Austin-based ROKA makes sports sunglasses that don’t look like sports sunglasses. Pam LeBlanc photo

I love getting familiar with Austin born and bred products, and for the last two weeks I’ve been testing sunglasses made by ROKA.

Two former swimmers from Stanford University, who later moved to Austin, started by building a better triathlon wetsuit, added other triathlon gear, and in 2016 expanded into sunglasses, too.

Two things: One, most ROKA sunglasses don’t look like sports sunglasses, which one company official aptly described to me as “a spaceship wrapped around your face.” A few models keep that sleek, wraparound look, but ROKA is probably best known for its performance aviators.

They may look like regular aviators, but they’re lighter and sweat proof. Pam LeBlanc photo

I nabbed a fleet of eyewear to test. One pair looks a lot like the Maui Jims I already own – sort of Wayfarerish and blocky. Another pair looks a lot like the Nike running glasses I’ve been wearing for paddling, a more spaceship style. My favorites, though, are the roundish, hornrimmed Oslo model, which look like street glasses but act like sports glasses.

They’re all lightweight, with soft arms that don’t over squeeze your temples even after five hours of paddling. Even sweat can’t make them slide down your nose.

Sigh, ROKA also makes these ugly shades that look like a spaceship landed on your face. Pam LeBlanc photo

ROKA sells its gear online, but has opened a pop-up shop this spring at 408 W. Second Street. (They even sell an Austin collection and a Barton collection.)

Want to go for a run with the folks from ROKA?

Every Wednesday through May, representatives from ROKA, The Trail Foundation, FitJoy and Waterloo host a free weekly run.

Meet at 6:30 p.m. for the run, followed by snacks and drinks afterward at the store. For every sunglass purchase made, ROKA will donate $10 to The Trail Foundation. Sign up at ROKA.com/atx

Team That’s What She Said selfie taken at the start of a paddle run that started at dusk and went into the night Saturday. That’s Heather Harrison, left, Pam LeBlanc, center, and Sheila Reiter, right. Sheila Reiter photo

Imagine falling down an endless spiral of darkness, where you can’t really see where you’re going.

Toss in a helping of unidentified sounds, a shovel (or hundred) full of stink, a seat that could at any time catapult you into the dark murk, and you’ve got a vague idea of what it’s like to paddle as fast as you can down a Texas river at night.

I’m training for the Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile paddle race from San Marcos to Seadrift on the Texas coast. Cutoff time to officially finish the race is 100 hours. An official finish earns you a patch. I want a patch. As a result, my team, Team That’s What She Said, took a practice run from Palmetto State Park to Gonzales on the San Marcos River Saturday night.

The Martindale Athletic Club put on a race that started at 7 p.m. We ran the same course, but started an hour and a half early so we scout three logjams before the last drop of light drained from the sky.

Lessons learned:

1. Something lurks in the depths. As we launched, I stood in hip-deep water, holding our 21-foot, three-person canoe. Something with some substance – monster catfish? eel? the creature that lived in the trash compactor from the original “Star Wars” movie? – swirled around my ankles. I kept my cool. Sort of.
2. Nobody understands the horrors of a logjam until they’ve dragged a boat over baseball field-sized flotilla of fallen logs, brush, snakes, biting ants, muck AND A DEAD AND BLOATED FERAL HOG in the waning light. My partner, the stoic Sheila Reiter, calmly and firmly told me, “Don’t put your hand there,” as we scrambled past a decaying carcass in our mission not to wreck our boat as we forged through the mess. I’m still suffering PTSD.
3. Mother Nature offers up an entirely different hit parade of sights at dusk and dark, and last night’s show included a huge owl (horned?), a beaver, armies of spiders with leg spans as big as my palm, a family of (living) pigs, turtles, blue herons and four ghostly looking white egrets that escorted us downriver in a flapping, beautiful display.
4. Sometimes it looks like the river ends. It doesn’t. It goes on forever. (Nod to Robert Earl Keen.)
5. No matter what, when everybody else sees a shooting star, I will miss it.
6. You do NOT want to lose your prescription glasses in the river, which Reiter did, or thought she did, and she cussed a lot but moved on, then looked down and by some Easter miracle (but wait, she’s Jewish) found them tucked in the side of the boat.
7. Dam portages can be freaky at night, when you hear water rushing and see rollers and whitecaps in the haze, and you have no idea what lies ahead. It’s best to sit in the center seat, paddle like a banshee when ordered to do so, and think stable thoughts.
8. Nothing beats a riverside fish fry at midnight, featuring fish caught by a fellow paddler.
9. Paddlers are nice folks.
10. I CAN PEE IN A CUP IN A MOVING CANOE!

Team That’s What She Said makes its way down the San Marcos River. Photo by Jill Ann ‘Karp’ Mulder

In today’s “This is How We Prepare for the Texas Water Safari” chronicles, Team “That’s What She Said” tackled a 25-mile race on the San Marcos River.

Team member Sheila Reiter had to detour to Houston, so her boyfriend, Jeff Wueste, filled her seat. I sat in the middle, where all I have to do is paddle ceaselessly, and Heather Harrison took her usual spot in the back, where she steered us around half submerged logs, through minefields of rocks and stumps, and into the fastest-moving water.

I chalked up more valuable lessons today, from experiencing a chaotic mass start (one boat flipped), a sprint upriver and around a buoy, to leaping off the mossy embankment of a dam. The race, put on by the Martindale Athletic Club, stretched from Staples to the gravel bar at Luling, a small portion of the 260-mile route from San Marcos to Seadrift that I’ll face during the big race in mid-June.

The chaotic start of the MAC Race from Staples to Luling. Patty Geisinger photo

My favorite moment came at the Staples Dam, where my partners yelled at me to jump down a 5-foot embankment and help maneuver our three-person canoe over the ledge. I got to leap into the water chest-deep, then scramble back into the boat as we pushed into the flow.

Not everything went right. I accidently tossed my paddle off the boat at one point (we retrieved it, but it took a few valuable minutes), I realized I need practice jumping out of the boat and dragging it over gravel (my feet got tangled in the boat’s thwarts) and I still need to work on endurance and paddle form.

But more things went right. I ate better and didn’t feel like I’d been run over by a truck at the finish. I’m improving my shove-food-in-your-mouth-as-fast-as-you-can skill. My back muscles are a little sore today, but not bad. Ibuprofen is my friend.

Count it as the best day on the river that I’ve had yet.

Pam LeBlanc helps maneuver Team That’s What She Said’s boat over Staples Dam during the MAC race on April 14. Photo by Patty Geisinger

Highlights and lowlights? Red-tailed hawks and red-eared sliders. Spiders and caterpillars on our hat brims and legs. The squealing of jack pumps around Stairtown. Clouds of gnats. Two race observers, on a bank in the middle of nowhere, who hollered out, “Is that Pam LeBlanc? I follow you on Instagram!” (What?!)

And one scary sight – a coil of barbed wire dangling into the river, right where boats cut through. I hope no one got caught on that.

We finished in less than 4 hours.

I want more!

Jeff Wueste, Pam LeBlanc and Heather Harrison paddle during yesterday’s race. Patty Geisinger photo