24 Hour Medford Lakes Charity Paddle-A-Thon, NJ
John Hazel was my pit crew for the General Clinton. He is from Michigan. Since he was already east for the Clinton, I invited him to paddle the 24 hour Paddleathon that Margo Pelligrino was hosting in New Jersey. The paddle started at 6:00pm and John and I set off across the small lake in his V1-Pro C2. We were going to be making big circles all night in the little lake. We went up to a buoy, turned, and came back down to a buoy, turned, and repeated that process many, many times. I tried to steer the pro boat, and we amused the other paddlers. We looked like we’d been drinking extensively before paddling as I swerved across the lake.
Eventually we changed so that John steered. I was getting sleepy and unfocused in the C2. I’d finished the General Clinton 70-Miler just 4 days before the paddleathon and I was worn down and tired. At 2:30am I was nearly falling asleep in the boat and needed to stop. I slept for a few hours in the van and by 6am John and I were discussing getting back on the water.
Being that I’d just finished the Clinton, we decided not to go back on the water. The goal of doing this paddleathon was to determine if we thought we could paddle the AuSable Canoe Marathon together. AuSable starts at 9pm at night and you paddle 120 miles through the night and into the next afternoon. Based on how well we got along in the paddleathon, we decided we’d give AuSable a go and we decided we didn’t need to push my overtiredness from the Clinton by continuing with the paddleathon. We opted for more sleep and a big breakfast instead.
Margo raised a good deal of money for her charity, there was an excellent turnout of paddlers and everyone had a great time.
It was a good night, and day.