The first kayak race is at the door and I had the chance to paddle only twice since the end of winter due to the cold weather not wanting to go away and the ice and snow being still all around. But at least there will be water in the river this year. I did this race last year but it had been shortened to 20km instead of the 30km down river paddle due to a lack of water. This year would be the full distance and with all the snow melting the level of the water would be high and the race a fast one. I remembered my time last year was a 2h20 something so I am expecting the race to take me a minimum of 3h to 3h30....
The start was by grid of three boats at the time and a grid would leave every minute or so. I was in the low numbers (in the 20ies) and then left pretty early. I was happy to be paddling because I was really cold but in the mean time I wished I could have left with my friend Ben as he is a good paddler and I would have probably pushed a little harder if I had to try to chase someone.
The first hour of the race went well with some rapids on the way. I was overtaking some boats and was counting down how many boats were left ahead. After 50min or so I remembered the bridge where we started last year. I knew by then that I should be done in no more than 2h20min more. The water was flowing very fast and in no time after that I reached the little dam. We went over it last year but this year the water level was too high so we didn't have the option and had to portage. A rescue guy helped me to get out of may boat (it was pretty deep) and off I was trotting with my boat on the shoulder to the other side of the dam. On my way down back to the water i heard a woman cheering me on screaming "go girl go!" all excited to see a girl in the front pack.
My shoulders were starting to hurt a fair bit and I was getting hungry. The only food I had were some lollies that had been drenched with the river water, pretty disgusting but I still ate them :/
After just over 2h of paddling I was starting to think that this wasn't a good idea and looking at my watch I really thought I still had over an hour to paddle. Twenty minutes later someone cheering on the side screamed to me "only 1km to go", I couldn't believe it and made them repeat that. I asked them if they were sure and started to push hard when they told me that yes they were dead sure it was only a km away.
After 2h30min I crossed the finish line. The water was so high and flowing so fast that I did about 10km more than last year in only 10min more than my time from last year. I was very happy to be done and waited then for my friend Ben to cross the line to see how much time he had put on me.
I ended up 2nd kayak 6min after my friend Ben and 6th overall...1st woman solo across the finish line.
