Introducing Runyaking
By Riley McClincha
The H2H Expedition began April 27, 2009, when I filled a small bottle with water from Horseshoe Lake and began paddling. Someday I hope to pour that bottle of water into Niagara Falls. It’s an adventure of more than 650 miles and I don’t care how many years. In the pursuit, last year I paddled more than 200 miles and ran 180 miles.
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retired in 2004 and began a new career, or so it’s beginning to seem. I make no money in it but the pay is great. It involves some running, kayaking, cycling, writing and photography, but mostly adventure is my payment. In the past five years, with a kayak, I’ve explored the four main rivers — the Cass, Shiawassee, Tittabawassee and Flint — of the Saginaw Valley, our state’s largest watershed. You could call me the Saginaw Valley Man, for nobody has explored the watershed to the degree that I have.
No sooner had I paddled out of Horseshoe Lake into the South Branch Flint River — a trickling stream — than I had to exit Swiftee and haul him over fallen trees. Nothing new about that: I’d done the same the previous four years. I’ve become quite efficient at what I call “guerrilla kayaking,” where terrain is junglelike and I travel covertly. I try to stay in the channel as much as possible, so I can’t be accused of trespassing.
I find where the rivers begin, which in most cases is a trickling stream leading out from a small lake or pond. I follow that trickle as it grows into a stream and eventually a river. I keep following it all the way to the Saginaw Bay. I’ve documented every inch of my travels with photos and journals.
After that four-year explorer apprenticeship, I’ve stepped it up a couple notches. In April 2009 I began the adventure of my lifetime. In my beat-up little boat, I plan to paddle rivers from Horseshoe Lake near Oxford to the Saginaw Bay, then keep going by means of the Great Lakes to the Horseshoe Falls of Niagara — and run back. I’m calling it the Horseshoe-to-Horseshoe Expedition. When I say “run back,” I mean that at the end of each kayak leg, point B, I will run back to point A. In the prior four years I would kayak 4- to 14-mile segments, then bike, run, or when with fellow kayakers, car pool back to the starting point. In the Horseshoe-to-Horseshoe Expedition, no wheels will be allowed and I’m doing it entirely solo. Last year every segment was a day trip. Sometime this year, I hope to be following the shoreline of Lake Erie in Canada. Day trips will likely be out of the equation. Some of the logistics I haven’t thought through yet; I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Running more than paddling will dictate each segment’s length. That will be even truer when day trips are out of the picture. I can always spend a few nights camping after kayaking, but how many back-to-back days can I run 10 miles or more?
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Photo courtesy of Riley McClincha
The one constant of my travels is my sidekick, Swiftee, a kayak that is only 9.5-feet long and fits perfectly inside my minivan.
Michigan waterway rights are not clearcut and often contested in courts. For example, there is a thing called “recreational trespassing” but only if the waterway is deemed “navigable.” So I just try to avoid being seen altogether. It helps that I only explore on weekdays; I rarely see riparian homeowners and they don’t see me. Also by runyaking only Monday through Friday, I avoid most other recreational watercraft when on main streams.
Riley McClincha with his kayak, Swiftee
I do enjoy kayaking with friends but observe more nature going solo. Obviously, without human voices, more wildlife will be seen, but also when alone I stop more often to look at plants, mosses, fungi and other realms of wildlife. Time is not as big a factor when traveling alone.
One could say I like introducing new forms of recreational running. My first attempt, drubbling (running while dribbling three basketballs), doesn’t seem, after 15 years of promoting, to be taking off. So now I’m here to introduce and promote runyaking.
There is one more reason I decided to go solo: the running restriction as the only means of getting back to point A would probably go out the window if I invited fellow travelers. I don’t need the temptation of a vehicle waiting for me at the end of segments.
I realize that in the running world there are duathons and triathlons that involve kayaking. My style, runyaking, is different in that there is no racing. It fits better in the recreational category of hiking.
Although I will always consider myself a runner first, the running legs lack the excitement of paddling legs. In my lifetime of running I’ve never seen a bald eagle fly by clutching a squirrel in its talons, or a bale of snapping turtles devouring a deer.
Paddling a waterway is comparable to hiking a trail, but using your arms. In runyaking, legs get their turn when running back to point A. With that said, I do perform my share of hiking in a watershed’s headwaters, where I must blaze my own trail. My backpack when runyaking is Swiftee, stocked with necessities. I drag my 50-pound “backpack” through the swampy floodplains and over fallen trees.
Michigan Runner - January / February 2010
I’ve been accosted by dogs when running and kayaking, but only while kayaking have I been attacked by a feral pig! Moving quietly down a river, I’ve had many close encounters with muskrats, beaver, raccoon, deer, carp and trout. We scare the begeezus out of each other; they take off in one direction and I paddle the other. s