Brothers Pat and Tim Turner thought they did everything they could to physically prepare themselves to race 715 kilometres in a canoe on the Yukon River and finish in 2 1/2 days.
The two former Olympic rowers stood up to the test in their first Yukon River Quest, finishing third in the C2 category and sixth overall, but not without paying a sickening price.
A third of the way into a torturous 25-hour run to the finish in Dawson City, Tim Turner's stomach began to protest the mix of potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, fruit and energy gels and bars he was feeding it. As a result, the Turners' halfway point race lead slipped away.
"We had some energy issues on Day 2 that were probably a reflection of not enough (food and water intake) on Day 1, which was hotter," said Pat Turner. "You get behind a point and start to vomit and my brother ended up pretty sick about a third of the way into Day 2, after Carcross. He just got so weak from the vomiting. Your energy output just drops right off when you're not all there. Letting that happen was probably the biggest disappointment."
Racing under the team name, Cache Flash, the Turner brothers finished in 48 hours 36 minutes 51 seconds. Finding the most direct route posed a challenge, especially when fatigue started to affect the sleep-deprived paddlers. The Turners followed closely behind Perfect Storm canoe team of Jeff Brainard and Gaetan Plourde of Ontario, the defending C2 champions, who had a combined 14 years of Yukon River Quest experience.
After 20 hours of paddling the first day, the Turners led the race by two minutes when they pulled into the mandatory seven-hour rest stop for a sleep break at Carcross. But on Day 2, once Tim began to struggle, the Turners lost sight of the leaders. Perfect Storm went on to win the race Friday night in 46:14:56, the first C2 team ever to claim the overall title.
"Experience plays into it quite a bit, knowing what's next and how to manage your energy intake (food intake) and and hydration is absolutely crucial," said Pat Turner.
Kept wake by caffeine pills and occasional sips of tea passed to them at checkpoints by their sister and brother-in-law, the Turners picked up a few tips from the other teams about the best methods to keep their skin from chafing from the near-constant paddling motion. But being in a boat that long was, literally, a pain in the butt, from which there was no relief.
"Fortunately, we didn't have any major hand or bottom issues," said at Turner. "The biggest pain in the race was probably everyone's pain, their bum. Some people used those donut pillows. Twenty-plus hours without getting out of the boat is pretty unusual."
They did take a couple breaks during their 25-hour second day to try to rehydrate and take in food and there was one mandatory three-hour break at Coffee Creek, but the pain returned as soon as they got back in the canoe. Not long after Coffee Creek they met up with a voyageur canoe with eight people on board. The voyageur crew stuck close by for the final 200 km and shared their food and drink supplies to the Turners.
"They were like a guardian angel to us," said Pat Turner. "They were just an amazing group of people. They're encouragement is probably the reason we finished in the form that we did."
The 18th annual race from Whitehorse to Dawson City, almost equivalent in distance as it would be to drive from Prince George to Prince Rupert, drew a record 86 entries, including 11 solo racers who braved the river and its rapids sections on stand-up paddle boards. Amazingly, nine of the stand-up paddlers completed the entire race.
Among the many highlights of the race for the Turners was the spectacular scenery.
"The Yukon River is incredible, the 715 kilometres we paddled is only half the actual length," he said. "It goes another 800 kilometres from Dawson City to the Bering Sea. There are lots of fingers and tributaries that make the navigation very challenging.
"Because of the low water this year, the rapids were quite manageable. I think there was only one dump but we got through unscathed, barely taking on any water, but it was a very challenging part,potentially."
The weather was pretty much ideal, the best in the race's 18-year history. One 10-minute shower was all the rain the Turners saw. Mostly calm conditions made the five-hour, 50 km crossing of Lake Laberge uneventful for the paddlers. In rough weather, the lake has been known to produce boat-toppling waves.
Pat says he would be willing to race Yukon River Quest again, but he likely won't be back next year.
"I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants a big-scale adventure, he said. "It's so well-organized and you'll never regret going up to that big beautiful territory."
Turner, 52, is an emergency doctor at UHNBC in Prince George. His 55-year-old brother Tim, lives in Ivory Coast and works as a risk management officer for the African Development Bank. He returned to Africa Tuesday night.
"He was still wobbly, he'll need a week, easily, to rebuild himself, he was pretty zonked," said Pat.
