The Race

People in the north woods where I live seem to do silly things more often than other folks. Our celebrated annual canoe race comes to mind since it just occurred and I am a big fan. Each year on the last weekend in July, a bunch of endurance athletes with weak minds gather in Grayling, Michigan at 9:00 PM and plop their canoes in the main branch of the Au Sable River for a nighttime race that lasts more than 15 hours for most competitors.

 

    ‘Plop’ is probably the wrong word. The first hint that our canoe racers have weak minds is demonstrated at the beginning of the race. At 900 PM, just as the sun is fading in the west, some fool shoots off a cannon and 150 paddlers pick up their canoes and begin running toward the river, a block or two distant. As the surging mass of paddlers with shouldered boats reach the river, pandemonium erupts when 75 canoes are thrown into a small stream and 150 racers, each determined to be first, try to climb into their slender crafts that are being carried forward on the current. Of course, some don’t make it on the first try and half a dozen boats will upset with the unlucky ones taking an early bath. It doesn’t faze them. They turn their boats upright, drain the water, and again try climbing in while those who were lucky enough to avoid the plunge take the lead in the beginning of the long race.

 

 Start of the 2013 Au Sable River Marathon

 

    The race is dubbed a marathon because it is so long. The paddlers squeeze themselves into their slender boats and begin paddling a route that takes them from Grayling, Michigan in the center of the state to Oscoda on the east coast where the river empties into Lake Huron. They say the race is 120 miles long, although no one knows for sure since there is no way to accurately measure the distance of a river that contains five large ponds and winds around scores of islands, not to mention the several hundred bends that the river takes on its generally easterly flow. The racers paddle 15 to 20 hours to reach the finish line with the fastest boats arriving around noon on Sunday morning. The race ends at 4:00 PM on Sunday when everyone is forced to stop wherever they happen to be on the race course when race officials pick up the sick and hurt who remain somewhere on the backwaters, dutifully paddling toward the finish line.

 

    Persistence, determination and a wanton disregard for pain are hallmarks for paddlers who compete and finish this race. (Most first-time racers are unable to finish). In my view, it takes an extraordinary mindset to spend a year of hard training, thousands of dollars for a racing canoe, (one that is so unstable that normal people refuse to ride in one), in order to spend a long, cold night in the dark paddling 60 stokes a minute. The paddlers in the winning boat receive the first place prize of $5,000 and the total of all prizes is $50,000 for the 150 racers making this race the richest canoe race in North America. But, the draw is not the money. The allure of this race, like others in Canada and the U.S. is the challenge of long distance paddling, a sport that began during the times when canoes were the principal means of transportation for Native Americans in the North Woods.

Carbon Fiber Racing Canoe with Headlight

 

      As the race proceeds, boats begin to space out along the course. The result is that many paddling teams spend most of the race alone, not seeing who is ahead nor who is behind. The solitude, darkness and required relentless pace take their toll on the racers but add mystique to the race for spectators. Spectators stand on a bridge in the dark with a spotlight focusing its garish beam on rippling river while thousands of dark-colored insects intersect the light’s beam. Suddenly, there is a flash of color as a dark canoe with two sweating bodies appears from the mist, each person paddling as if chased by wild Indians. They are gone in an instant and you wait for the next to appear in another flash so you can cheer them on and encourage their forbearance. It is an experience not soon forgotten.

     The kind of effort needed for this race requires shore support: paddlers eat and drink many times during the race, being handed food and drink by their ‘feeders’ who stand in knee deep water to hand supplies to them as they pass by. The best paddlers don’t stop paddling to eat or drink; they paddle with one hand while inhaling a sandwich and energy drink. Most drink gallons of liquid during the race and none stop to expel any. Losing a dozen pounds or more during the race is common and the first aid tent at the end of the race is always busy treating cases of dehydration and exhaustion.

Paddlers are Introduced During Pre-race Ceremony

 

The race is also hard on spectators. Marjorie and I arrive at the start several hours in advance to claim a seat on the riverbank. After the two-minute pandemonium of a start, the racers disappear around the first bend of the river. Spectators who wish to follow the race must now run to their vehicles and endure a traffic jam as they travel to the first of several bridges that cross the river. Since the race takes all night, spectators must travel from bridge to bridge for a fleeting glimpse of the boats as they pass under the concrete structure of a bridge and then disappear into the night. The boats don’t reappear in daylight until the following morning on the first of the five large ponds where the rising sun illuminates the sparkling perspiration on the paddler’s faces. They reach the first of five portages. Rules forbid any help from their support team; paddlers lift their boats from the water and force their cramped muscles to climb over the dam to the outflowing river, resetting the boats to begin paddling again. Those who can go no farther generally quit at one of the portages and recess to the waiting support team members.

 

     The race is a cruel event: exhilarating for the winners but exhausting for all and crushing for those who fail to complete the course in the required time. Yet the race goes on year after year. Being weak-minded helps participants forget the hardships of the race and so most racers sign up year after year for the competition. It is a hard event for the spectators as well with long periods of nighttime cold interrupted by short periods of excitement with depressingly brief glimpses of racers as they pass in the night - sort of like life, a bust for a some but a real treat for those of us simple-minded folk who forget the hard parts.

     

For more photos and video, see the web page http://www.ausablecanoemarathon.org/

 





 

 

A National Convention for Square Dancing?

 

We just spent a long weekend (Wednesday thru Sunday) on a trip to Oklahoma City for the 2013 National Square Dance Convention. The trip was an adventure: one flight three hours late, one flight missed and another cancelled provoked an unexpected overnight stay in Chicago. Arriving a day late, the adventure continued when we stepped off the airplane in Oklahoma City and sucked in 102 °F air. We put our Michigan sweaters away and bought another tube of deodorant.

Even after that adventuresome beginning, we found both Oklahoma City and the 2013 Convention a hoot. The Square Dance Convention was held in the city’s Cox Convention Center which is adjacent to Bricktown – an updated old warehouse district that had gone to ruin. The old warehouses have been converted into trendy nightspots with an array of eating and drinking establishments including the only quadricycle bar I’ve ever seen. The wheeled bar sat outside its parent tavern, apparently for those who got thirsty just thinking about leaving the downtown scene.

The quadricycle bar was a wheeled contraption with two opposing bars and the bartender in between. Patrons sat on bicycle saddles with their feet resting on pedals. After assuring that all had their drinks, the bartender suddenly announced, READY?... PEDAL. The drinkers began madly pedaling away while the bartender manned a steering wheel. The ungainly behemoth of a bar on wheels began slowing moving from the curb as the bartender steered it into a gap in oncoming traffic. It was a noisy undertaking, with the sounds of traffic muted by the hoots  and hollering from the woozy, wobbling drinkers. I was surprised at how long it took us to get to the dance from the tavern.

The dancing was a treat. Imagine an arena, a half dozen large halls and scores of smaller rooms full of gaily dressed dancers. No suits or ties here; boots and bolos, flashy shirts and skirts are the rule with only a few dressed in Sunday-go-to-meetin’ cowboy attire without something shiny. The rooms were awash in moving colors as the dancers constantly sashayed to mostly country music that escaped each room and mingled in the hallways.

Throughout the convention, dancing began each day at 10:00 AM and continued to midnight. The rooms were full of weaving, bobbing bodies as the women whirled and the men bucked to the beat, hats askew, shirtsleeves rolled up and perspiration flowing. Most of the rooms were devoted to square dancing although an impressive number of large rooms housed ballroom dancers, better known in the square dance world as round dancers. Their clothing reflected their dance style, from Latin to formal. One couple performing an elaborate waltz were formally dressed with the gent in tails and white gloves. A few rooms were devoted to contra dancing; that old formal dance where men and women line up to face each other recalling the practice of John Wayne in a cowboy movie dancing in a military uniform.

The arena housed the largest number of square dancers directed by the best callers and headed by a five piece band, The Ghost Riders. Dancing here was conducted in approximate five minute intervals; after each song the caller would retire and they would run in a new one to see if he could do any better. Some of the callers were really good singers. I especially liked the two or three who interrupted their singing with brief outbreaks of yodeling, a literal hoot. Among the most interesting callers were those Japanese who traveled from across the world to perform. An American country song sung with a Japanese accent by a slender Asian wearing a cowboy hat and jeans is something to behold. We enjoyed all the callers and live music and we spent some time watching the several hundred dancers surrounded by those of us watchers forced to the edge of the floor by exhaustion.

Even the chartered bus rides to and from the convention center were amusing. After three days the twice daily trip became so familiar that we concocted names for the bumps and dips in the road. By day three, the entire busload was in unison when flying over a bump. “Wheee,” we called out. We simple-minded folk know how to make a bus ride entertaining.

The dancing, singing, drinking and eating (did I mention bicycling) over three days did take a toll on some of us. I suspect there was a significant national upsurge in sales of Aleve and Pepto Bismal during the event. Although I taped my ankles each morning before the bus ride, I suspect it will be several days before I’m able to venture onto a dance floor again. Yahoooo!