photo by: Contributed Photos

At left, Lawrence resident Rodger Wolfram and Overland Park resident Jeff Knox are pictured at the MR340 in 2018. At right, Wolfram and Knox compete at the MR340 in August of 2020 in their aluminum canoe.

Imagine being in a canoe on the Missouri River in the middle of the night. There’s a bit of moonlight, but it’s impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. Logs and buoys pop up and block parts of the river. There’s a splash somewhere near the canoe — an Asian carp, perhaps, but it could be something else.

There’s a sense of excitement and mystique.

Now imagine having been in this canoe for 42 hours in a row with no sleep. Subsistence has included granola bars, applesauce, beef jerky and old McDonald’s hamburgers. It’s likely impossible to imagine what one’s hands, bottom, neck and shoulders would feel like, let alone one’s mental state.

There’s a sense of pure pain.

This is the experience Rodger Wolfram, of Lawrence, and Jeff Knox, of Overland Park, have undertaken four out of the past five years in the Missouri American Water MR340.

The MR340 is a canoeing and kayaking race on the Missouri River that starts in Kansas City and ends in St. Charles, Mo. It is a 340-mile downriver race that competitors must finish within 88 hours. According to the race’s website, only two-thirds of competitors completed that task in 2018.

Last week, Wolfram and Knox finished the MR340 in 44 hours and 11 minutes, finishing in ninth place overall out of more than 350 boats and second in the men’s tandem division.

And to top it off, these University of Kansas graduates raced in an aluminum canoe.

“They say the aluminum canoe is heavier, wider. And so it’s slower than some of the other canoes and kayaks that you will see out there on that race,” Wolfram said.

Wolfram said their canoe weighs about 60 pounds, whereas some other competitors race in kayaks and canoes that can weigh as little as 20 to 30 pounds. The duo has been racing in an aluminum canoe since they first participated in 2016. Aluminum canoes are cheaper, Knox said, and it helped the men convince their wives to let them participate.

Out of the 11 aluminum canoes in this year’s race, Wolfram and Knox were the first to finish. Overall, 358 boats registered for the event.

“There’s a really good feeling in having the three top-10 finishes that we have in an aluminum boat,” Knox said, referring to two prior top-10 finishes in previous MR340 races.

Wolfram, 43, and Knox, 38, began canoeing in 2001 while participating in yearly trips with their friends. Their canoeing trips were only 6 to 8 miles, and Wolfram and Knox — who always partnered up in a two-person canoe — enjoyed making things more challenging by occasionally going upstream.

One year, Wolfram suggested to Knox that they do a competitive race, and Knox agreed. Knox didn’t realize Wolfram would find the 340-mile challenge.

The MR340 bills itself as the world’s longest nonstop river race. There are nine checkpoints along the route at which paddlers must sign in and sign out. Wolfram and Knox did sleep some their first year competing, Knox said — a total of two, maybe two and a half hours. But for the past three competitions, they didn’t sleep at all.

“This ain’t no mama’s boy float trip,” the MR340 website states. “This race promises to test your mettle from the first stroke in Kansas City to the last gasp in St. Charles.”

Wolfram said their pace this year was 7.7 miles per hour, and that the cool weather was great, but that it brought on fog that made it difficult to see at night and in the morning.

Wolfram called it rewarding to participate in something “that physically and mentally taxing.”

“When you’re finished, it’s rewarding. It’s not so much fun when you are doing it,” he said.

The MR340 takes paddlers by numerous towns but is also “incredibly scenic and isolated in some stretches, with wildlife and beautiful vistas to rival any river in North America,” the website states. “But if you’re trying to win this race, you won’t have time to enjoy any of it.”

Wolfram said there was about a 12-hour stretch on the second day of the competition when he and Knox did not see another canoe or kayak. He also said the scenery along the Missouri River “would be a lot of fun and relaxing to look at if you weren’t trying to get finished first.”

The men brought two gallons of water with them and a big bag of ice. They also packed all their food in advance, which included pizza, applesauce, granola bars, beef jerky and McDonald’s hamburgers. Knox guessed the provisions added an additional 40 pounds to their canoe.

“We definitely don’t go light,” he said. “There’s some of us at the front that just kind of go and run your body and equipment and mental state to the absolute max — that’s sort of the camp that we fall in.”

For Knox, the MR340 is a break from day-to-day life and a unique competition that challenges a person physically and mentally. He says he and Wolfram plan to continue competing in the years to come, so long as their bodies allow it.