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When Life Flips Your Canoe: Lessons Learned When We Got Our Ass Kicked Training for the MR340 · Do Hard Things™ with Siegfried Tiegs

• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Two hours into the paddle on the Missouri River training for the MR three forty, the canoe flipped.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Joe and I found ourselves in some cold water, gear floating downstream.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not long after that, buddy Joe started getting uh started to shake from the cold.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: The wind was hammering us, the current was pulling us away from shore.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't move the boat as much as we tried to kick, we were just stuck.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just watching, ultimately watching thousands of dollars worth of equipment drifting away, thinking, you know what?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let it go.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: People over possessions.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And a decision happened in a moment, but it took a long time, many years of doing hard things to be ready to make that decision.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the big lessons that the uh the river taught me.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sigfre J.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Teagues.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is Do Our Things Podcast.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in this episode, when life flips your canoe, here are six lessons when you get your ass kicked.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what you need to know going into this episode.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about a little situation that happened to me and Joe on Sunday.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So this is fresh.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna just share some lessons and some introspective thoughts.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the MR 340, the Missouri River 340, it's one of the most respected endurance races in the country.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is a 340-mile non-stop paddling race.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is kayaks, canoes.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a solo division, tandem division, and then multi-person division.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in the National Geographic Top 100 Ultimate Adventures.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's an annual event.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's been running for over 20 years now.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what uh year it is this year, uh, but I know it's over 20.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I might be way wrong, but it might be 30.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the longest nonstop paddle race in the world, and it's from Kansas City to St.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, Missouri, just outside of St.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Louis and via the Missouri River, which is a you know one of the largest rivers in the world.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's 340 miles in length.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You start on a Tuesday morning and you finish as quickly as possible.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have 88 hours to do it, and it's nonstop.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's usually set in the summertime, daytime in the summer in Missouri.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: It can be incredibly hot, you're exposed.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you got nighttime conditions where they typically run this where there's a full moon, but doesn't matter.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Heat, storms, sleep deprivation, hallucinations.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than just a canoe race.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is a test of grit, and you really learn who you are.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the pleasure of finishing it twice.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: First year solo, second year tandem.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been a little bit since I've done it.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think the last time I did it was like 2015.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been like 10, 11 years, and decided this year to give it another go.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my buddy Joe has never done it before.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got the boat.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, let's start training.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been training for this race, which is going to be the end of July.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And yesterday or this last Sunday was supposed to be just another training day.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've been training on a little creek called Perchy Creek.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're here in Columbia, Missouri.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we've we we did a race earlier to uh kick off our season.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: We got second place in our division, which is pretty cool.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sweet.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've been training on the smaller river, uh, just getting you know cadence down, getting used to the boat.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this past Sunday, we decided to get out there on the big river.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do a 25-mile uh haul from uh just past Roachport.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we put in at the Franklin Island access, and we're gonna go down to Cooper's Landing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Cooper's Landing is where we host our Do Hard Things run and ruck.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really cool place where it's known for live music, it's right there on the river, it's really, really pretty.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they got our boat ramp there.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we put in and we're gonna take out there.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So about uh 25 miles, and we were anticipating, you know, four to five hour paddle.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what was supposed to be a training day turned out to be, well, we trained all right, uh, but it turned out to be more about survival.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of it, you know, we had lost a canoe, almost lost a friend, almost lost each other, but we walked away with uh some lessons learned and some reminders.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so today we're gonna go through, you know, when life flips your canoe, which it will, hearkening to, you know, life can be kind of brutal.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, six life lessons, you know, that to help you dust yourself back off and get back up.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you what happened.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So Joe and I have been training hard for the MR340, putting in the miles, getting time in the boat, working on communication, nutrition, building rhythm, just like you would train for a marathon.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You got to put in your time, you gotta put in your quality sessions, your long distance sessions, your speed sessions, and you know, working on technique.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what serious preparation looks like.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you don't just show up on race day and figure it out.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can, but you're gonna have a much more difficult time.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you train and you sharpen and you suffer and you you learn grit and learn how to work together as a team and communicate.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like I said, we uh we were out for a 25 mile, which was gonna be our longest paddle on the big river itself, which is a you know different experience.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing dramatic, but you know, conditions matter.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as we pull up, I mean I noticed the water was going kind of swift, the wind was blowing, but it didn't seem, you know, as we were putting in like anything out of the out of the ordinary.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I like I said I've raced this river, the MR340, twice.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have been on other races, I've done other training paddles, it's been a little bit, but I understand the river.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And looking at it, it didn't strike me as kind of quick moving, but I'm like, we're gonna be okay.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: But as soon as we got in, we noticed that the conditions were a little different.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: The we couldn't feel the wind on the bank, but we could definitely feel it on the Missouri.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've never been, like there's a difference between being on a small river versus a large river.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And wind on a river, especially when it hits from the wrong angle, can be a challenge because you've got the current moving underneath of you, but if you've got a crosswind, you know, we're sitting we're sitting on a boat, and that wind blows on the side of the canoe and it just pushes the whole canoe.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then you got me and Joe on top of it, so the wind is pushing us, and so it's just it was very hard to control.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And my canoe's got a rudder on it.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got I've got uh a rudder, so in the back, this is an aftermarket thing.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you ever canoeed, you know, without a rudder, you've got to be in sync with your partner.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Put a rudder on it when we raced the uh this particular race before, just you know, I can control the rudder so Joe can just focus on, we can focus on stroke and not have to worry about being in sync to steer the boat.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it just makes it a lot easier.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got two pedals that I put my feet on to kind of control the rudder.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I could not control the boat with the wind and the current, and I knew that, oh, this is gonna be this is gonna be a tough day.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: With that being said, I knew it was gonna be tough, but also this stretch that we were on, also known for being windy.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: There's a bend in the river that that where it goes south, and the and the and it's known for having wind conditions because there's a a bluff and the wind just kind of channels through there.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: But we thought that you know, after we get through that channel, the wind you typically dies down.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It normally does.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we uh we ultimately, you know, not long into it, like we were noticing that we're having to fight.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like we were on the ocean.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of whitecapping a little bit, and the uh current was moving pretty swiftly, and we're fighting the forces of of water and uh and wind.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we were going for about two hours, and we're like, man, are we ever gonna get a reprieve?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: There were a couple times where the boat got sideways, and that's not good to be on the Missouri River sideways, but just the way the current and the wind were blowing, it was like we couldn't control the boat very well.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the with the water kind of like whitecapping, like feeling like the ocean, it was very tippy.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: My boat is not known for being a tippy boat, it's a very stable boat.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a wind cover on it, and it's one of the reasons that I chose that boat for marathon canoe racing because when you get tired, you got a tippy boat.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, chances are that you're going to flip over.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a very, very stable boat in comparison to what many people run.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it was so tippy.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: But Joe is a new partner, right?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he's lighter than my previous partner, and you know, I may have gained a few pounds myself.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the the weight distribution is a little bit different compared to what I'm used to.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe there might be some seat adjustments we need to make, but the the wind and the water, I mean, yeah, we could make some adjustments, but just the way the conditions were, we we knew that you know it was just gonna be a tough day.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge with the Missouri River is there's not easy places to uh to get to put in.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The the access in and in and out of the river is uh is pretty tough.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: After about two hours of fighting, I mean, I was looking at Joe, like, man, this isn't even fun today.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're not getting much of a break.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed my hip flexors getting really, really tired, and so was his.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: We'd almost tipped the boat a couple times.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know if I can physically do because of my hip flexors, if I can do this for another two hours, because we're looking at a four-hour paddle.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: We were already two hours in.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we decided we we were already talking about like, you know what, maybe we'll we'll get out at the next access point, which was coming up.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But just past the Roachport Bridge, there's a bridge on I-70, Interstate 70.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: We hit a really choppy point through there, and on the other side of that, we had a little bit of a reprieve, then we got back to more choppy water.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big wing dike on the right hand side, and uh the way the current was moving off that wing dike, the water was over the wing dike.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the water was up.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the water is the the wing dikes are like big rock formations that the Corps of Engineers put out there to help channel the water, uh keep it from flooding and keep the current, you know, running down the channel.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: When the water is up, it goes over top of the wing dikes.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're a little bit, they're they're much harder to see.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the water is down, you just see these big rocky formations.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we were essentially on top of it before we saw it, and we were starting to go sideways, and we're noticed, oh shoot, there's a wing dike here, and our boat was sideways.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And with the wind and the choppiness, I mean, we were doing everything we could to turn it.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: I had the rudder all the way and it just was not moving.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it was so bad that Joe was putting his paddle in the water, and I couldn't even get my paddle in the water because we were bouncing so much, I just had to hold on to the back of the boat and kind of lay back so I could get that center of gravity down to control the boat to keep it from flipping.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: We finally got turned back up and down, you know, the the river where we're supposed to be.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I told Joe, like, we this isn't this isn't good.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: We got to get off the river.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then as we were going back across the river to get to the other side, hoping for a little bit of a break, out of nowhere.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we hit a log.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like out of nowhere, we were just flipped and in the water.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the first time I have flipped this boat.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I've I've raced this boat, I've I've had a lot of experience in the Missouri River with this particular canoe.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've been on other bodies of water with this canoe.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I have never flipped this boat.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we were in, and we immediately grab onto the boat and we just hold on.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this Patagonia, like Lacey makes fun of me, a little man purse.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a little bag that goes over one shoulder.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It had my cell phone in it, it had my speaker, I had a Bose speaker because we were listening to a metronome for the beat.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to keep training with the with the the with the beat of that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Had some little snacks in there to, you know, and and that was it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, foolishly, this is where I'm getting some of my lessons learned.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did not have my cell phone in a plastic baggie.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it was not waterproof.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I immediately was like, oh, I need to keep this out of the water.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I had it up, I pulled it up and I had it up on the uh on the boat.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I got to keep this thing dry.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to struggle to keep, you know, hold on to the boat limited because I'm trying to hold this bag over my head that had my cell phone in it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just trying to scramble to keep it up and then not lose our paddles because our paddles are expensive and uh they're carbon fiber, they're nice paddles.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're just trying to grab onto the boat and initially it's like, okay, shit, here we are.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: We we just flipped the boat and we're in the water, and it was cold.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Gear was floating, we had a couple water bottles, you know, and just just the the current was pulling us, the wind was pushing, adrenaline starting to spike, and we immediately went into recovery mode.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we tried to flip the canoe back over.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And as we tried to fill, I mean, the the canoe was completely full.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: We were trying to figure out a way to bail the water, but we couldn't.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: The water was still rushing over the canoe, even when we had it flipped up.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so that was kind of futile.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: We decided, you know what, hey, let's uh let's start to push to shore.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll start to kick.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we were trying to kick and like we weren't going anywhere.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So at that point, I uh pulled out my phone, I decided to call Lacey, and I was like, Lacey, I rang her up and I'm like, look, I'm okay in the moment.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna, you know, I don't want you to freak out, but we have dumped the canoe.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are floating down the river currently.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to give you a heads up because you have my GPS.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: She had the live 6360 going, and and she's like, Well, what do you want me to do?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't know.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she remarked, that was like for her, as we talked later, like she'd never heard me say that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: I usually have contingency plans for everything where I know exactly what I'm going to do, and I can calmly tell her.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: But this time I was like, I don't know.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And internally, she started, she was like, Oh, this isn't good.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, Do you want me to call search and rescue?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, No, not yet, because I was confident that we would be able to figure this out and we didn't want to dispatch resources, be made fun of, be on the news, all the pride and ego stuff, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: But legitimately thought we were gonna be okay.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to give her a heads up just in case my phone dumped, and then you know, she could figure out our last known location if need be, maybe find the body.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty dark, but that's I didn't know what to do, but I wasn't quite like search and rescue ready.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just trying to think like, can she get down here?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, who do we call?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, I'm just gonna give you a heads up and I'll I'll let me figure it out and I'll call you back.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I hang up the phone, realizing that I probably just freaked out my wife, and I did, and not knowing what to do next, but just figure I had to do something to let her know.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm like, Joe, can I put my phone in your bag?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because he actually did have a waterproof bag.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I don't know if I can get it in there right now.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, well, I'm just gonna hold this back over my head and we'll we'll just we're gonna we'll just push the canoe.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see if we can push the canoe and kick in.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we were just kicking hard, and the the effort that we put in was not enough.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes one of the lessons learned, grit alone sometimes is not enough.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we just could not make any movement on the canoe.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was just we were just floating down the river.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: We felt like we were making a little bit of progress, but not even remotely enough.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed we started getting tired.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: We did see the Katy Trail skirts the Missouri in this section.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: The Katy Trail is a trail that goes across the state of Missouri.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like an old rails to trail.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there were some cyclists up there.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joe and I were yelling, hey, you know, we're yelling because we saw some cyclists, they couldn't hear us.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't hear us, they couldn't see us.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: In that moment, I'm like, man, we are completely alone, even though you know we're we're out here, we're near, we're near people, but they can't hear us.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a little scary.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we continued to try to figure out, you know, how we're gonna push the truck, try to put some more effort into moving the boat, and we weren't.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then Joe said, Hey, I'm getting hypothermic, I'm getting cold.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I knew I I've been cold plunging.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that thought, I mean, the water was cold, but it didn't affect me the same.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And at that moment, when Joe said that he was getting hypothermic or he was worried about that, I was like, oh shit, that was a new variable that had not crossed my mind in this moment.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that changes everything because you know, once you get cold and your body starts shutting down, your timeline for everything shortens.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he made the call to swim to shore, which was a really powerful move and it was very necessary.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: At this time, also, I had uh given him my phone to put in his bag, so my phone was with him.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So just want to note that I was sticking with the canoe for a few more minutes because I'm like, maybe I can maybe I can still pull this thing in there, just being stubborn, and he started to swim in.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just me.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I grabbed the rudder of the canoe and I'm just trying to kick in and I'm watching him, and he's making more progress than I am as I'm floating down the river.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: What I noticed was the water pushing my canoe.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was just kind of spinning the canoe in circles, going further downstream, and I'm noticing he's making progress to shore, and I am not.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I also noticed at one point that he yelled, I'm getting tired, and he stopped moving, like he stopped making effort.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, I remember, oh my gosh, this is serious now.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, I gotta drop the ego.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's no pretending, there's no minimizing the situation.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is serious.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't even call search and rescue now.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I would have told Lacey to go ahead and call search and rescue because by the time they're notified, who knows where we're gonna be or what the situation is going to be.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm floating away from my partner and he's feeling cold and he's struggling at this point in time energetically.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what I decided to do is I uh I had to decide to let the canoe go.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, as soon as I let it go, I know it's gonna be gone.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at that second, I let the boat go, the bow speaker, the any equipment that was left with it, it it was gone.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, along with that, the investment of you know, those boats are not cheap, the pride, it's all floating downriver, but it's okay because I needed to be in a position to help Joe if he went under or needed help.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so at that moment, you know, it became very clear people over possessions, people over possessions, and I need to let it go.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Boats can be replaced, but lives cannot.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the yeah, that that was a powerful thing that I had to come to grips with.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there, I'm like, okay, I had the two paddles which were carbon fiber under my arm.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: They gave me a little bit of a float, and I just started kicking toward Joe.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I was downstream from Joe, but I was also trying to call out to him to talk to him.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, I was cold, starting to get colder, but I was still okay.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was kicking and putting energy in, I mean, I was starting to get a little tired myself.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know how long we were kicking and moving, you know, try to move toward shore as much as possible.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: As I look over my shoulder, I see the canoe further and further downstream.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: I start to see a uh a wing dike coming up, which made me a little nervous because this wing dike was sticking up out of the water.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, there's so much current and power when it comes to the wing dike.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, you know what?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can get to the wing dike and crawl onto it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I noticed this part of the wing dike.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it was in the water, but some of it was underwater.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like in this outcrapping cropping that was out in the middle of the channel a little bit further, and I decided to kind of you know move toward that.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was doing that, Joe actually found a uh in front of that wing dike, he just the way the water was flowing, he was actually able to get in on this little sandy bit and uh get out to the a little bit of a sandbar.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very small section, but he was able to actually get out, and so I knew he was safe.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, I'm like, okay, well, my chance here is gonna be like trying to get on this wing dike.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So as I get close to the wing dike and grab a hold of a rock, the current is pushing me so hard because the the current is bouncing off the wing deck.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it's like the most powerful in the river.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to just get enough grip on the rock to pull myself up.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It took all of my strength to kind of crawl up and get onto this rock.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And while the water was trying to pull me back into the main channel, you know, I was taking all my strength to just heave, hoe, you know, pull, pull myself up.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to crawl up and stand on this wing deck.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my gosh, okay.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm safe.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look over, Joe's safe, so good.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're both good to go.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look over and uh I see my canoe.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a moment where I was just like angry about the situation, just pissed.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I let a few F bombs go, and I was like, I cannot believe this is happening, and had a little man fit there for a moment, knowing that I'm safe, but also like, I cannot believe this is F thing happening to me right now.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you you know, just yelling, just letting it out for a moment.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I just had a little steam off.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm like, okay, took a deep breath.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Joe's safe, I'm safe, grateful to be alive.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the boat can be replaced.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I just started having memories of all the different experiences with the boat.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like, oh man, I cannot believe this is happening, but we're okay.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're okay.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the wing dike wasn't attached to the to shore.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Joe was standing over there, and he's like, maybe you just walk through there, but but there was like a there's like a dip in the wing dike before it it it the the there's like a little bit coming out of the on the other side.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line is the water was over top of the wing dike, and the the rocks were going in as and then I tried to walk it, but as I stepped down in it, the the water was going through there so quickly, and it was.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was about waist deep, and I'm like, it's that that part is deep, and that water is running so quickly.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way that I can walk across this.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what I had to do was I had to basically jump back into the water, and it was like it was on the back side of the wing dike.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the main channel was being pushed out by the angle of the wing dike.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the part that I was in, there was like a sallow, uh shallow section.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: However, the water was pouring into it so quickly.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of current.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, maybe I can just get across there and and get to the bank.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I jump in, grabbing hold of my paddles, and I just kind of paddle my way.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that water was pushing so hard, it was almost kind of like a like a whirlpool effect.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as I got closer to shore, I mean, I was like right, I was there's like an embankment, like a 30-foot embankment.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I get close to shore and I'm like putting my feet down.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tall, but I'm like, I can't even hit the bottom of this thing.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I grab onto the shore and there was a root there, and I was able to pull myself up, but there was like no banking.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was like it was completely steep.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I finally was able to kind of grab a hold of this root, and then there was like a uh a log, and I kind of just pried myself up on it and got up to the embankment.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the embankment was like very silty, sandy.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was like, I was crawling up and it was just like sand, and it was like it was like falling kind of in on me.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to kind of scramble my way up, and then I finally got to shore, and I'm like, okay, I'm I'm safe, I'm good.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Joe was trying to get around to me.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was up on top of the embankment.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's about 30 feet up or so.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was tall.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe it wasn't maybe it was more like 25.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it was like it was a couple times taller than that than I was.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it was yeah, like three times taller, three times my height.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, he was up there.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I throw my paddles up there and I scramble up to the top, try to scramble up to the top.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was slipping and sliding, just covered in mud.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a combination of mud and silt.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I my I was wearing crocs.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: My croc well, as soon as I get to toward the top, getting ready to pull myself up, my croc falls.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And like, well, I've got to walk down the Katy Trail, which is rocky, uh, for a few miles, probably.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I need I need my croc.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I let myself go, slide back down the embankment.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I actually slid all the way in, got it, it dumped me back into the water.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: My croc was floating.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: I grabbed my croc and I had to pull myself up again and scramble out of there and then scramble all the way to the top, uh, which took a lot of energy, a lot of frustration, a lot of F bombs.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I finally get to the top.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I gave uh Joe a great big hug.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: We embraced and we're just like, you know, grateful just to be alive.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cold, spent, without a boat, pride floating down the Missouri River, but we were alive.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I gave him a big hug, two grown men, grateful to just be standing up there uh together.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, you know, we were just feeling blessed and grateful that we were here in this moment.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So call Lacey.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: She met us at Catfish Katy's, which was just a couple miles up the uh Katy Trail.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we grabbed the we we we grabbed our gear that we had and made our way to the Katy and uh started the walk of shame down the Katy Trail and just reminiscing about the moment, wondering what we're gonna do, and you know, just laughing because Lacey was gonna make fun of us, you know, watching us walk the walk of shame with our our our PDFs and our paddles covered in mud walking down the Katy Trail.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's like cyclists and runners passing us, kind of looking at us like, you know, where the hell did you guys come from?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like with a little bit of curiosity, but we were just happy to be alive.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share with you just a few things that I got wrong and a few things that went right and some overarching lessons learned.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, some of the things that that I think we got, let's go with uh some of the mistakes.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: One, overconfidence.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: My experience had ultimately become a little bit of arrogance.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is I didn't put my phone in a bag.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't take my in-reach with me, which I have an in-reach GPS device.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have things tethered in on the boat because I even told I told Joe a few times, like, we don't we don't dump the boat, like it's just not gonna happen, like it's just not an option.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it happened, and then we found ourselves, you know, because we took some shortcuts and made a little more challenging, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: There there were moments where me trying to hold that cell phone up, that that was energy that I could have used to push the boat, or it was it was just a pain in the in that moment.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we didn't have our we didn't have our paddles tethered like we like I would for race day.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were just that level of overconfidence.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I cut corners and what I say all the time to you know the complacency kills, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I had gotten complacent.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: I had gotten complacent in uh in that moment, and that's not that's not good.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: The uh number two, underestimating the uh the condition.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So wind plus current changes the entire equation, although it looked okay.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I did not do my due diligence to check the uh the the water flow, the wind, and I I just I we just went, we just jumped in and went anyway.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I was a little overconfident when it came to uh when it came to that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say this, even probably if I had looked at the conditions, we probably would have gone out anyway, if I'm really being honest.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: We did open up the race owl app and we did see other there were other paddlers that were out there on the river as well.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we weren't the only ones, but that level of overconfidence, I just didn't underestimate the conditions altogether.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, incomplete preparation.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when chaos hits, you fall to the level of of your training, not your your intentions.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that we had been new and training together and we didn't have a lot of river time in.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that we said that we would we should have done is probably practice some rollover drills and once again tying down our equipment in preparation prior to going out to the big river.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't anticipate dumping the boat, but it could happen.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in that river, when you dump a boat, it's not like a uh float trip on a smaller river.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: The current is so strong that even I've been in races where people have dumped, and even with people in sitting in canoes and kayaks that can come up next to you, it takes a lot of effort to regain control and and get the boat under control and get to shore.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have any of that support, and it was cold.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we didn't properly prepare for that.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't, we didn't drill for that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, probably a delayed respect for the situation.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I uh initially, you know, it I think I initially looked at it as an inconvenience.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe this is happening, and rather quickly it became a legit emergency.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when I initially called Lacey, I should have had her probably call for search and rescue, just in case.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because there could there could have been a chance that we may not have made it onto the bank in that particular location.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: There just happened to be a wing dike there, but there's sections of that river that I mean, there's there's nothing for a while.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: It can get really, really squirrely.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we kind of got lucky with the with the location that we were in.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if we would have called search and rescue, we could have just held onto the boat and then we wouldn't have lost the boat.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: But we had a delayed respect.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when I noticed that, oh shoot, this actually probably is an emergency.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have my phone because I gave it to Joe.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe was having some struggles.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: He may not have been able to call search and rescue.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I would have missed out on the opportunity to do that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, attachment.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think I cared about the canoe longer than maybe I should have.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: When Joe said that he was going to go swim to shore, I probably should have let go at that moment and uh went with him as opposed to holding on.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we should have made the decision that, you know what, we need to let it go and to stay closely together.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and yeah, so that was that's that's something that I wish I probably would have let go of.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what went right?
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed calm enough to think.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: We uh we were cool and collective, talking through everything.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one completely freaked out.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he had a moment of panic, but he was able to calm himself down through some of his Iron Man training.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a few moments where I just lost my temper, just throwing out some F-bombs.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Both of us were staying calm enough to uh to think.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: We uh we communicated early.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think calling Lacey to give our community uh our location was a good thing.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Probably should have let her go ahead and call search and rescue.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Joe and I both kept fighting.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Joe, especially, even when his body wanted to quit and got tired, he uh he kept he kept moving.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: We kept moving towards shore.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what went right is that we chose life over equipment.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't let the stubbornness of, you know, I'm gonna go down with the boat or I'm not letting go of the boat go and choosing to let it go was it was a good thing.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when it was all over, we stayed grateful instead of acting like tough.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote out like a blog and I put it in the MR340 website, and I was kind of reluctant at first because I wanted to share my experience and lessons learned, but I also had a feeling that you know what, I'm going to get roasted big time.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: That page has like 20,000 people on it, and nearly everyone was very supportive, had hundreds of comments and likes, and and people were even like, you know what, if you need a boat, you we we'll lend you one, you know, for the season.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the outpouring of just support in that community.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have raced in a lot of different types of racing, you know, triathlon, running, road running, you know, trail running, mountain biking, uh, gravel racing.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: All of these niche sports have like their own communities.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them can be really catty.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when I posted that, like, man, I'm gonna get roasted.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not a single person, not a single person.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was supportive, grateful that we shared our lessons, grateful that we made it out alive.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Heck, even one there was one person that even took photos of us before we dumped because she was so excited to see people out there on the river training.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got a photo of me and Joe like out on the river before we dumped, which was super cool.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, community, having a community of people, having the right partner, like having Joe as a partner, like even before we dumped, like he was very calm and collective in a few moments where we were sideways and we didn't know how it was gonna turn out.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's uh that's really, really important.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and we had a moment of, you know, at the end of this, we're like, you know what, the boat's gone.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do we want to replace it?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: How committed am I to the race?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: The hell with it, I'm not gonna do it.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then after, you know, after reading the comments, being grounded and grateful, and then do hard things fashion, it's like, we're not throwing in the towel, we're gonna figure this out.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's lessons to be learned, we're gonna share those lessons, we're gonna get back in, we're gonna finish this thing.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that level of uh dedication and just having gratitude is is really, really powerful.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, gratitude, gratitude is really, really important.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I mean, and the lessons in life, you know, life is gonna flip your canoe.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have times where in your business and your marriage and relationships and projects you're working on, your plan's gonna go sideways, your canoe's gonna get flipped, your confidence is gonna get tested, your comfort is gonna disappear, and you're gonna get your ass kicked.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in those moments where you find out, you know, who you really are.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes that does sometimes you just need to be humbled a little bit, and and that's okay.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: We lost a canoe in this moment, but the lessons that we learned from this are invaluable, and we uh we kept what matters most.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: We we live to fight another day, and I think that it's important to uh respect nature, respect adversity, choose good people to be around, prepare seriously, stay humble, hold on to the people that you love because nothing matters most than the uh the trip back home.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, people over possessions, and don't let pride and ego get the best of you because pride and ego could have gotten us killed.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so today we live to uh to fight another day.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's it for this episode of the Do Hard Things Podcast.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you listening.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if we can support you in any way, go to dohardthingscoaching.com, go to do our thingsnation.com.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: We will see you guys in the next episode.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to uh if you get any value from this, we'd love to hear from you.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, subscribe, share, and uh, we will see you in the uh in the next episode.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Keep doing hard things.