2009 South Platte River Marathon

Marek — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:31:53 +0000

2008 South Platte River Marathon – Rob Bean on St Vrain Creek preparing for the start

The South Platte River Marathon scheduled for April 25, 2009 covers 31 miles along some popular and less known, but scenic river segments. It starts on St Vrain River about 1 miles above its confluence with the South Platte and ends at Kuner. This is unofficial and unorganized race, so your are totally responsible for what are you doing on the river. The river flow looks good due to recent wet weather.

Date: April 25, 2009
Start: About 8 am at Wildcat on St Vrain – county road 19.5 (north of St Vrain Fort Power Station, take 245 Mead exit from interstate 25 and drive east to CR 19.5), see map. We can consider a staggered start (in that case the first paddler will start before 8:00).
Length: 31+ miles. 5 short portages over diversion dams – you have to portage all dams.
Shuttle. My wife Connie will help with a shuttle – we can take one extra boat and up to 3 paddlers from Kuner. So, we are not running a shuttle before the race.
Please let me know if you are going to attend.

I paddled the marathon course alone 4 years ago. It took me 4:39 in Spencer X-treme canoe with a pretty good flow of 1600cfs at Kersey. Last year I raced with Rob Bean at much lower water level (~450cfs) and took me 5:46 in Thunderbolt-x kayak. If you are familiar with the 9 mile upstream Rotten Egg race, the marathon should take you about 1 hour longer, but with much lower effort and you don’t need to paddle back to the start.

mileage	landmark
0.0	start – Wildcat on St Vrain Cr shallow river, possible strainers and fallen trees
1.2	confluence with South Platte River the most scenic part along cliffs of Wildcat Mound
6.1	Union Ditch Dam short portage on left
6.9	highway 60 east of Milliken river access: left above the bridge
9.3	Union Pacific Railroad Trestle
9.7	Godfrey Ditch Dam portage right from a channel
14.9	Lower Latham Ditch Dam normal or high water – portage left around rock dam to the old river leg (before entering the channel with steep banks leading to dam gates) low water – portage at the end of channel between gates (steep, maybe dangerous at high water)
16.7	Evans Riverside Park river access on left shore
18.7	Patterson Ditch Dam portage right over the dam
21.2	Plumb Ditch Dam portage left
25.8	highway 37 – Kersey river access – left below or under the bridge
31.3	finish – Kuner – county road 61 land before the bridge on left (different from the last year!)
31.5	Empire Ditch Dam you paddled too far!

2005 South Platte River Marathon – Marek and Dax preparing for the start on the shore of St Vrain Creek

2009 Rotten Egg Race – Results, Pictures, Handicap System

Marek — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:56:15 +0000

The 3rd Rotten Egg Race on March 22, 2009 gathered only two paddlers, Rob Bean and me, but we had a very intense fun and a great day on the river. We raced 9 miles upstream on the South Platte River from Kersey to Evans Riverside Park to meet the joint paddling club downriver trip.

Rob started at 7:08. I followed him 7 minutes later. We paddled the same boats as last year: Spencer X-treme canoe and Thunderbolt-X kayak. However, Rob switched from a single blade to a wing paddle and made a tremendous improvement – 45 minutes! I was a couple minutes slower than last year. We had a very low water, 317 cfs at Kersey, in comparison to 850 cfs last year.

Together with times I am also posting distance traveled by each racer (if we can believe our GPS). Certainly, water reading and choosing the course between sandbars and river legs have impact on the race time. In the recent race, Rob paddled 0.5 mile shorter distance than last year and only 0.05 mile more than me.

paddler	boat	time	distance
Marek Uliasz	Thunderbolt-X kayak	3:27:34	9.30
Rob Bean	Spencer X-treme canoe, single blade	3:55:31	9.35

Records of my speed (blue) and heart rate (red) during the upstream race and the downstream relaxed cruising.

For the next year race I would like to implement a handicap system similar to one used in the San Marcos Solo race in Texas. It is based on the best time in the race course of each paddler. The slowest paddler starts first and is followed by others with delays according to their best times. For newcomers we would have to somehow estimate their expected time. Here are the best times of participants in the 2007-2009 Rotten Egg Races to be used in the handicap system.

paddler	best time	year
Marek Uliasz	3:25	2008
Eric Nyre	3:47	2008
John Murphy	3:47	2008
Rob Bean	3:56	2009

So, according to this system Rob would start first at 7:00, followed by Eric and John at 7:09, and by me at 7:31. It makes the start a little bit more complicated, but more exciting finish with all boats closer together.

If there is still water in the river, the next race will be the South Platte River Marathon on April 25, 2009, 30+ miles downriver from Wildcat on St Vrain Creek to Kuner. We can try to test the handicap system there.

During the race I had my Pentax Optio W30 camera mounted on a kayak front deck with the sticky pod and set in an interval mode to shoot every 30 seconds. I collected 480 pictures which will be used for animated movie similar to those from the 2008 Wyoming Outback Challenge or 2007 Colorado River Race. Right now, just 7 selected snapshots below with some comments from the race course.

07:48. Passing Rob after 33 minutes of paddling. He started 7 minutes before me. Sun is still not showing over the river. ~40F

08:53. Approaching the Plumb Ditch Dam. Nice, sunny and warm.

08:56. Above the Plumb Ditch Dam. At least the low water makes portages easier.

09:54. Next portage – the Patterson Ditch Dam. It is getting a little too hot.

10:41. Finishing at Evans Riverside Park. ~70F?

10:47. Nearly 60 boats are launching for a downriver trip to Kersey and Kuner.

11:05. Rob finishing his race.

Related posts:

fitness paddling » South Platte

2009 South Platte River Marathon

2009 Rotten Egg Race – Results, Pictures, Handicap System