Alright.
I've been analyzing the official time for the race and I think that an explanation is fairly clear in the first two check points.
Manhattan to Wamego: 19 miles in 3 hours, 45 min. = 5.5 mph
Wamego to Maple Hill: 21 miles in 5 hours, 30 min. = 3.8 mph
From here on, the times just hovered around 4 mph. So slow compared to our training and the first 20 miles. The reason for this is pretty simple: no water.
Let me explain.
The Kansas river is a fairly wide, sandy river. It drains the eastern side of Kansas eventually emptying into the Missouri River at Kansas City. Like most of the central part of the U.S. there have been extremely high temperatures and little rain in that part of the country. As a result, the Kansas has become very shallow. There is current, but in many places it is ankle deep across almost all of the bed. The Learning Curve needs a bit more water than that.
Now this is not to say that there isn't a channel. I was able to find and follow the channel through the first part of the race pretty well. Unfortunately, after Wamego it was dark. I can read large features in the dark, but the subtleties of the Kansas were beyond me. I can't read what I can't see. What it boiled down to is that I couldn't make the crossovers. Let me explain.
The channel of a river flows in a meander within the banks of the river. Water may be all the way across, and it might even be deep, but the majority current has it's own path. For example, in a curve, the flow goes to the outside. This is why the outside of a curve has a steep bank while the inside is typically shallow. However, you can't just stay to the outside and be good. The channel will cross the river at points and you have to follow along. As long as you hold the channel, you can get good speed and you will gain from the river... a sort of teamwork where you paddle and ride the current.
Now, when the crossover is hard to find, you end up grounding out on the bottom and looking for the channel. How? Well, I got out of the boat and walked around until I got to water about knee deep. Mid -calf would float us, but knee meant there was good flow. A few times I slipped down through the sand or off the edge and went up to my hip, but mostly it worked out. It is, however, no way to be fast.
The problem with this system is that you stop and get out of the boat. This is not only slower but it breaks your momentum. It's disheartening.
Now here is some good news. I learned to see it in the day. Not always, but enough that I could tell where it was. It turns out there is a very subtle riffle on the surface where the deeper water is going by the shallows, and I learned to see that. It wasn't as pronounced as I'm used to, but if the wind was down and the sun was not in my eyes, I could make it out at least three fifths of the time.
With all of that, it was about overcoming the difficulty.
In the end, all races are about pushing yourself across the line. It always comes down to how hard you can go. Everything else- the speed, the time, the strategy, and where you place- is a product of how hard you work. For Meers and I, I can say we were all in. I don't think we ever stopped working. There were obstacles in the river, and the hull was never meant for this, but we pushed it as hard as we could. I won't offer that as an excuse for a poor showing or make excuses to justify a long trip. The fact is, we took it across the line, and at the end of the day, that's all you can do.
We didn't win, but we will be back. I don't know if the Kawnivore will be a go or not. But, as I said, the target remains. I am determined to design and build a boat that I will use to win the MR340. As for other races, well, we will have to see.
The Learning Curve is now retired from racing and I will need to spend a lot of time with her to get her back in shape for even a gentle float. I like that I was able to build a boat, use it for trips, camping, training, and racing. She's tough, but I'm learning a lot. I will post as I get those parts done. From here on, I will go back to the design of the Velocidillo and try to keep the pace up.
Here we go.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
I went for a walk
Well, the race has been run.
In this case, it was almost literal. I will have a complete debrief on what happened out there in Kansas later, but for now I will keep it to a few choice phrases.
We finished. More than a few people didn't, and that is an accomplishment. We weren't as fast as I'd hoped, but there were complications with the river. Here are the facts:
It was a hundred degrees. The river was shallow. We worked as hard as we could. We finished the race and were not last.
This is the hardest river race I have ever tried, and while the MR 340 takes longer and left me with more lasting pain, it was easier than the Kawnivore. What happened out there tested my abilities more than any other race, period. The Leaning Curve was at her best, and is suffering from serious damage. Meers and I will at least get better. Of the hundred miles, we walked ten: canoe in tow. Many of the people I talked to were worn out, and some gave up. I have to thank every volunteer at Rivermiles and the Friends of the Kaw for their support and help along the way. Thanks to Scott for giving me a race this year, even if it wasn't my goal. Thanks and love to my support crew for putting up with me being grumpy and driven as I am in these things. Thanks to my partner, the Meers-Cat, for helping me paddle and pull that hunk of wood down an impossible river. Thanks to the good people of Kansas for the hospitality. Thanks to you, dear reader, for paying attention to an idiot and his friend while they strive for something intangible. I hope you will stay with me while I continue. And thanks to God for letting me be that idiot: able to do it, survive it, and learn to do it better.
This blog was not about the Kawnivore, so it is not over. There is a boat to build and a race to win. The target remains. Let us proceed.
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| Starting Line |
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
T Minus 2
Alright.
Everything that I can do has been done. Today is about getting my gear together and watching The Life Aquatic. I have read all the scouting reports and dispatches. I have studied the river through Google, and read all the info. I am as ready as I can be I guess.
This is a new concept for me. I usually don't like to prepare for these sporting events. I like to just go. But, and this is important, I have also never won a sporting event either. There may be a correlation. Regardless: I'm ready.
From what I can tell, this is going to be a tough go at first.
Shallow water. Little current. Hard to read. Lot's of boats. The first 20 miles will determine the line up as the pack thins to a line. I predict a lot of grounding and so on. The first checkpoint, then, will be important. Here's my plan:
No weight in the beginning. Meers and I have canoed the shallowest stream I can find and kept it going in less than a foot of water because we were light. The Curve rides on top of the water pretty well, so I will not carry any extra water and only one battery until Wamego. Once there, I will get my water jugs and extra battery. I will try not to rig anything so having it set for fast retrieval will be key.
From then on we are on our own. Won't see the crew again until the dam, but the river will be getting deeper as we go. I hope I can read it well. This race is going to have a lot to do with the ability of racers to read the river correctly. Like Cash said: muscle, guts, and luck.
I don't believe in luck, so I will have to make up for it in the other two.
The cut-off times seem to be generous, and if Meers and I keep our pace with a sense of urgency we should have a nice place toward the front. To get out front, we will have to see. There are a lot of good paddlers in this with some really nice hulls. I have a secret plan in the back of my head that we could attempt a sort of gambit: Meers and I switch places half-way through. I become the engine and I am fresh compared to him, so he gets a rest while I refresh our speed.
Not sure if that will work. As with just about everything I do, I will adapt to what comes and just keep working. One thing should remain at the front of all thought: I intend to win.
Talk to you after the race.
Everything that I can do has been done. Today is about getting my gear together and watching The Life Aquatic. I have read all the scouting reports and dispatches. I have studied the river through Google, and read all the info. I am as ready as I can be I guess.
This is a new concept for me. I usually don't like to prepare for these sporting events. I like to just go. But, and this is important, I have also never won a sporting event either. There may be a correlation. Regardless: I'm ready.
From what I can tell, this is going to be a tough go at first.
Shallow water. Little current. Hard to read. Lot's of boats. The first 20 miles will determine the line up as the pack thins to a line. I predict a lot of grounding and so on. The first checkpoint, then, will be important. Here's my plan:
No weight in the beginning. Meers and I have canoed the shallowest stream I can find and kept it going in less than a foot of water because we were light. The Curve rides on top of the water pretty well, so I will not carry any extra water and only one battery until Wamego. Once there, I will get my water jugs and extra battery. I will try not to rig anything so having it set for fast retrieval will be key.
From then on we are on our own. Won't see the crew again until the dam, but the river will be getting deeper as we go. I hope I can read it well. This race is going to have a lot to do with the ability of racers to read the river correctly. Like Cash said: muscle, guts, and luck.
I don't believe in luck, so I will have to make up for it in the other two.
The cut-off times seem to be generous, and if Meers and I keep our pace with a sense of urgency we should have a nice place toward the front. To get out front, we will have to see. There are a lot of good paddlers in this with some really nice hulls. I have a secret plan in the back of my head that we could attempt a sort of gambit: Meers and I switch places half-way through. I become the engine and I am fresh compared to him, so he gets a rest while I refresh our speed.
Not sure if that will work. As with just about everything I do, I will adapt to what comes and just keep working. One thing should remain at the front of all thought: I intend to win.
Talk to you after the race.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
T Minus 3
Race Day looms.
Last night I got the lights working and today I will get the hull's final finish done. It's brutally hot right now (well over 100 degrees in the barn), which is good. That should make the resin cure fast. I don't have any glass to repair, so it will be a quick wash, coat, and finish coat.
I am considering a few final additions, like a faster stem in the front, and moving the Chief's recliner forward. The stem would make it plow water a little less, and with the recliner moved forward, Meers would not have to paddle to the outside as much. Might ease up on his shoulders a bit.
As far as the rest, I am going to get some hydration tubing and an extra light. I want maximum forward light so I will use the constant on system from bicycles. Meers will be here Wed. night, so everything will need to be done tomorrow afternoon.
Also, I need to prepare the resupply bags.
I have designed a plan for resupply during the race. To make it easy for my crew (also known as my Mom and friend Laurel) I will pre-package the gear to be dropped. At the first stop we will pick up water and the power supplies. I will add to that some snacks, drinks, and bug repellent. From there, we will be running at dark and we will only have one other chance at resupply.
In the second stop, we will drop the power and change water. This is going to be our chance to stretch and apply medication. We will try to keep it short, but it will be our longest stop. From then on we are in the home stretch so we will be as light as possible. Probably drop all the food-type stuff and go straight water. It's possible that we will need to keep the lights and batteries, but it's hard to tell. Depends on our speed which depends on the river and the wind.
In any case, that is the plan. I still need to spend a few bucks on the supplements and some other odds and ends. Here is the link if you want to spend a little of your Friday night checking on our position. It's an old fashioned system of manual input and upload, so be patient. We intend to move fast, but you should know that seven miles per hour is fast. Follow the coverage here.
I'm off to get some work done.
More pictures and less words tomorrow.
Last night I got the lights working and today I will get the hull's final finish done. It's brutally hot right now (well over 100 degrees in the barn), which is good. That should make the resin cure fast. I don't have any glass to repair, so it will be a quick wash, coat, and finish coat.
I am considering a few final additions, like a faster stem in the front, and moving the Chief's recliner forward. The stem would make it plow water a little less, and with the recliner moved forward, Meers would not have to paddle to the outside as much. Might ease up on his shoulders a bit.
As far as the rest, I am going to get some hydration tubing and an extra light. I want maximum forward light so I will use the constant on system from bicycles. Meers will be here Wed. night, so everything will need to be done tomorrow afternoon.
Also, I need to prepare the resupply bags.
I have designed a plan for resupply during the race. To make it easy for my crew (also known as my Mom and friend Laurel) I will pre-package the gear to be dropped. At the first stop we will pick up water and the power supplies. I will add to that some snacks, drinks, and bug repellent. From there, we will be running at dark and we will only have one other chance at resupply.
In the second stop, we will drop the power and change water. This is going to be our chance to stretch and apply medication. We will try to keep it short, but it will be our longest stop. From then on we are in the home stretch so we will be as light as possible. Probably drop all the food-type stuff and go straight water. It's possible that we will need to keep the lights and batteries, but it's hard to tell. Depends on our speed which depends on the river and the wind.
In any case, that is the plan. I still need to spend a few bucks on the supplements and some other odds and ends. Here is the link if you want to spend a little of your Friday night checking on our position. It's an old fashioned system of manual input and upload, so be patient. We intend to move fast, but you should know that seven miles per hour is fast. Follow the coverage here.
I'm off to get some work done.
More pictures and less words tomorrow.
Recliner for the Chief
Let's talk design.
Any one of us could anticipate problems with design. If you were asked to design a boat for a race, you would no doubt put seats in it. But, making those seats work well could only come out of a process. The seats on the Learning Curve were a sort of inspired moment with some kydex and a thermal forming machine. They were really quite brilliant, except they didn't work.
On my very first test of the Curve, my friend Alex and I couldn't use the seats. They were too high and made the boat want to tip. So they sat in my fiend Dave's garage for a long time. Eventually, I adapted them with some lacing and they worked very well. That testing of a design is what prototyping is about, and it is the reason I want to build everything right away. I guess a quick map of the process looks like this:
1) identify problem/opportunity
2) consider solutions
3) mock it up
4) evaluate the solution and refine
5) build prototype/functional model/proof of concept
6) test
7) refine
and so on.
The drawings happen throughout, but I normally don't worry too much about styling until I know what it has to be. Once there, I can decide what it wants to look like, or what I want it to look like.
The seats in the Curve are functional, and they work really well. But in an endurance race, comfort is king. If you are going to spend fifteen hours in a seat, it is a good idea to make sure it is comfortable. So, recently (and this is after sixty miles of practice) Meers wanted a back on his seat. His back hurt from the paddling and maintaining an upright posture. Also, I noticed he couldn't stretch his legs out. I asked about that and he said he didn't feel like he was in contact with the canoe in the same way when his legs were extended. Excellent.
Now if I was to formalize this (say, for a client) I would create a brief around designing a seat for endurance racing. I would verbalize these opportunities as the objectives of the goal and probably include things like weight and material (light, water proof, maybe floating). For my own purpose, I just started sketching ideas one night while waiting for the hull to dry.
They aren't particularly detailed drawings and I didn't feel like shading was all that important. What I did was wait for Meers to come back and we talked about how they could go. Then we mocked them up and discussed the merits. Then we built something we could test.
Ugly as it was, it worked really well. What this tells me, is that I have a model to build on for future iterations. Since the Curve is not a racing boat, I am not going to keep this in place. After Kansas, I am going to disassemble it and put the thing back the way it was. But what I will gain is some valuable knowledge about what seats like this would need, and how I can integrate them into the next boat I build.
Any one of us could anticipate problems with design. If you were asked to design a boat for a race, you would no doubt put seats in it. But, making those seats work well could only come out of a process. The seats on the Learning Curve were a sort of inspired moment with some kydex and a thermal forming machine. They were really quite brilliant, except they didn't work.
On my very first test of the Curve, my friend Alex and I couldn't use the seats. They were too high and made the boat want to tip. So they sat in my fiend Dave's garage for a long time. Eventually, I adapted them with some lacing and they worked very well. That testing of a design is what prototyping is about, and it is the reason I want to build everything right away. I guess a quick map of the process looks like this:
1) identify problem/opportunity
2) consider solutions
3) mock it up
4) evaluate the solution and refine
5) build prototype/functional model/proof of concept
6) test
7) refine
and so on.
The drawings happen throughout, but I normally don't worry too much about styling until I know what it has to be. Once there, I can decide what it wants to look like, or what I want it to look like.
The seats in the Curve are functional, and they work really well. But in an endurance race, comfort is king. If you are going to spend fifteen hours in a seat, it is a good idea to make sure it is comfortable. So, recently (and this is after sixty miles of practice) Meers wanted a back on his seat. His back hurt from the paddling and maintaining an upright posture. Also, I noticed he couldn't stretch his legs out. I asked about that and he said he didn't feel like he was in contact with the canoe in the same way when his legs were extended. Excellent.
Now if I was to formalize this (say, for a client) I would create a brief around designing a seat for endurance racing. I would verbalize these opportunities as the objectives of the goal and probably include things like weight and material (light, water proof, maybe floating). For my own purpose, I just started sketching ideas one night while waiting for the hull to dry.
They aren't particularly detailed drawings and I didn't feel like shading was all that important. What I did was wait for Meers to come back and we talked about how they could go. Then we mocked them up and discussed the merits. Then we built something we could test.
Ugly as it was, it worked really well. What this tells me, is that I have a model to build on for future iterations. Since the Curve is not a racing boat, I am not going to keep this in place. After Kansas, I am going to disassemble it and put the thing back the way it was. But what I will gain is some valuable knowledge about what seats like this would need, and how I can integrate them into the next boat I build.
 |
| Meers-Cat and I staring at the barn... but you can see our personalized PFDs |
Monday, July 18, 2011
T Minus 4
Well, we are into the last few days before the race.
I am ready... mostly anyway.
This weekend Meers and I did one more fourteen mile run on the spoon: Elmore to Dahinda.
I wanted to runt the hull and test out the changes to Meers' seat and my paddle. I am running out of test runs, so hydration and food will have to be solved without a test. Anyway, here is the Baptism of the Meers-Cat:
Initially we were quite a bit faster taking around twelve minutes off our five mile time, but things changed. At the seven mile mark we were headed west under a bridge. We were ahead in our time which meant we were moving pretty fast (Joe estimates it around six-and-a-half miles an hour) and just as we passed below the bridge something was in front of us. We couldn't see with the sun in our eyes and off the water, but it didn't matter. The canoe struck something and between that and our speed Meers-cat and I went over. Meers' sandal broke and I took control of the swamped boat. We got it to the bank and took stock: no injuries, dry bags were dry, and my inflatable kneeling pad was floating away. Pretty good.
All we really had to say was, "Well it was going to happen eventually."
We caught up with my pad in the next quarter mile and finished out the run in the same time as our night run. Meers and I have put about a hundred miles of river under the Learning Curve's hull and until Saturday afternoon we had never capsized. I am not sure it's an inevitability, but I wouldn't worry about it.
Well, now I need to put the final touches on the Curve.
In the design arena, I need to solve hydration and illumination. The hull should get one more quick go over for scrapes and some quick coats of urethane. And then I will need to put together the supply packs for the support team. I am going with a system of pre-packed bags. All they will have to do is give us the correctly numbered bag and have the water jugs filled. I will put up some images for this soon.
Anyway, my next post will be a look at how we designed and built the Meers-cat recliner and then I will continue posts in the T Minus until Thursday.
Stay tuned.
I am ready... mostly anyway.
This weekend Meers and I did one more fourteen mile run on the spoon: Elmore to Dahinda.
I wanted to runt the hull and test out the changes to Meers' seat and my paddle. I am running out of test runs, so hydration and food will have to be solved without a test. Anyway, here is the Baptism of the Meers-Cat:
Initially we were quite a bit faster taking around twelve minutes off our five mile time, but things changed. At the seven mile mark we were headed west under a bridge. We were ahead in our time which meant we were moving pretty fast (Joe estimates it around six-and-a-half miles an hour) and just as we passed below the bridge something was in front of us. We couldn't see with the sun in our eyes and off the water, but it didn't matter. The canoe struck something and between that and our speed Meers-cat and I went over. Meers' sandal broke and I took control of the swamped boat. We got it to the bank and took stock: no injuries, dry bags were dry, and my inflatable kneeling pad was floating away. Pretty good.
All we really had to say was, "Well it was going to happen eventually."
We caught up with my pad in the next quarter mile and finished out the run in the same time as our night run. Meers and I have put about a hundred miles of river under the Learning Curve's hull and until Saturday afternoon we had never capsized. I am not sure it's an inevitability, but I wouldn't worry about it.
Well, now I need to put the final touches on the Curve.
In the design arena, I need to solve hydration and illumination. The hull should get one more quick go over for scrapes and some quick coats of urethane. And then I will need to put together the supply packs for the support team. I am going with a system of pre-packed bags. All they will have to do is give us the correctly numbered bag and have the water jugs filled. I will put up some images for this soon.
Anyway, my next post will be a look at how we designed and built the Meers-cat recliner and then I will continue posts in the T Minus until Thursday.
Stay tuned.
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