Wow, this was so much fun! We had about 27 people recruited to race out at the whitewater park yesterday, and ended up with 7 heats of like 4 people each. Basically what you had to do was paddle through M wave, catch the 2nd eddy on left, touch the flag, then touch flag on right at Shutdown, touch the 3rd on left, then one last one on RR below the rock pile, and race to the end.

There were all kinds of people in the race, a whole bunch of ladies, some youngsters, handpaddlers, new and old. Thanks a ton to Eric C who was a good sport and tried out the handpaddles, he almost won, he was paddling really fast, so fast in fact that he totallly missed a flag. They should have never hid it behind that rock. ugagh!

Thankfully Jim lent me some of his wisdom at the start by telling me to tuck my grab handle inside my boat. Patrick claimed he didnt hear that advice and subsequently another racer noticed his newbie status and immediately pulled his skirt and pushed him into M wave.

There was plenty of addition carnage for the crowd, one heat alone had like 3 swimmers, but I think most of them pulled their own skirts.

During the final some crazy man came sprinting (running) down the middle of the channel at the end and tackled, pull skirt, and flipped like 3 racers. I heard mention of Beans? No one seemed to know his real name, we wondered aloud did he really like Mexican food? Was he related to Jack from the fairy tail? I guess the mystery remains.

At the end we all gathered at the tent and Jason and Sam passed out cool prizes. I got a parrot.

Thanks a ton to Jason and Sam and World Kayak, they take time off from their “real” jobs to do this and they do a great job. I get to design the course next month, so beware.

The next race is July 22nd at 6pm.

edgar