2023 MR340 – Missouri River 340 race starts on August 1 at Kaw Point in Kansas City and will run for 340 miles nonstop across the state of Missouri to St Charles. There are 549 boats on the race roaster this year, kayaks, canoes, rowing boats, pedal drive boats and SUPs in different classes from solo to tandem to voyager and dragon boat. The race will be challenging with a low water and hot weather.
I am just packing and getting ready to start my trip to Kansas City this afternoon, probably, with a car camping stop somewhere in Nebraska, and arriving to Kaw Point on Monday afternoon. MR340 is a major event to achieve my goal for this year to return back to river racing. The first small step was the Mean Lamine race in late April. I have two more shorter race events scheduled for later this year: Middle Loupe River Challenge in Nebraska Sandhills and Chattajack 31 in Tennessee. But … first I need to survive MR340!
I am racing in Men’s SUP solo class with Starboard Waterline paddleboard, a fast touring board with my usual race number 0013. The race can be traced on the map provided by raceowl.com or with the raceowl phone app. I am also using satellite Spot device generating this map of my progress.
Here are some pictures from my last paddling and gear testing on my local paddling waters near Fort Collins, CO. During the MR340 I will be using my new iPhone 14 pro as my only photo and video camera.
