The sun beat down and the current was up, but 57 paddlers smacked, splashed, sliced and flailed through the Arkansas River anyway.
     Everyone who entered the fourth annual Arkansas River Canoe & Kayak Race on June 2 was well aware that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had a small-craft advisory in effect for the river below Murray Lock and Dam. “Safety is our main concern,” race director Phil Capel warned before the 44 solo and tandem canoes, kayaks and one rowboat launched from North Little Rock’s Burns Park. “I don’t care who wins the race. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
     Nobody did. The current, which had been dropping steadily all week, was fast but not turbulent at about 76,000 cubic feet per second. The Corps issues advisories at 70,000 cfs.
     With four motorboats full of trained rescue responders on patrol, Capel would have been ready had anything gone amiss. As it turned out, the fast current was a crowd-pleaser. As they unclicked sweaty flotation devices on the concrete shore in downtown North Little Rock, elated racers reported that all they’d had to do for record finish times was follow Capel’s careful instructions ... then paddle like the dickens, of course. It was a race.
     Seventeen races, if you go by the awards schedule: an eight-miler and a four-miler each with about a zillion little divisions based on length of the boat and how many people were paddling it. Lots of award divisions mean lots of headaches for the race director but also lots of people going home with bragging rights. And that’s a main intention of what has always been a family-friendly event.
     For the “serious racers” there were just two contests, and Mike Herbert of Rogers won the eightmile in 49:28 — 20 minutes after James Gould of Arkadelphia won the four-mile in 29:26.
     Bobbling on what she called “the Jell-O legs” of exertion, Little Rock resident Nadalyn Riggins declared the extra speed from the high flow “great.” Her face was flushed, and she had to squint even with her back to the sun below the Interstate 30 bridge, but “it wasn’t bad at all. There wasn’t too much wind.”
     “One time I splashed it all up in my face,” said an equally glowing Tabitha Garrett of Pocahontas.
     “It felt good, didn’t it?” Riggins said. Then she called over her tandem partner, her 15-year-old son, John Allen. Although Riggins is an experienced paddler, her son isn’t. This was their second time to float together; their 33:29 finish won the coed division for twoperson kayaks less than 17 feet long in the four-mile race.
     Riggins said it was her son’s idea to race, but he thought entering was her idea.
     “Whatever,” he said, giving her a hug.
     The Rigginses outraced a father-daughter pair, Dave and Dale Hindman of Maumelle. Ten-yearold Dale explained that they were veterans of the race, having come in “dead last” in a borrowed canoe one year but winning their four-mile kayak division the next year.
     That winning finish took just under an hour, “and they said the current was traveling four miles an hour,” Dave Hindman said. “So we came out about right.”
     The Hindmans improved their time June 2, bringing their “big party barge,” a sit-upon twoperson plastic kayak, under the bridge in 40:40.

ARMED FOR BEAR
     Capel donated proceeds from the race to Arkansas Explorer Search and Rescue Crew 393 (ESAR), whose volunteer service at races is also their training.
     He wasn’t much concerned about the safety of experienced entrants like Riggins or the dozen or so competition-hungry Venture Scouts from Russellville or Lake Ladies like Karen Kesselring of Hot Springs Village or sturdy adventurers like Nate Siria and Greg Eason of Little Rock.
     And he certainly wasn’t worried about his star attraction, three-time Olympic paddler Herbert.
     “The racers, most of them have paddled on the Mississippi River, where the flow is three times this,” Capel said. If you can float the Mississippi at Memphis, you could wrestle a bear (and the doughty Herbert actually did that once in a strange exhibition match in Oklahoma).
     But the race has always been intended as a model event to help local boaters see the Arkansas River at Little Rock as safe for fitness paddling when properly approached with safety gear and respect for small-craft advisories. He anticipated that some “fun floaters” might not be aware of how hazards typically emerge in high water.
     So his pre-race instructions were very specific:
     “The eight-milers, they’re going to want to hug the bank going upriver. Four-milers, they’re going to want to stay away from the bank,” he said. “Stay away from anything stationary because it will suck your boat under. Just about a mile above the bridges there is a sand dredger. Always stay to the far side of it. It’s sitting there stationary and there shouldn’t be any barges running to it today.
     “When you go through the bridges, those supports, don’t get close to them. You don’t want to get sucked into anything. Stay in the middle. Go through the fourth bridge, that is the finish line. Then the launching ramp is just to the left and there is an eddy there, and there will be a safety boat there in case anybody needs some help. If you do see somebody in trouble, stop and help them.”
     The only official “fun float” entrant was the event’s original director, Rob Lambert. He was drawn into the excitement and flew along despite himself, finishing the four-miler in 32:25.
     He admitted his effort wasn’t impressive compared with Gould’s finish. “He did a horizon job,” Lambert said.
     As expected, Herbert blitzed the eight-miler, slicing far ahead of the pack from the outset. He had a reason to hurry: He’d left his German shepherd, Turbo, tied to his truck back at Burns Park. “He guards my truck,” Herbert said.
     With seven world championships and a list of national titles as bulky as his huge deltoids, Herbert wasn’t much worried about high water on the Arkansas. He races “four or five times a year,” he says, but doesn’t target any particular event. Just staying fit to paddle keeps him in condition to race. He pumps iron for strength, paddles for endurance and lately has begun running 5Ks.
     Even a world-class athlete has to adjust to loss of physical resilience as he ages, but 46-year-old Herbert said kayak racing is “a pretty good sport to keep you in shape."
     “I can still do it at about the same level. You just get a lot more aches and pains as you get older, stiffness. It comes with the territory. You don’t rebound from your workouts near as easy as when you were younger,” he said. “It’s still doable, you just have to pay for it."

SARTORIAL NON-SPLENDOR
     Although some of the boats were sleek, expensive affairs, river rats aren’t much into fancy dressing, if the motley assembly for this event was any indicator.
     People wore loose shorts, Tshirts, sunglasses and hats ranging from ball caps to fancy vented full-coverage floppies with four-inch brims to cheap, pink plastic sun visors. Most hands wore fingerless gloves.
     “Life jackets,” Kesselring added emphatically. River paddlers wear them, fitted snugly.
     Dale Hindman suggested that sandals or vented shoes like Crocs are a much better option than athletic shoes. “The water splashes into the boat and socks get soggy,” she said.
     What else would she suggest for other children who’d like to start paddling with their parents?
     “If you’re training, just have fun,” she said. “And if you really want to win, just have fun.”