Grew up in a very outdoorsy family and my older brother has been a a river rafting guide since he was 16. Through that work, he became best friends with some of his rafting company's other guides and they began competing in river rafting/kayaking events. They were very successful, representing the US in the World Championships in 1999 and winning US Nationals in 2001 and placing 5th in the Worlds in 2001 (a once in a lifetime trip to Zimbabwe I was lucky enough to go on). After that trip (which was crazy, having involved a near death encounter with a hippo, a near drowning, one of my family members getting thrown in a Zambian jail, trying to fly home on September 11 where we found out our country was under attack and getting stuck overseas for 8 days where my brother missed the birth of his child) the guys decided to retire (likely with prodding from their wives) so they could get on with their real careers and raising their families.
ANYWAY, fast forward 13 years and the former team captain found out the US National Championship was being held on the Cal Salmon, close to where we live. All the guys still live in the area and they decided on a whim to enter the competition as kind of their little swan song. Having not paddled together for over a decade, not being in their prime physical shape, and well, being close to their 40's, they just wanted to have fun and see where the rafting world was, competition-wise, over a decade later. All the guys started getting in shape in January and tried to fit paddling in with one guy or another as their crazy schedules allowed. Their first time all paddling together as a foursome was Friday, a day before the competition, lol.
Well, they ended up blowing away fully-sponsored, much younger teams who train year around and finished 2nd in every event and 2nd overall, by literally 1.5 seconds! As it turned out, people in the rafting world have been wondering for years where the heck they've been since disappearing from the scene after '01 and were always wondering if they would make a comeback. They couldn't believe the guys came back and did so well with their ragtag 4 month training and the crowd gave them a standing ovation at the award ceremony
Anyhow, just a very fun weekend with a lot of laughter (i.e. one of the guys' couldn't properly fit into his old wetsuit and it kept popping open, one of the young guys on another team recognizing my brother and saying he watched old VHS videos of his 1999-2001 team as part of his training when he first started competing in rafting and just the hilarity of these old farts getting back into the competition against a bunch of young guys). Just wanted to share because it was pretty cool to watch these 4 best buddies get back together, this time being watched by their 11 kids, and teach the young college guys a few things about rafting.
Here's a link to the story in the local newspaper.
'Dads with jobs' regroup to run the river | MailTribune.com