We often take the time to reflect on a complete year in January as we set our intentions for the new year. I realized as I logged into my blog today it was exactly a year ago today that I wrote about my first canoe race in this blog. Joy Emshoff and I competed in the Business Class of the Zedler Mill Classic with 28 other boats. As I looked back at my blog about the race I realized that our start to the race was almost an exact duplicate to my race experience this year. For the last three years The Coffee shop in Luling has sponsored our teams in the business class race. The first year Joy Emshoff and Bob Spain took home the 1st place medal, this was Joy's first canoe race. The second year Joy Eshoff added me to the boat for my first race and this year we added Missy Odom into the bow of the boat for her first ever canoe race.
We were the 8th boat to register for the race and the race start was lined up based on our registration. We had 7 boats to the left of us as we prepared for the race start. Just like last year the start of the race was about a 100 yard sprint to the boats. We planned on picking up the boat and carrying the canoe to river right to get the boat launched in the faster and deeper water. We quickly moved the boat into place and jumped in. The boat tilted a little and took on some water.
We were squeezed between two other boats and when I looked up we had a canoe sitting sideways in the river in front of us. We were able to move toward the stern of the sideways boat and push past them on the left. As we moved by the boat the boats on either side of us pushed us forward and out of the pack. With our quick start in the faster water we quickly separated ourselves from the pack. Just like the year before there was only one other boat in front of us. We went around two corners before we caught the lead boat and passed them. About 20 minutes into the race we caught up with some of the novice paddlers who launched 10 minutes before us in the race. We approached a log jam and two novice boats were sitting sideways on the right side of the river.
At first I thought they needed to move out of our way for us to pass and then I realized there was a small cut to the left that we could take. We were two close to the log jam to hit the cut and we ended up sideways against the log jam. I quickly jumped out of the boat and pulled the stern around and we were able to move past the obstacle. The rest of the race went smooth as we efficiently turned through the many logs along the path. Our finishing time for the race was 1 hour and 15 minutes and we arrived about 3 minutes ahead of the next boat. We joked after the race that Missy now has to continue the tradition and find a novice paddler who has never raced before to put in the bow of the boat and contine the tradition of winning the Zedler Mill Classic business class for The Coffee shop in Luling, TX.
A big thank you to Caroline for sponsoring us again this year! A thank you to Joy and Bob for all of the support over the last year of paddling. I remember driving to the race last year and on the way there Bob was giving Joy and I a pep talk explaining exactly how to get a good start and how we could win the race. On the drive down this year I called Joy and she put Bob on the phone. We used the speaker phone and Bob shared with us the tips we would need to get ourselves away from the pack and have a good race. Bob has shared so much knowledge with us all and I am truly thankful to have him in my life. Joy and I have spent many hours talking on the river and sharing our life stories. Over the last three years she has helped me through many ups and downs in relationships and the one piece of advice that I always remember her saying is that it should be easy. When things are right with two people it just works and she was right. I want to thank my beautiful partner Missy for her willingness to try and new activity. Missy's sense of adventure and zest for living an active life has truly been a blessing in my life. We know that we have many more adventures and races to come and I want to thank her for jumping right in and getting her feet wet!
Last year this race was the start of many races during the 2008 season. In 2008 we competed in the Zedler Mill race (6 miles), The River Marathon (40 miles), The Barrier to Bay (20 miles), Texas Water Safari (260 miles), and the USCA Aluminum state and national races (16 miles) After about 340 miles of racing and about 500 miles of training I am excited to say that this experience has been one of the best in my life. On the river there is time to breathe, relax and connect with nature. I want to thank my 2008 paddling partner Joy Emshoff for the many miles of learning and growing together as we experienced the currents of life and we faced them head on.
We booked a room for the night and scheduled a horseback ride for that afternoon. Our wrangler for the day was named "Dutch." Dutch took us for a nice walk/trot through the ranch and told us a bit about the history of the ranch and the current struggles to keep the ranch running. The Prude Ranch is over 100 years old and has been family owned and run. With the ranch only 14 miles from the McDonald Observatory we were able to attend the star party later that night. We learned how to read a planisphere and identify the night star constellations. The next day we continued our drive on the scenic road through the Davis Mountains and turned back East on Hwy 90 taking the long way home. Hwy 90 takes you through Marfa, Alpine and Marathon and then heads toward Del Rio. By taking this route we traveled across the Amistad Reservoir and had the chance to stop in Seminole Canyon State park. Although the drive was long it was nice to see another part of the state. We made it back home before Christmas and I have spent the last two days nursing my cold trying to get better.
