A Tale Of Two Practices

The past two practices were met with varying degrees of success. Our April 11th training run was supposed to take us 40 km (25 mi) from Ghost Dam to Bowness Park in Calgary. This is a fast moving river with currents in some places as fast as 4kph (2.5 mph) and involves a few ripples, a small step and a fun small class II wavetrain. In fact it is this little class II that made us decide to run this section - we plan to run the slipway at the Rio Vista dam along the race. Its a place where a vast majority of boats that attmpt to run, flip.

The day started off as any early April day in Southern Alberta would. A nippy -5C (23F) morning greeted us. By the time we reached Cochrane the temp had warmed up to a balmy -2C (28.5F). Donning an extra layer of leggings and a chillguard we portaged the canoe down the old washed out road, dropping about 35m (115 ft) over a distance of about 500m (1650 ft). When we put the canoe in the little bay beside the dams outlet, there was still ice on the surface of the water (due to it being standing water) and the water temperature being a fraction of a degree above freezing. As we pushed out - breaking ice like an arctic icebreaker) the sun decided to pay us a visit, and soon we reached the high of 4C (39.2F) that was being called for. Unfortunately this didn't last long. Within 8km (5mi) the temperature dropped back below freezing, the sun disappeared and the winds from the rockies was beginning to bear down on usm magnified by the river valley.

Having run every wave train, both Tyler and I were soaked. Within 5km (3.1mi) from Cochrane (the half-way point) headwinds were in around the 30kph (18.5 mph) and the temperature without windchill had dipped to -9C (15.8F), wind generated whitecaps all around us. When using a windchill calculator those conditions equate to a temperature of -19C (-2F) - severe hypothermia conditions. We decided with reason this time and pulled out in Cochrane, cold, wet without a ride and still 22km (13.5mi) short of our original goal of Calgary. Suffice it to say, we didn't finish this leg, we chalked it up to resostence training in the wind and the asked ourselves this one question: We have to go to Texas and race in there hot conditions..but how would a Texan or Belizan coming to Canada deal with our paddling conditions for a race? That's some food for thought.

Now fast forward to this past weekend. Having been shut-down early the previous run, Tyler and I decided to make this practice count. we had only done 45km (28 mi) in the previous two runs combined and we knew we were nearly 2 months behind on other teams, so we decided to make a run from Content Bridge to Drumheller - a total distance of 122km (76mi). Having never run this section of the river and having temperatures predicted to be in the 20C (68F) range, we allotted ourselves 17 hours to finish, meaning we would have to travel an average of 7.2 kph (4.4 mph), something that should be attainable on a river flowing about 1.7kph (1 mph).

Again as we woke up, had breakfast and took the 40 minute drive to the put-in we were greeted with a brisk -1C (35F), but with no cloud in the sky and no frontal movement, we knew it was going to get much warmer. Into the water at 8:30 and we were on our way, along a route that would take us from the aspen forests to the heart of the Canadian Badlands. This trip also provided us an opportunity to try out or TWS diet: Boost Meal Replacements, Nuun Electrolyte Tablets and misc. bars and jerky, the Nuun tablets proved to be key to replenish and keep us hydrated. The Red Deer River here is fairly wide, shallow and slow moving, except in a few places where the gradient steepens and the one short class II, from what I understand its similar to the Guadelupe (minus the shallowness). As we entered the Badlands we felt compelled to pull out and have a snack amongst the coulees, hoodoos and other badland terrain, and under the early spring desert sun. We also decided to rig up or lighting system for the night part of the paddle, which consisted of two 6-volt I-Beams...which without going into too much detail, failed about 4 hours after being turned on. So our night navigation was put to use - back to the drawing board on that configuration. The night wnet fairly uneventful, we paddled 95km (60km) before nightfall then another 27km (16 mi) at night. We ended up pulling into Drumheller 16 hours and 16 minutes of paddling time after we started.

Being the first long run of the season and equal to 2/7ths (28%) the Texas Water Safari, we were happy with our finishing time, but we also both recognized that we could probably shave an hour off that time with slightly more efficiency, but that is what practicing is about. I ended up sleeping about 2 hours after getting out of the boat and going to bed at 10:00PM Sunday.

Stay tuned as this is going to be a busy week, I'll not be practicing this weekend as its my Anniversary, but the weekend following we are planning a 200km (125mi) trial run.

GO TEAM CHINOOK!!!