From the Throne, With Regrets...
Back in the day, when my pals and I were paddling whitewater 7 days a week, the occasional rescue from the throes of near death was a given. There nothing -- NO thing -- scarier than seeing your partner's bright red plastic hull wedged into an undercut with a foot of gurgling water over the top of it, and your partner still in it. The scenarios run the gamut: your buddy's stuck in the 'Hole that ate the Donner Party'; your buddy hits rock instead of froth coming off a 15 foot drop; your buddy's vertical pinned and literally becomes a fan-rock.
Whatever the issue, it's time for fast action by the rest of the group. Paddle blades are churning as everyone in the pool below races back up to the highest eddy. Skirts pop, paddles are tossed, throwbags grabbed and kayaks given a last tug up onto the rocks before the boulder-hopping frenzy begins to get to your pinned friend.
"Focus" isn't the right word to describe the state of mind. It's more primitive than that. It's as if you yourself are surviving and conscious thought vacates and makes way for speed, fearlessness, and success at all costs. Really, it's not unlike racing.
That animal-like behavior, though, in those times of emergency, got me in trouble on one of the steep whitewater creeks in the Sierra. We got our guy out of the pin, then hiked over the granite back to our boats. I hadn't pulled mine up high enough. It's three rapids downstream pinned on its own, putting us all at risk again to retrieve it.
That only happened to me once. I learned from it, the importance of being deliberate with certain things. There is a time to scramble as fast as possible, it's true. But there is, I believe, a net gain in the effectiveness of the rescue -- and likely the speed -- when you're conscious, careful and deliberate with your movements. It sets the tone for the rest of the rescue, a tone of total awareness rather than just reflex. From that point on I always took the time to simply secure my gear. It never took long, it was just a matter of staying aware of what I was doing and not fully giving in to that animalistic survival mode.
Despite that lesson over a decade ago, I made a similarly stupid mistake on the Yukon this year. We didn't want to carry the extra weight of full hydration bladders for the longer first and second legs of the race. Instead, we agreed, we'd go with 100 ounce bladders and refill from the river and Lake LaBerge as we raced. The large, threaded opening on the CamelBak bladders make them very quick to refill. I'd briefly stick the opened bladder under the way, and it would surge itself full. Before I put the cap back on, I'd pour in a healthy dose of Gatorade powder from a large-mouth bottle I kept in my deck bag, cap it, give it a shake and be back to racing. It didn't take me a minute to complete the whole refill process.
This speed of getting back to paddling is where races are won and lost. When your partner is up over 200 lbs and he stops paddling to eat, medicate, or refill a bladder, your're working HARD (and using up valuable energy) to keep the tandem moving at a decent clip. In a race, even a days-long ultra, your mind is programmed to remember that 'Every Second Counts.' For that very reason, and since I hadn't seen any cattle ranches since I'd pulled into Whitehorse, I decided to go without filtering or even iodine. Over the course of 40 hours on the river, I took in no less than 12 gallons of pure, un-cut, Yukon River swill.
It took about two weeks for the microbial monsters in my guts to really start making trouble, and they timed their debut perfectly with my brother's wedding. As I stood by my bro's side as his best man, I strained to keep my sphincter clamped shut, and to take slow, deep breaths to keep from blowing chunks into the seated crowd. That was merely the start of what has been a two-week gastrointestinal nightmare... all for a few saved seconds on a race we won by over two hours. I'm a few doses into the drugs to knock it out now, but I'm not home free yet.
The Yukon hydration blunder was my proverbial 'hastily stowed kayak'. I chose race-pace reflex over what, in restrospect, is simple common sense. It was some seriously bad judgement. But no untreated water will pass by these lips again. And the irony of it, undoubtedly, is that the extra act of care in the next race will lead to a faster net finish time.
--Signing off from the porcelain throne, still down 12 pounds from normal, 'Sir Squirts-A-Lot'...
~BN~
Whatever the issue, it's time for fast action by the rest of the group. Paddle blades are churning as everyone in the pool below races back up to the highest eddy. Skirts pop, paddles are tossed, throwbags grabbed and kayaks given a last tug up onto the rocks before the boulder-hopping frenzy begins to get to your pinned friend.
"Focus" isn't the right word to describe the state of mind. It's more primitive than that. It's as if you yourself are surviving and conscious thought vacates and makes way for speed, fearlessness, and success at all costs. Really, it's not unlike racing.
That animal-like behavior, though, in those times of emergency, got me in trouble on one of the steep whitewater creeks in the Sierra. We got our guy out of the pin, then hiked over the granite back to our boats. I hadn't pulled mine up high enough. It's three rapids downstream pinned on its own, putting us all at risk again to retrieve it.
That only happened to me once. I learned from it, the importance of being deliberate with certain things. There is a time to scramble as fast as possible, it's true. But there is, I believe, a net gain in the effectiveness of the rescue -- and likely the speed -- when you're conscious, careful and deliberate with your movements. It sets the tone for the rest of the rescue, a tone of total awareness rather than just reflex. From that point on I always took the time to simply secure my gear. It never took long, it was just a matter of staying aware of what I was doing and not fully giving in to that animalistic survival mode.
Despite that lesson over a decade ago, I made a similarly stupid mistake on the Yukon this year. We didn't want to carry the extra weight of full hydration bladders for the longer first and second legs of the race. Instead, we agreed, we'd go with 100 ounce bladders and refill from the river and Lake LaBerge as we raced. The large, threaded opening on the CamelBak bladders make them very quick to refill. I'd briefly stick the opened bladder under the way, and it would surge itself full. Before I put the cap back on, I'd pour in a healthy dose of Gatorade powder from a large-mouth bottle I kept in my deck bag, cap it, give it a shake and be back to racing. It didn't take me a minute to complete the whole refill process.
This speed of getting back to paddling is where races are won and lost. When your partner is up over 200 lbs and he stops paddling to eat, medicate, or refill a bladder, your're working HARD (and using up valuable energy) to keep the tandem moving at a decent clip. In a race, even a days-long ultra, your mind is programmed to remember that 'Every Second Counts.' For that very reason, and since I hadn't seen any cattle ranches since I'd pulled into Whitehorse, I decided to go without filtering or even iodine. Over the course of 40 hours on the river, I took in no less than 12 gallons of pure, un-cut, Yukon River swill.
It took about two weeks for the microbial monsters in my guts to really start making trouble, and they timed their debut perfectly with my brother's wedding. As I stood by my bro's side as his best man, I strained to keep my sphincter clamped shut, and to take slow, deep breaths to keep from blowing chunks into the seated crowd. That was merely the start of what has been a two-week gastrointestinal nightmare... all for a few saved seconds on a race we won by over two hours. I'm a few doses into the drugs to knock it out now, but I'm not home free yet.
The Yukon hydration blunder was my proverbial 'hastily stowed kayak'. I chose race-pace reflex over what, in restrospect, is simple common sense. It was some seriously bad judgement. But no untreated water will pass by these lips again. And the irony of it, undoubtedly, is that the extra act of care in the next race will lead to a faster net finish time.
--Signing off from the porcelain throne, still down 12 pounds from normal, 'Sir Squirts-A-Lot'...
~BN~
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