A new hurt box!

This was to be the longest ever kayak race I had attempt and I was going into this under done due to my wife having a baby 6 weeks earlier. Going in to the race we believed we could go around the 10hr as we had been told if you cut corners it was only be 99km not 111km, but I not do not believe this statement. This could have been achievable but I went into a hurt box like I had never experienced. The day unfolded like this

12noon depart springwood heading for Windsor for rego and safety checks, once this was complete we had a couple of hours to chill and eat for the journey ahead, when I was looking at other boats and personnel you could see some had done it many times with bladder systems and food lay outs.
We finalised our plan to push straight through to Wiseman Ferry 64km in and then bring it home, Once the Crew the solo hunk of a man arrived (this being sleep Train) he got a de brief on gear and food, and then he started to get excited about being involved in another endurance event, this made us nervous! As he could run off into the bush and never be seen again! And Mrs Sleep Train was also very pumped and flexed her guns a few times to intimidate others surrounding our boat.

1700 geared up and carried Cyril (the Kayak) to the river removed foot wear (This foot wear would never be seen again,) forgot something sleep train?


1715 in and ready to start and there was no turning back and everyone started to eye each other off. Then we were under way. Boats and blades went everywhere and we all tried to tuck in behind each other to ride wakes.
After 30min or so everything started to settle down and the pace came off a little and next time a checked the watch we were 2hrs and chewing through the km’s, we pulled out of the train of 6 doubles for food. Out the 6 boats we would have had the youngest average age, And the old boys were giving us a lesson how to paddle. There was still plenty of rubbing and bumping as we pushed each other around.

5hr, 35min (64km)in we arrived a Wiseman ferry and the body was feeling good all things considered so sleep train met us and was bouncing off walls and he proceeded to tell us a few times we looked better than most other people through. This picked us spirits but then he went on to advise us he could not get the stew from the can and could not get the gas cooker working (this had an electric igniters?) questions were raised at this point about his bush skills, as I had been told he could start fire with wet sticks?? No problem I can cook our food!


6hr re fuelled and back in the boat and heading east, from this point is was the unknown. We started to pass boats for the hour or so as we keep good pace but then the hurt box began to open! Shoulder was stiff and the right wrist started to give out sharp pain. So out came the nurofen plus and this took the edge off, MH was also starting to have the same issues and chucked some nurofen down.

8 hrs the body continued to hurt and the rain started to fall this making the river very dark as we were not meant to use lights (also sleep train ripped ours off the front of our boat at wisemens?)


9hr 15km to go the nurofen was now not working and the wrist was like running on a broken ankle (I have done this also) Aka a knife being wedged into the moving bones, this meant I could not put power through my right wrist and was lucky to still hang on the blade. Lucky we were running with the tide home. Once finished we worked out that our rights wrist had rotated over 22000 times! No wonder!


10hr 20min We could now see the finish line we had the tide behind us but it was still so far away 3-4kms so we tried to wind it up a little, but nothing was left, then the leading K2’s went through flying, and we wished we had something to give, but then we realised they probably trained for this?


10hr 45min Complete, tried to stand but were wobbled around the boat ramp must have been a little fatigued!

3rd in open Long Rec 2 class, Thanks Sleep train for the support and enthusiasm (a couple of little thing to work on for next time)