Green Race was big fun!

November 6, 2005

Sunny 70 degree day, foliage in peak, hundreds of spectators,
Green River running at 100% flow, and a 5 minute race down a steep maze
with some of the most well know rapids in creeking set the stage for Saturday’s
2005 Green Race. The race has been going on for years now, but this is
my first time. You don’t just show up to the Green and expect to
race it without at least memorizing the big rapids. Rapids like Frankenstein,
Boof or Consequences, Go Left and Die, Swicks Backender, Chief, Pencil
Sharpener, Gorilla, Scream Machine, Power Slide, and then Rapid Transit.
I think that this is the first time I was able to name the Major rapids
in order! There is boogie water, Whale Tail, Elbow Basher, and more that
I don’t know the names of too. In each rapid there are multiple
moves, like in Gorilla you have to negotiate the Notch, the Platform (hopefully),
and the Speed Trap in order to run that rapid. In each rapid there are
tons of rocks to choose left or right of, over our around, drop your right
edge or left, paddle hard or rudder, boof or let the bow drop, etc. etc.
It would take hundreds or runs to really learn the course fully. It would
take me 20 runs to feel like I was ready to race it right. Well, yesterday
was my 6th time down the river. My 4th time since 1998. I haven’t
been so nervous for a race in a long time. I love to race and I love running
great stretches of whitewater, but I stress on running great stretches
of whitewater, trying to go fast, when I am not prepared. This made the
week a tough one for me. My first two runs were with Emily and Dane, so
my focus was on getting them down the river safely. Clay was the perfect
person to run with, able to make sure we never went one eddy to far and
offering great descriptions of the rapids when we didn’t scout.
I did two runs without the kids, one on Tuesday, and then the river didn’t
run until Friday. I did one run on Friday with Shane Benedict. Shane is
super fun to paddle with. I first me him in 1993 at the World Rodeo Championships,
where he got a bronze medal. He calls the Green his home river now. Stephen
Wright, Clay Wright, and I are traveling and training together on this
trip, but we got to paddle with the whole crowd on Friday.

Chris Stafford broke his Necky Blunt and needed a boat
to race on Saturday. He happened to be in the right place at the right
time as I had an extra Super Hero. He was skeptical of racing a new boat
for the first time, but was excited to try it. There were 4 Super Heroes
in the Race paddled by Clay, Stephen, Chris, and I.

Jason Hale was the main organizer, with Dixie Marie
and Christie Dobson doing timing at the finish line, and Eli Helbert starting
(before his open canoe race!). Liquid Logic ran shuttle with a big box
truck on Saturday morning. The put-in is a beautiful field that is maintained
by LL and the owner of it. It was completely full of shuttle vehicles
and racers jacked up on Red Bull. Jason thought it would be a good idea
to have a few hundred cans of Red Bull at the put-in. Well, if you have
ever seen young men (and a few women, but they have a different approach)
that are nervous and getting pumped for a race like the Green, with their
adrenaline out of control, adding Red Bull simply makes it a comedy show.
Lots of grunting, shouting, chest slamming, etc. I imagine it would be
much like a bunch of soldiers who are about to charge over a hill with
nothing but rifles and bayonets, fully expecting to destroy the enemy,
but still having that seed of doubt that they may be the one who gets
picked off as soon as they round the hill. Confident, charged up, jacked
up on Red Bull, but fully aware that they may crash and burn as well.
It brings the caveman out in young men and it is fun to watch. The ladies
are somehow a little more somber, appearing more relaxed and are willing
to admit that they are nervous. They don’t seem to have that escape
mechanism that allows them to feed off each other until all they think
about is, “fire it up!!! RAAAAAAA”. My problem is that if
I got in that frame of mind, I would hammer out of the start and blindly
charge into my own destruction, forgetting my lines and crashing. Maybe
next year.

Kristine was in charge of writing a number on each
competitors hand after our group shot at the start. She got up to 66 competitors
before the end. There may have been another 10 or so that came late and
poached it. It is a 10 minute walk to the put-in from the put-in parking
lot, down a beautiful country trail. The put-in is class 1-2 and it is
a 10 minute paddle down class 2 until it turns steep, starting at the
“Bride of Frankenstein”. I started getting dressed at 11:40
in the parking lot (where the Red Bull was flowing) and hit the trail
by myself, getting to the river at Noon. There were three or four people
putting in with me and we all paddled down the river together. I was doing
my strokes and concepts warm-up, a couple of token sprints to remind my
body that it was time to go to work, and a roll to make sure I was wide
awake. When I got to the starting line, the eddy above Frankenstein was
jammed with racers really doing the battle cry there! I got there just
in time to see Clay take off with his trademark 150 strokes/minutes for
the first 30 strokes as he disappeared into Frankenstein. There was a
one minute interval between racers. Just long enough for everyone to talk
to the boater they were jammed up against for a few seconds, and then
turn their attention to the paddler in the starting line, cheer them on
for their start, watch them round the corner, then bump around in the
eddy again. I am glad I came into the eddy with only 10 mintues before
my start time of 12:19. I synchronized my watch with Jason Hale’s
(the official watch) so that I could time myself in the race, and so I
wouldn’t stress about missing the start. I jumped out of my boat,
stretched a little (to eat up time really, you can only visualize running
Gorilla so many times in a row) and then got in with 2 minutes to go.

My Run:

I pulled into the starting blocks, and my mind went
at ease, allowing me to chat with the other competitors for a few seconds.
Once I am in the arena, and it is my turn to compete, I am on familiar
ground, and the world becomes crystal clear, no concerns about what the
proper social interaction is, no thoughts about what I should be doing,
or any distractions. It is as pure of a feeling as I can get. I am going
to kayak my way down the river as fast and clean as I can. For five minutes,
I am a motor with a mind, emotions disappear, gauges are what I focus
on (keep the boat on the target, watch for overheating, downshift into
a major move, pop the clutch and accelerate out of the drops, don’t
red line it, and keep it in the fast water).

I started off with 10 sprinting strokes to get my Super
Hero up to speed. Another 10 strokes and I was entering the little slot
that puts you in Frankenstein. My focus was already off as I fell of the
almost dry rock that defends the fast slot too far left, losing time already
I reaccelerated and made up for it with power into the crux move and nailed
it. After ducking the undercut rock at the bottom I hit the gas and realized
that I was going way to fast already and backed off. I got lost in the
boogie water and banged two rocks in a row on my side slowing the boat
down and using power to reclaim lost time again, but backed off quickly
going into Pin Cushion. I nailed that move after almost missing the slot
on the way in, but I really got off line below it, going left only to
see Elbow Basher on the right. I hooked a hard right and made the slot,
nailing it, but in a round about way, the slow way. The rest of the rapids
would be major ones and I had them pretty memorized coming fast into Boof
or Consequences and banged into the slot on purpose to slow my speed and
hook right falling perfectly into the slot and able to drive out without
fading right, where most people lose time. I had decided already that
in the next rapid, Go Left and Die, I was going right, even though left
was much faster. I drove fast into the slot and shot right through, keeping
my bow up and then driving over the dry rock sliding into the main current.
This is where people will crash and I wasn’t going to be one of
them, but I was risking losing due to taking a 3-5 second time loss for
defensive driving benefits. I came out of Go Left in good form and was
firing on all cylinders. Going into Swicks I was in the zone and nailed
it better than ever before, making up for any time lost in Go Left, keeping
my bow up and boat running felt awesome. Now it is Chief, right into Gorilla.
Chief is the most dangerous of the rapids and racing it is dicey but I
had a line I was confortable with and fast. I didn’t hesitate coming
out of Swicks and this run was close to perfect on Chief keeping in the
main current. Now my arms and lungs were telling me that perhaps I did
those last few rapids so well because I was running too hot and it was
about to enter the crazy part of the course running out of energy. I managed
to keep my boat moving through the little holes leading into Pencil Sharpener
and then hit the gas hard to get over the middle flake with speed, whew…,
Hundreds of screaming spectators were lined up on both sides of the river
yelling at me to GO go go! I did my standard, look up and acknowledge
the crowd, smile, and then turn back to the crux move in Gorrila, the
Notch, which was three strokes away. I started further right than ever
before and this would be my second time ever trying to run the Notch straight
into Gorilla without eddying out. I wasn’t driving right enough
and my boof landed me in the seam, doing completely under before popping
up against the left wall above Gorilla (15 feet above it). The left wall
is where people get hurt. The platform has a crack on the left so the
water flows into the left wall and a flake on the way down looms for anyone
over there. Either a hard peton or a hit to the head for anyone upside
down. All of this ran through my head in about 2 seconds as I used my
strongest draw stroke to pull me a foot off the left wall just in time
to hit the platform and get a left stroke in to get my bow away from the
bad stuff below. I was not in good balance or driving position so I hit
hard and off balance, but staying upright. The moment of impact you have
the shower coming on your head and my eyes are closed going about 20 miles
per hour straight into the speed trap, a make or break point in the race.
I managed to do a hard boofing sweep to keep my speed through the trap
but flipped and was slow to roll up (it seemed). I rolled up to see Tommy
Hilleke screaming at me to go go go! How cool is that. It was a testimony
to the green locals that they really enjoy the race and have a great attitude
about it. I spun myself around and kept moving into Scream Machine but
I was dead, like I promised myself I wouldn’t be. I planned on hammering
the bottom of the course, but had nothing left. I kept my boat in the
right spot in the first slide and second slide skipping across the landing
like a Super Hero does. Coming into Power Slide I tried to over compensate
for my lack of strength by hitting the curler at the top with more angle
to get over it and almost spun out, sweeping like a mad man I got it back
around, almost, and ended up skipping right into the eddy on the right,
losing precious time where I had no energy to power out of it. I did power
out the best I could but didn’t carry much Speed into Rapid Transit.
Knowing that this was my last change to be fast or lose the race, I focused
100% of my energy on hitting the curler just right and getting to the
hole at the bottom perfectly straight so I could sail through it. Bouncing
down the drop with nothing but steering strokes I hit it perfectly and
sprinted to the finish with my last hurrah. I did it, one roll, a few
goof ups, poor pacing in the middle of the course, an intentional slow
route at Go Left, but I did as good as I could with the little practice
I had and I was spent! I look at my watch and it said 5:05, and then Christie
Dobson and Dixie Marie were confirming that time to each other, so I knew
what my time was. It was my first timed run, so I had no idea what I might
get and I couldn’t have guessed. A couple of racers came through
before my lactic acid started dissipating enough for me to want to get
out of my boat.

I hiked up and saw Kristine, Emily, and Dane after
some searching. Dane was videoing the Notch, Emily was hiking around with
her friend Sanders, and Kristine was waiting for me on the rocks. The
crowd was enormous and someone was bound to slip off the rocks. I saw
Clay helping a lady who had just fallen about 12 feet into a crack with
water flowing through it. She was a little beat up, but OK. It is amazing
that so many people can hang out on the edge of the rocks at Gorilla and
nobody got bumped in, knock on wood. I got to watch about 45 racers come
through Gorilla, Scream Machine, and Powerslide. It was super fun to watch
the runs. Some of the craziest lines, swims, and phenomenal saves happened
in those 45 minutes. I saw people roll up on the platform and manage to
land upright, I saw people do so many crazy things, while just trying
to hang on at the end of the race, at the hardest part. Tommy made some
great saves with people who swam out of speed trap. The biggest crash
at Gorilla was a guy who flipped and Petonned at Pencil Sharpener and
couldn’t get it together for the Notch. He flipped going into the
Notch, rolled up backwards, going off of Gorilla, Petonned backwards flying
out of his boat on impact, and swam through Speed Trap, only to miss getting
saved by a second and swam Scream Machine. That is not a ride he would
ever want to duplicate.

Immediately following the race was a head to head show,
where as many as 8 people started at once, right below Gorilla, and raced
through Scream Machine and Powerslide. I was fresh off of my Great Falls
head to head accident, and wasn’t in the mood to battle with a bunch
of guys in the eddy, risking another high speed collision for a demonstration
event. We watched for a little bit and then it was time to head on down
the river to the takeout. The results of the race wouldn’t be announced
until the party later that evening. I felt good about my first race. It
wasn’t nearly as fast as it could be for me, but it was a respectable
first Green Race, considering my low level of runs on that river.

The Green doesn’t slow below Gorilla. First there
is “Pin Practice” which is a wheelchair move through a crack
that if the bow bounces right you are pinned, left you are clear. You
have to stiff arm a rock on the way down to keep the bow from going right.
So far I am 100% on making that move, but Shane says he stopped running
it after his first pin there. We’ll see if I end up pinned there
ever. Right after Pin Practice is Groove Tube. This is a really fun slide
into a 10’ boof, where you go under a tube of water deflecting off
of rock on the right. It is a tight squeeze to get a boat in at the right
angle and get a late boof stroke after your head is already under the
curtain of spray (the tube). Don’t relax there, because you are
quickly heading down into Sunshine. Drop your paddle, or flip and roll
late and you have an ugly experience ahead.

Results for the Green Race- Full results coming soon,
this is from memory… Sorry I don’t have printed results yet!

What I do know is that the Super Hero proved to be
the boat of choice for the short boat class and the Tornado from Prijon
was the boat of choice of the long boat class. Tommy Hilleke got a 4:32
– the fastest time ever recorded – in his trusty Tornado. Chris Gragtman
was 2nd and John Grace was 3rd – in theirs.

Short boat class: 8’6” and under

Eric Jackson- 5:05- Super Hero, 11th overall

Clay Wright- 5: 06-Super Hero, 12th overall

Chris Stafford was 3rd short boat. Shane Benedict
got a 5:28 and Stephen Wright got a 5: 29.

Long boat class- Tommy H.

🙂 EJ