Carrine was his Captain, and I assisted as shore support. What that basically means is that we met him at each checkpoint and handed him water, food, ice socks, etc... We had a detailed plan for hand-offs at each location except we did not anticipate him paddling so fast that we would miss him at the very first checkpoint! For all of you non-paddling folks (like I was just a couple of years ago!!), this means that he was without his needed water, food, etc... for over 3 hours of his paddle (think Texas heat, no water, not good!). Needless to say, he was not thrilled with us when we caught up with him at his next checkpoint.
I think the shock of us missing him threw me off my game for the rest of the day. At the last checkpoint, we handed him his food, etc.. and this was the point where I was suppose to give him his lights for the boat and his headlamp in order for him to see at night. I was apparently so frazzled that he handed them back to me and said he did not need them (since he would actually finish in the day time). This went right past me... as we were cheering and waving from the side as he paddled away, I looked down and noticed the lights were still in my hand!! I freaked out and lunged into the water screaming that I still had his lights. Well, him and all of the sane people on the shore, were yelling at me "He doesn't need them - he'll finish in daylight!!". By this time, I was thigh deep in merky water - realizing I was making a spectacle of myself, I jumped back out of the water and Carrine and I proceeded to pack up the gear and try to hit one more "surprise" place where we knew we could see Bobby, but he was not expecting us. We thought we had a lot to make up for after missing his first stop!
This turned out to be an adventure in itself. Carrine and I were so excited, nervous - we had no idea where we were going, but we set out to find White Rock Park - a little dot on a map and the last place we could see him for 5 more hours before the finish. After driving across the Colorado River (nice house, ugly monkey, Carrine), we realized we were going the wrong way. We turned around, started to cross the bridge over the CR again and noticed the #2 boat was about to go under the bridge. We were disappointed, as this meant Bobby had already been past that point, but excited because we had someone to cheer for. I threw the car into park like a crazy woman, and we proceeded to run out onto the bridge to yell for the two-man boat who was trailing Bobby. (Picture Carrine running ahead of me in flip-flops yelling back to me "This is SO dangerous" and me trying to catch up as my pants nicely slip towards my thighs (hey, I have yet to buy new clothes so some of my maternity clothes just happen to be the most comfortable! Not made for running across busy bridges, but comfortable!). At this point, we pretty much knew we missed Bobby, so we decided to call it a day and head towards the finish line. As we were heading back, however, we saw the sign for White Rock Park. We quickly turned into the neighborhood and made our way back to the park. After getting reprimanded from an off-duty police officer for pulling into the park too fast, we ran down a walking trail to wait for boats. And wait, and wait... nothing. Then, after 25 minutes, here comes a solo boat... we cheered, we yelled - Carrine did ask him how many boats were ahead of him - Two - he motioned. "One solo and one tandem" he yelled back to us. Woo hoooooo - this meant Bobby was still out in front.
Have I mentioned that Bobby has been the LEAD boat - we're talking numero uno - each time we have seen him at the checkpoints??? This was very exciting!
So... after checking into our lovely hotel in Columbus, Texas (Bobby said it was a negative 1 star, but I guess that is what you get in Columbus!), Carrine and I showered (yeah!) and headed to the finish line to hopefully see Bobby come around the corner as the first boat to finish. Close to 7:30 p.m... boat in site!! We ran up the shoreline to see if it was Bobby - we both thought it was, but we didn't want to get our hopes up (it's hard to tell when they are pretty far back). "Bobby?" Carrine yelled. No answer - crap. "Bobby?" No answer. Then finally, he raised his hand and waived to us! Woo hoo!!! We went nuts! He was the first boat to cross the finish line, first boat ever to finish this race in the daylight. To put this into perspective... 145 boats started the race. It was a staggered start meaning his group started at 7:00 a.m., the two-man (tandem) boats started at 7:10 and then the competitive class (the fast boats made for racing!) started at 9:00. Although he did not have the overall fastest time compare to the competitive class and the tandem teams, he still won his division beating 54 other solo competitors and 106 total boats which included the TWO man boats!!! Hello!!! He was faster than boats who had two people paddling! The only boat to have a faster time out of 106 boats was a tandem team and their total time was only faster by 4 minutes! Carrine and I were so happy for him - it was very exciting. I think Carrine had a total blast. We have all been to several of his races, but we agreed this was the most fun, by far! Bobby, you are a rock star! Thanks for giving us an exciting weekend!!
First one in....
Team Captain Carrine...
.jpg){kind=link}