River Quest K-1 record holder has disappointing 2009 race

It was impossible for Brad Pennington not to be at least a little disappointed with his outcome in this year's Yukon River Quest.

By Jon Molson on June 29, 2009 at 2:09 pm

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It was impossible for Brad Pennington not to be at least a little disappointed with his outcome in this year’s Yukon River Quest.

The defending champion and current Quest record holder in the solo kayak category officially withdrew Thursday in Coffee Creek as a result of back pain and getting caught in a storm.

The Texas paddler had been battling it out for second-place with British paddler Shaun Thrower. Both Pennington and Thrower were chasing Carter Johnson, who ended up posting the top solo kayak time, finishing on Friday with a time of 44 hours and 24 minutes Johnson’s time was the third fastest overall, trailing a pair of voyageur canoes.

Pennington had high hopes coming into this 11th annual Yukon River Quest, after his record breaking mark in 2008 of 44:14.

This time around, however, he found himself fighting to stay with Johnson, who held the lead early on and built on that throughout the 740-km race from Whitehorse to Dawson.

With hopes of catching Johnson, Pennington headed out from Carmacks along with Thrower. However, just before reaching Five Finger Rapids he began fighting severe back pain. The back pain was so great that he planned to withdraw until a film crew capturing the race told him he was gaining on Carter. 

As a result, Pennington decided to tough it out and continue towards Minto Landing.

Along the way, he passed some campers, who told him he was only 30 minutes behind, which was a 10 minute gain. However, once Pennington arrived at Minto Landing he was told his time was actually an hour behind.

Knowing something was wrong as a result of the conflicting times, he decided to just make the most of it and have fun the rest of the race.

Unfortunately for him, just two hours past Fort Selkirk a downpour of freezing rain began.

Starting to become hypothermic, Pennington remembered Coffee Creek was nearby and skirted along the river’s edge, looking for the campground.

“It was scary,” he said. “I was scared, because you have to make a choice. You have to paddle as hard as you can to generate body heat to avoid going hypothermic, but you also have to slow down and scan the shoreline to try to find the tent because it’s going to be back up in the woods.

“Every time I slowed down and thought I saw it I started shivering more and more. It got harder and harder to start the engine again.”

Eventually though he found it thanks to the help of some people staying there was helped out of his canoe and eventually put under about five blankets.

He guesses he was there for around 12 hours, before feeling well enough to get back in his canoe and drift down stream towards the Kirkman Campground, which is one of the final remaining checkpoints in the River Quest.

“I think it took two and half hours to go whatever this is, 12 miles or something,” he chuckled about about how long it took to reach the Kirkman.

He said it was disappointing not being able to finish the race.

“This river it just throws you a different curve ball every year and you have to be prepared for it and I wasn’t,” he said. “There’s no one to blame but me.”

Another regret for Pennington, was how the K-1 men’s category wasn’t as competitive as he had thought it would.

Heading into this year’s race, there were three former past K-1 record holders, including Johnson. Thrower was one of the surprise dark horses.

“I wish the four K-1s would have been able to have a better race,” he said. “That would have been a lot of fun if we would have been all together. It would have been good for the spectators too.”

Pennington said he is unclear about what is future plans are relating to the Yukon River Quest, but hopes to participate again.

“There’s lots of kayak and ultra marathons, but there are none that are on a river like this and that’s what draws me back to it,” he said. “It’s so challenging. It’s a thinking man’s race, it’s like playing chess.”