Racing in the mighty Midwest

I left Memphis around noon on Friday, hoping to arrive at the race site less than six hours later.  It would take me closer to seven hours.  The drive west from Saint Louis seemed to take forever.  But at last I reached the point where U.S. 50 crosses the Osage River, some 15 miles or so east of the state capital in Jefferson City.  I checked into a campground a short distance from where the race would start the next morning.  I found the local Saint Louis Cardinals affiliate on my car radio and listened to the Cards lose to the Cubs while I set up my tent and got settled in.  The temperature was dropping toward an overnight low in the 50s Fahrenheit, and by ten o'clock I was snug in my sleeping bag and drifting off to sleep.  I like campin'.

When I got up yesterday morning I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunny day.  After a quick breakfast and breaking of camp I headed over to the Mari-Osa river access (so named because it's near the confluence of the Maries and Osage Rivers) and found several dozen other racers congregating there.  I looked out over the river and was pleased to see a good strong flow: much of Missouri had experienced significant flooding a week earlier, and a lot of water was still being released from the Lake of the Ozarks upriver.

I had always assumed that the Osage Spring 12 race was an all-downriver affair, but I quickly learned otherwise yesterday morning.  Bonnots Mill, where the race ends, is only eight miles down the Osage River from the Mari-Osa access.  The course proceeds downriver two miles past Bonnots Mill to a buoy near where the Osage enters the Missouri River; racers then must paddle those two miles back up the Osage to the finish line.  I was hoping that the Missouri would be high enough to back up into the Osage and spare us a struggle against the current in those last two miles.

As racers continued to arrive it became evident that Mixed Tandem Kayak would be the class to watch.  The biggest name involved was three-time Olympian Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, who was teaming up with his daughter Savanna.  Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski had made the trip over from Olathe, Kansas; in the last five years or so I had raced them two or three times and they'd looked better each time.  And then there was Dylan McHardy, a strong racer from Springfield, Missouri, who had recruited the lovely and powerful Mandy Urban to be his partner.

We all went through our warmup routines and maneuvered our boats into position on the swollen river.  At ten o'clock sharp the gun went off, and I sprinted hard off the line.  As I'd expected, Team Herbert had the fastest start and I tried to grab at least a few seconds on their wake.  They quickly pulled away from me and I sidled over toward Mandy and Dylan pulling even with me on my left.  Over to my right Mira and Ron were advancing, and in the next few minutes our three boats converged to form a chase pack.

It was a quick pace and I wasn't a hundred percent confident I could sustain it for the entire 12 miles, but I dug in and hoped I could hold my competitors' wakes for as long as I could.  I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I knew that if I lost those wakes the race would turn from a lively competition with my peers into a lonely, miserable slog in which I could easily be caught by my pursuers.

Several miles in Mandy and Dylan dropped off the pace.  They seemed to be having an amicable discussion about their preferred method of boat control and I sensed that their run as a contender had come to an end.  I held fast on the stern wake of Mira and Ron, who were throwing in surge after surge to reel in Savanna and Mike.  I was hanging on for dear life, but as we covered more and more distance with the aid of the current my confidence began to grow.  Finally Mira and Ron attained the Herberts' stern wake and I decided to make a move up onto the Kansans' right-side wake.  After several minutes of recovery there, I threw in another sprint and moved up alongside Savanna and Mike.  Now I was starting to have some fun.  After a few more minutes of recovery I moved up into the lead, because... why not?  How often do I get to lead a race in which Mike Herbert is participating?

I knew I couldn't be too cocky and a short time later I dropped back onto the Herberts' right-side wake.  Moments later I got a little surprise: off to my right Mandy and Dylan reappeared.  I'd thought surely we'd left them behind for good, and I was impressed that they had fought their way back into the mix.

We passed the finish line at Bonnots Mill and I knew things would get a little more serious in the last four miles.  The river surface had smoothed out and I was hoping we'd hit the backwater of the Missouri.  A few minutes later the big red turning buoy became visible in the distance, and I think all seven people in our lead pack were having similar thoughts.  A buoy turn is often the site of high drama in canoe and kayak racing, and I was hoping my sharper turning ability might give me an edge over the longer tandem boats.  But I think the others were aware of that issue too, and the pace began to quicken to the point that I was struggling to hold my position.  This was the first hint that my competitors might have more left in the tank than I did.

As we approached the buoy my spirits fell a bit more as I saw a pair of clean, crisp eddy lines coming off it.  Those last two miles back upriver would indeed be a fight against the current.  The Herberts were still in the lead and they followed a carefully-planned counterclockwise arc toward the buoy.  The moment their boat became broadside in the current Mike yelled "go!" and they shot around the buoy and into a ferry toward the river-right bank.  Mira and Ron closed tight on the buoy and I had to back off my speed for a moment to avoid getting pinched off.  That moment of hesitation neutralized my turn-radius advantage.  Mandy and Dylan got swept downstream a bit and once were were all around the buoy the order was Savanna and Mike in first, Mira and Ron in second, yours truly in third, and Mandy and Dylan in fourth.

And at this point my race began to fall apart a little bit.  Moving upstream I had trouble staying on Mira and Ron's wake and after several minutes of struggling I fell off.  With Mandy and Dylan closing in behind me I tried to read the water for the most efficient lines (I do paddle up the Mississippi River all the time, after all).  But I lost a gamble when I took a little slot between a hanging tree branch and the bank and found myself sliding over either a log or the muddy bottom, and I had to stop and make sure I eased over it without hurting my rudder.  Mandy and Dylan cruised right by me.

After this mishap it felt like somebody had thrown a cinder block in my boat.  Every stroke became excruciating, and the three tandems opened an ever-increasing gap on me.  I wondered if something had snagged on my rudder, and once it became obvious that I would not be able to catch back up to the tandems I stopped and took a few backstrokes, hoping that would get it off.  But moving forward again I still felt like I was paddling through cement.  I had at least a good three or four minutes on the next paddler behind me, so finally I stopped and hopped out of my boat to check my rudder.  There was nothing there.

Up ahead there was one final moment of excitement as the Herberts were closing in on victory.  They tried to duck under a ramp between the bank and a floating dock, and Savanna hit it with her paddle and broke off her right blade.  Mira and Ron, who had opted for the safer line on the other side of the dock, had gotten just the break they needed to move in front and cross the finish line in first place.  Mandy and Dylan also were able to sneak past the Herberts as Savanna labored through the final meters with only one blade.  A couple of minutes later I reached the same spot and ducked under the ramp like the Herberts had (I'm not a fast learner), and fortunately I was able to proceed across the finish line with no equipment damage.

After the race somebody pointed out that the water was quite shallow where we'd paddled upriver in those last two miles, and that's probably the reason for my sudden paddling difficulty in the last two miles.  It seems obvious enough but in these times of flood the idea hadn't crossed my mind.  And so I guess those tandem boats simply gave me a good whipping in that water.  I shouldn't let it dampen my spirits after what was otherwise a good race for me--I did take the overall win among solo paddlers, after all.  But you know me--I'm a competitive, slightly vain person who wants to go out and beat 'em all every time.

The race organizers provided a nice little lunch, followed by the awards.  I thought this was an excellent event and the gorgeous weather did nothing to hurt that.  I was tired as I began the long drive home, but in good humor.  The afternoon baseball game kept me entertained for most of the trip (this time the Cardinals beat those mean old Cubs).  I arrived home around nine o'clock and was passed out in bed not much later.