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

I paddled around Medina Lake in a clear plastic kayak. Pam LeBlanc photo

I felt like I was floating in a water glass last week, when I paddled across Medina Lake in a clear plastic kayak.

Below me, just green-blue water, pierced by flashes of sunlight. Above me, blue sky like a water color painting.

Former Olympic kayaker Ben Kvanli had met me at the lake to show me around for another story I’m working on. While he zipped around in a tiny whitewater kayak, I paddled the two-person “glass-bottomed kayak” by myself. It’s plastic, not glass, but did remind me of the boats I rode Aquarena Springs in San Marcos as a kid.

I was hoping to get a glimpse of sea serpents and mermaids, but all I really saw was some undulating aquatic plants, rocks and deep water.

Kvanli, though, offers guided tours in the clear boats on the San Marcos River. There, participants in his 2-hour eco-tours can check out the native and endangered Texas Wild Rice, and perhaps catch a glimpse of a few turtles or fish. He also offers evening “glow” tours, during which he attaches bright LED lights beneath the boats.

“There’s a tree where herrings gather, and especially at night its very interesting,” Kvanli says. “We paddle up to them and they look like they’re glowing. It’s the best beginning.”

Kvanli says he first saw the clear boats in Hawaii. He now has 10 of them, and can take out groups of up to 20. The trips are offered at 9 a.m. or 8 p.m., when the water is the clearest. Cost is $30 per person.

Customers meet at Kvanli’s place at 602 North Interstate 35 in San Marcos to gear up. They’re driven upstream, then paddle back down the river, getting kayaking tips and information about the local habitat, history and geology along the way.

To sign up for one of Kvanli’s trips, go to https://www.airbnb.com/experiences/284623.  Come prepared to get wet; wear swimwear and river shoes, and bring water and snacks.

Sheila Reiter and I plucked these balls out of Lady Bird Lake during a paddling session on Tuesday. Pam LeBlanc photo

It turns out that canoe racing helps make Lady Bird Lake a cleaner place.

That’s because it’s become something of a game among local paddlers training for the Texas Water Safari to pick up balls – tennis, ping pong, whiffle and others – that they find while training.

If you’ve explored Lady Bird Lake, you’ve no doubt spotted a bobbing yellow tennis ball or two. Most of them are runaways from dog parks at Red Bud Isle and Vic Mathias Shores.

Plenty of paddlers fetch errant balls, but veteran canoe racer Mike Gordon got the ball officially rolling, if you will, when he began posting about his finds on the ATX Paddlers group page on FaceBook. He calls the effort his Ball Collection Quest, and he’s snagged well more than 100 orbs from Lady Bird Lake so far this year.

Here are some of the balls that Mike Gordon has fetched from the lake. Mike Gordon photo

“This is the first year I’ve made it a must-do game and priority,” Gordon says. “Most paddlers pick them up when it’s easy and they’re on training lines. But it takes a bit of crazy to make it a game.”
I like that game. Guess I’m crazy.

Others have joined in, including enthusiastic ball nabber Geoff Waters. I spotted him on Lady Bird Lake Tuesday with a boatload of balls, including five tennis balls, a soft ball, a ping pong ball and a blue kids’ ball.

“I don’t ignore other trash,” Waters says. “I also got half dozen Styrofoam cups, a similar number of plastic bottles and some miscellaneous Styrofoam chunks.”

Geoff Waters collected 33 balls in one trip, after the weekend rains. Geoff Waters photo

This after hauling in 33 balls earlier in the week, after the weekend’s torrential rains. Last week, he brought in a slightly smaller catch, plus an empty glass booze bottle. He posted a photo, noting that “maybe if the dogs quit drinking they’d be able to fetch their dang balls.”

 I scored seven tennis balls, a ping pong ball (where are they coming from?) and a random plastic ball during a training run Tuesday with Sheila Reiter. We plucked them out of the lake and I took them home for proper disposal.

If you’re out on the lake, please pick up a ball or two. The dogs can’t get ‘em all.

Chris Eddy paddles Lady Bird Lake with a four-legged friend. Photo courtesy Blipic

Sure, you can lift weights or climb a man-made wall indoors, but for most folks, the simplest form of fitness starts when you step outside.

That’s the philosophy behind the upcoming Austin Sunshine Challenge, and it makes sense to me.

Just moving around under the sun – walking, biking, gardening or going to the park – gives me a boost both mentally and physically. It’s why I spend as much time as possible paddling rivers, cycling, strolling my neighborhood and swimming.

Almost any outdoor activity scores points in the Austin Sunshine Challenge. Photo courtesy Blipic

The four-week Sunshine Challenge encourages people to open the door and leave their air-conditioned sanctums. The rest happens organically.

Teams of four will compete to earn “sunshine points,” which they can accrue by attending organized group activities like yoga sessions or Camp Gladiator classes, park visits, lake cleanups, hikes, walks or dog meetups. Teams track their standings in the Blipic app, which connects active people to cool fitness-oriented activities around Austin.

“When you spend time outdoors, magical things happen,” says Chris Eddy, founder of Blipic and creator of the challenge.

Hiking, biking and participating in fitness classes counts in the Austin Sunshine Challenge. Photo courtesy Blipic

It costs $80 per team to register. The challenge starts April 20 and goes through May 18.Tosign up, go to blipic.co/asc/.

Everyone who registers gets four weeks of class and activity access, a T-shirt or tank top, and entry into a raffle. An awards ceremony on May 18 at The Domain, co-sponsored by the American Heart Association, will include fitness events, kids’ activities, sponsor tents, lawn games, snacks and a disc jockey.

Two years ago, I ran the Bare Buns 5K race in McDade. It was breezy.

Two years ago this month, I peeled off my clothes and ran a naked 5K race, just to see what it would feel like.

It felt great.

The most awkward moment came when I initially removed my clothing. After that, it was just running as usual as I scampered over pine needle-covered hills, sandy expanses and a hay field. I wore running shoes and a straw cowboy hat, which blew off my head at one point.

RELATED: What’s it like to run a naked 5K? Fit City found out

Runners can wear whatever clothing they want (sports bras for women, for example), but most go nude except for shoes. The race typically draws about 130 runners. Afterward, everyone gathers by the swimming pool for a celebration and burger cookoff.

This year’s Bare Buns 5K Fun Run is set for 1 p.m. Saturday, April 13 at the Star Ranch Nudist Resort in McDade, a private residential community that opened in 1957 in McDade, east of Elgin.

Start of the Bare Buns 5K in McDade two years ago.

The resort is member resort of the American Association for Nude Recreation. The Bare Buns 5K is part of a series of naked races in the organization’s southwest region. Star Ranch also host the closing race in the series – the Chilly Cheeks Fun Run in October.

The chip-timed race starts at 1 p.m. Entry fee is $40 for adults, or $45 on race day. Sign up online at http://www.starranch.net. Registration fee includes a T-shirt and goodie bag. Refreshments will be available at the pool.

For more information, contact the Star Ranch office at 512-273-2257, go to http://www.starranch.net or email info@starranch.net.