

hermann checkpoint, this one is out of sync but it shows the checkpoint flag and another great sunset.

the last bend and what we thought was the last bridge, about 2 miles from the end, turns out there was another bridge after this one. last self portrait, i lost my sunglasses the day before (an offering to the river gods) and thought i would just deal with it, next time i'll pack a spare. the final 12 miles or so was a fight against a consistent headwind. we chugged through, i was all kinds of crabby and sam was hyped up but when we actually saw the flag and the finish line i was back on an upswing, it really was pretty sweet.

here it is, the medal. the missouri river rules and i can't wait to get back on it!

my list of things i would change or do differently:

-self inflating life jacket

-faster boat (rudder even?)

-minor tweak to food supplies

-extra sunglasses

-if we were to have similar goals of just finishing i would modify day 3 and push past herman , probably even past new haven and find a quiet sandbar to sleep on. 

- start growing my mustache waaay earlier

i am proud of what we did, sam's schedule was spot on, we lost a couple of hours of the course of day 3 and 4 but overall i am super happy with how things went. i really had no idea what it would be like but i really thoroughly enjoyed being out on the river. i can't wait to get out there again, i'm ready for more!

 i have to say thanks to jon the ground crew, he really was on top of things and made life pretty damn good. thanks to my dear mom for hanging out with henry while i was away and saving the day with a killer sun shirt that kept me from getting burnt to a crisp. huge thanks to sam for sharing this adventure with me, thanks to andy for making our custom seat pans, literally saved our butts... and my lovely wife courtney, for her patience through this whole process...

july 14, 2012 saturday

we had an epic training run on saturday. we put in at kaw point at 8:20, although we really wanted to simulate race day but were running behind a little, and we paddled to miami, mo - 105 miles in 17hours 50min. and we were pretty damn happy with ourselves! at about 2 hours in we got passed by a 3 man boat that was scooting right along, it looked like they got to lexington (approx 50 river miles) 2hours or so ahead of us, and by our fuzzy river math that put them at least averaging 2mph more than we were doing,  it was impressive to see and the first time we have seen another canoe while on the missouri.
  a few things became abundantly clear, long sleeves and tights or sun pants are a must. my farmer tan is pretty bitchin but i have no interest in nursing a sunburn for 80 hrs. steph saved the day, she sent sam with an extra long sleeve shirt that not only kept the burn off but help with chafing on my life jacket. a needed upgrade in the hat department is a must, my current river hat has little holes woven in it and apparently the sun can go right through those holes and burn a sweet pattern into your head...
  river conditions seemed damn near just right, water was about 2' lower than our previous runs which didn't seem to affect our speed much and the added clarity of channel location was worth it. the wind was mild, and it was hot but it didn't feel too bad. our pace has been pretty consistent every time we have gone out, the thing that strikes me is that we don't go any faster but we go farther before feeling miserable, that means there is hope.
  we ran the stretch from lexington to miami in the daylight and realized all of our miserableness from the last night run wasn't just in our minds, that stretch is just slow and weird. there is a big long sweeping curve to the right and it makes you feel like the channel must be elsewhere, it's not, just got to slug through it. i have a feeling there will be many more places such as that the farther we get down stream. by the time we got to waverly it was dusk and we realized we had strategically planned again for the least amount of moon possible, this time a waning crescent that wasn't even coming up till 2:15 in the a.m. it's probably good or we might not have spotted the ufo/ floating light thing, not even sure how to describe it but it was there and it was weird. i'll be on the lookout for that again.
  we made a quick pit stop at hills island and decided we should come back and camp here on a more leisure expedition, very cool sand beach, no light pollution meant the stars were bright and although it was dark when we stopped you could sense the potential of a good time.
   we only had 1 tree sneak up on us about 6 miles from the end which would have made for an unpleasant night had we hit it but we motored by without incident. moments like that coupled with the mild amounts of delirium we experienced gave us the notion that a sense of caution is not to be ignored at night.
   at one break sam was making use of his pee jug and didn't realize we had drifted around 180 degrees so when we got back to paddling i was trying to turn us around and sam was was trying to paddle upstream, i laughed and laughed until we got to a bend that i swore was a straight until sam lit it up with the spot light and i had almost steered us right into the bank so sam had his laugh and all was good.
  paddling at night is really pretty cool, at one point the big dipper was positioned over sams head and the stars were so bright it was just a beautiful sight, the kind scene that makes you wish all the people you care about could be there seeing the same thing with you... 

  those are my thoughts thus far. 

waverly at dusk

sam and jon at sibley

hills island

waverly dinner and a movie...

more training

saturday,  june 23, 2012 our latest training run, a night paddle this time around. we wanted to get on the river near the area where we would be at the first night, thinking we would be smart but really i don't think it would've mattered where we were on the river seeing as how it was 9:40pm when we put in and you couldn't see anything anyway. we also chose a night with damn near the least amount of moon possible -waxing crescent-, a good thing really since the race is planned around a full-ish moon, theoretically we'll have a bit more visibility, barring any weather calamities, during the actual run. once we got going visibility was surprising, with no moon you could still see enough to keep it pointed in the right direction but not enough to spot a channel marker or wing dike. had to keep listening for those and it seemed like they would always sneak up on us. you definitely couldn't see the random piece of debris that you would hit with your paddle and would scare the bejeezus out of a someone, making them screamed like a little girl and almost capsize the boat 10 min into the trip. it could've been a body for all i know! 

  the lack of visual reference was more disorienting than i anticipated it would be. i believe that led to what felt like a lack of rhythm, like we couldn't find a groove. after the fact sam printed a graph from the gps data which showed we were actually on track with our pace and stayed relatively in the channel but while we were in the water we felt lost and there was that damn headwind, almost the entire way. we only paddled 23miles (from Lexington to Waverly ), and it was amazing how discouraging a headwind can be for 23 miles...

  the issue of gear and how much of what we need is still evolving, i believe we are close to our race setup. we purchase some nice paddles from kc paddler. wenonah boundary waters 52" bent shaft paddles for both of us. kc paddler is a pretty killer place and they were extremely helpful. i knew we needed to modify our paddle choice and this proved it these paddles are significantly lighter, they have a shorter handle, they are more comfortable, just a better experience all around. storage of gear is getting better, i secured a couple of plastic bins that seemed pretty good. a water jug holder and spare paddle holders are on the agenda. and finally the boat.
   when.this whole adventure started we were going to use the wasson family boat, a late 1970's  Loweline 15' aluminum canoe that my dad purchased new. she has spent the majority of her life plying the waters of many a stream in the ozarks, unfortunately she also has the dents and dings to show for it. the design of the boat was never intended for long distance racing but she has the proper soul for adventure. there are a few cracked ribs that allowed what i think canoeists call oil-canning while in the water. to remedy that i made a makeshift mid boat support out of 2x4's. it was not an aesthetically pleasing repair but it worked pretty damn good and carried us on a 20 mile and a 50 mile excursion down the missouri river. i look forward to taking her out on more adventures in the near future. she has treated us well but this race was not hers to run. after our 50 mile outing sam and i were both wound up about all things to do with the MR340 and the more we snooped on the MR340 forum the bigger the question of boat choice got. sam took the plunge on a 17' grumman canoe from craigslist and this night outing was our maiden voyage in her. there was a noticeable difference in the way the grumman was able to glide in the water, once we got to cruising speed she seemed happy to stay there. i did not notice a significant benefit in the steering, although that could've been all the wind we were fighting, we'll know better the next time we get out.

 

training runs

june 9th- we started at the knife and paddled to the hemostat

6am at kaw point- hard to imagine 399 more boats

5:30 am at kaw point- the boat

river dudes

la benite park, hwy 291 bridge looking upstream

river rig, still figuring out how much to put in the boat...

jon and sam at mile 26 pit stop- june 9th

Fast forward two months, it's Fathers Day. Phil and I have come a long way since that first voyage up the Kaw. We've done two long training runs now. The first was from Kaw Pt to Missouri City. That was a little over 26 miles. We felt good about paddling that far, but walked away with more questions than answers. We realized there's more to navigating than pointing the bow downstream and paddling. The channel moves side to side and we weren't quite sure where to find it, or if we had found it but just couldn't tell. Jon (The Dude) picked us up at Mo City boat ramp and drove us back to civilization. What had taken us four hours to paddle took us 20 minutes to drive home. What a letdown! But the paddle was a success. We averaged 6 mph which was good enough to get us though the first day checkpoint ahead of them cutoff. Now we just had to prove to ourselves we could maintain a that same pace for 50 miles - twice what we had just done. But that challenge could be left for a different day. On this day, we would celebrate by eating at Gates in KCK. As it turns out, this is bu the first of many meals that the Dude will provide to Team Collins & Hall. More to follow -Sam

not really sure what stance i've got going on but i'll be sure to improve my stance as well.

First day of training was sunday, we put in at Kaw point and paddled up stream to get a feel for what was going on. We met an MR340 veteran by the name of Doug. He was a very nice guy and very generous with some tips and whatnot,and  the way he looked at the canoe then at us and asked "are you guys going in that?" was pretty classic. We were not to be deterred and he even went on to say that the race was 70% mental,  so that felt  encouraging, right? I'm not going to lie, we were sketchy at first. The canoe has a very small sweet spot and does not tolerate futzin around well, furthermore she is not one to stay on track on her own, you have to stay on top of keeping moving in a generally straight line. Doug told us that from kaw point to the 2nd bridge by the Kemper arena was 2miles. I'm pretty sure we made that into about a 3 mile journey with all the zig-zaggin we were doing but by the halfway point we had her mostly under control, which led us to getting serious about a project list. Seats, are the main order of the day, padding, backrest, adjustable those things will be a necessity. We also discovered that going downstream is much easier than going upstream, whodathunkit? On the agenda is working on better paddling technique, upgrading seats, sunscreen, and some other stuff. All in all an exciting first outing.

april 04, 2012

Here we are, preparing ourselves for an attempt at the Missouri river 340, the race from Kansas City to St. Louis on the Missouri river, all 340 miles of it. It's been all fun and games talking about it till we got the checkpoint and cutoff times:

Kaw Point, mile 367, Race Begins, 8am Tuesday, July 31st.   
Lexington, mile 317, (50 miles) 5pm Tuesday   Leg avg.  5.56mph  Total avg. 5.56    
Waverly, mile 294, (23 miles) 9pm Tuesday  Leg avg. 5.75mph  Total avg. 5.62    
Miami, mile 262, (32 miles)  11am Wed.   Leg avg. 2.29mph  Total avg. 3.89    
Glasgow, mile 226, (36 miles) 6pm Wed.  Leg avg. 5.14mph  Total avg. 4.15    
Katfish Katy's, mile 180, (46 miles) noon Thurs.  2.56mph  Total avg. 3.60    
Jeff City, mile 144, (36 miles) 7pm Thurs.  5.14mph  Total avg. 3.78     
Hermann, mile 98, (46 miles) 10am Friday  3.07mph  Total avg. 3.64    
Klondike, mile 56 (42 miles) 6pm Friday  5.25 mph  Total avg. 3.79    
St. Charles, mile 29, finish line, (27 miles)  Midnight   4.50mph  Total avg. 3.85 mph
 


So, i suppose this is also an attempt at documenting our process, preparing the boat, training and meetings and whatever else comes along. I retrieved our vessel last weekend, and will be giving it the once over in the coming days. Seats with some padding and  back support of some sort, some structural repairs, make sure it's water tight, the basics.


  Here is Henry checking the boat out, with some lunch on our way home: