06/12/17 AT 14:33:10
Check It Out
Checkpoints and Cutoff Times:
Kaw Point, mile 367, Race Begins, 8am (7am for solo) Tuesday, August 8th.
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
Glasgow, mile 226, (68 miles) 6pm Wed. Leg avg. 5.14mph Total avg. 4.15
Wilson's Serenity Point at Noren Access (Jeff City), mile 144, (82 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
These cutoff times are part of our safety plan filed with the United States Coast Guard and the Missouri Water Patrol. Cutoff times are essential to adventure racing and ultra-marathon events to keep participants in a reasonable safety halo. The times have been fine tuned over the previous 11 races. In your preparation for the race, we recommend planning to build a cushion of time over the course of your miles so that you are not tight up against the clock at each checkpoint. The split times between checkpoints are generous and allow for this. It's essential to bank up some time so that when things are imperfect like weather, fog or motivation, you'll have a buffer to play with. Barely scooting into each checkpoint is not a sustainable strategy. One hiccup can end your race.
If this is your first time seeing these cutoff times, you may be freaking out. But given time for further study, you'll soon see that there is a lot of wiggle room built in to each night. The math is such that, in theory, a person could be off the river every night by 9pm and then back on the water at 5am and still make all the cutoff times. I am not sure anyone has tried this. Well, I take that back. They have tried it, but they woke up at 5am in Waverly and decided they did not want to get back on the water. DNF (Did Not Finish) Not because they couldn't have made it to Miami in time, but because they were stiff and sore and the entire race was now 32 miles ahead of them and it was psychologically overwhelming to continue.
Everyone who does finish the race paddles in the dark for portions of the journey. Not really because they HAVE to but because they WANT to. Paddling at night, if done responsibly and safely, will be one of your favorite parts of the event. Ask any veteran of the race. You'll be looking forward to sunset each day.
If paddling at night is an apprehension you have about this race, I'm here to help you unpack that a little and hopefully feel better. Because there is a lot to feel apprehensive about paddling 340 miles in 88 hours... but paddling at night really isn't one of them if done properly.
Fear #1
I won't be able to see, I'll get disoriented and I'll hit something.
Maybe, but unlikely. First, darkness is a very gradual process. You'll paddle at least 73 miles in daylight from KC to Waverly. Lots of time to learn the ins and outs of paddling the Missouri River if you're not from the area. And lots of time to wish the sun would hurry up and go down so it wouldn't be so hot. Somewhere between 8 and 830 it will start getting dusky and you'll finally take your sunglasses off. Somewhere around 9pm you'll see the brightest stars. By 10pm you'll be paddling under the full moon but you'll still easily see the gray treeline on both sides and the water will be a a darker color sparkling with reflected stars and moonlight.
And in your nightmare where you're lost and disoriented and frantically paddling, you were probably all alone. Not here. If solitude was your hope for this race, I'm sorry. You will see nothing but canoes ahead and behind. Little red, green and white navigation lights on all the canoes and kayaks, all paddling in the same direction, all talking and singing and complaining and laughing and asking how far to the next checkpoint.
Now, there ARE things you could accidentally hit out there. Buoys, bridges, sand dredges, parked dredges, wing dikes, trees, etc.
Most of these would be visible and easily avoided under normal circumstances. Much harder to see if there is a storm or fog. For this reason, we advise everyone to get off the river in the event of storms or fog. Moron that later. Sorry, more on that later.
Fear #2
What if i miss the checkpoint in the dark?
Nearly impossible. Each checkpoint is marked with a blue flashing strobe and a large yellow flag. They are also noisy. You'll hear cars starting, people talking, boats clunking, etc. And you will see the checkpoint up ahead for 30+ minutes as you paddle toward it. Plenty of time to get your boat to that side of the river and pull in.
It is disorienting to pull in to a checkpoint at night. You've been paddling along on what looks and feels almost like a lake. It's hard to discern that the water is moving. But when you set up to land on solid ground, it suddenly seems like the water is moving very fast and it takes some mental adjusting. This is really not anything to worry about, just trying to let you be prepared for about 4 seconds of some weird river vertigo until you get your bearings. Even multi year veterans who have been to these checkpoints in the dark again and again will feel this. Again, you'll likely have the benefit of other boats landing ahead of you. And lots of time to watch a few landings as you approach. First, you identify where the ramp is. There will be people there who appear to be standing on water. That's the ramp. It is angled downstream and often nearly parallel to the shore. You will want to be near that shore, drifting alongside the ramp and as you drift past it you will then turn upstream and paddle up to the ramp. Don't worry. You did this earlier today at Lexington and at Waverly. Miami is where most paddlers land after dark. It is almost the exact ramp setup as Waverly. There will be race volunteers down at the ramp to help you land and secure your boat. Like the other ramps you've been to that day, they will ask if you're doing a touch and go or if you're going to be there more than a minute. If you're staying more than a minute, they will ask you to carry your boat up the ramp (they will help you) so the bottom of the ramp remains open for the next paddler to land. This is basic ramp operations all the way down the river.
Fear #3
How will I know where I am.
The river is marked nearly every 1-2 miles with mile markers. There is one right at the peninsula at Kaw Point if you want to get a sneak peak of what they look like the day before the race. This one says 367.5 which means 367.5 miles to mile 0 where the river enters the Mississippi. You are only paddling 340 miles of this to St. Charles.
You'll have in your possession during the race a Safety Card with important info and phone numbers. It is on waterproof paper. This should be kept in a pocket on your PFD or somewhere on your person where you can easily access it. It will have the checkpoint list and mile markers exactly as at the start of this dispatch. You will almost have this list of mile markers memorized. You will know that Miami is MM262 and so you will be watching these miles tick down as you approach.
We used to have to hunt for these mile markers with flashlights and then paddle over to try to read them in the dark. But now, good old technology has made paddling the river night or day even easier.
Jon Marble, a multi year veteran of the race and computer programmer has created the MR340 PRO Paddler app. Talk about a breakthrough. This $5 app does the work of an $800 chartplotter. There is tons of utility built in for checking in to checkpoints nearly automatically to calculating your average speed and distance to next goal. It is only available for android phones. But if you're an apple person, it's still worth buying a used android phone and just using your home wifi to download the app. It does NOT need phone service to function for navigation and speed display. It just needs the internal gps to work. So having an apple is no excuse. Buy and old samsung galaxy 3 or newer and get the app. It will be a great investment.
Here are some videos about the MR340 PRO Paddler app. Pay attention especially to the navigation features where it shows the map of the Missouri.
Jon also has an app for texting in only. This is highly recommended for you and your ground crew. It is called MR340 Check Point Texter and is FREE and available for IPHONE AND ANDROID. It doesn't do the mapping but it will format a perfect text for you with the touch of a couple buttons and send that text directly into the tracking system at RaceOwl and make everything run smoothly for our volunteers. You can text from your boat or your ground crew can do it from shore. Any phone can run this app. Download it and play around with it so you can train your ground crew.
Fear #4
The map shows the river and the wing dikes and bridges but what about the buoys and dredges and barges?
If visibility is good you will see these things. If visibility if NOT good, (storm, fog) you should get off the river. A good LED flashlight ($20) can pick out almost anything that doesn't look right. But it will be useless in rain or fog and will just shine back in your face.
Here are two great Chris Luedke videos about paddling at night and fog. Please watch both. Each are about 5 minutes.
Night Paddling: https://youtu.be/fjgkdiH6cLE?list=PLzoUC3XH8qEW1XgcPcGmrvB7USj6IrHX0
Fog: https://youtu.be/2AmKkRNg6fM?list=PLzoUC3XH8qEW1XgcPcGmrvB7USj6IrHX0
Great pictures and commentary to let you experience some of what night paddling will be like out there.
In the next dispatch we will talk more about sharing the river with barges and dredges. And we will detail the check in and check out procedures at the checkpoints.
Scott
scott@rivermiles.com
