Texas Water Safari President Allen Spelce calls it the world's toughest canoe race. This year it may be even more challenging.
"This race is unique because you have the low water, portages, and the high heat," he said.
What is normally a grueling self-propelled trip down the San Marcos River to the Gulf of Mexico is now even more treacherous. Low water levels, due to the drought, and hot Texas weather have stacked the odds against race participants, but Jean-Marc Laventure thinks the 100 degree weather is fantastic.
Laventure and his team, the Abu Dhabi Camels, have been training in some pretty extreme conditions at home, in the Middle East.
"It's about 120 degrees there now, pretty high humidity," Laventure said
That makes this weekend's triple digest forecast almost sound refreshing. The Camels trained in the oceans. While they didn't have to face the spiders, snakes, and alligators they will encounter on the safari, it did present its unique challenges.
"The Lebanese guys on jet skies, which is probably the biggest danger we faced," team member James Dauman said. "We're hoping they're not on this river."
There won't be any guys on jet skis just 100 other canoes all fighting to make it to the finish.
One of those other canoes will carry Parker and Celeste Richardson in their first attempt. They're hoping to finish the race in 80 hours. They plan to take turns sleeping while the other strokes.
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Water Safari
News 8's Russell Wilde tells us why this year's Texas Water Safari could be the most challenging yet.
 
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"We like to push ourselves and see what we can do and this is just the next on our list of accomplishments we can say we did," Parker Richardson said.
The couple has modified their canoe, practiced for months, and made detailed plans for eating.
"We've just gone as far as we can with our gear and with our food and now we're just ready to paddle," Celeste Richardson said.
They have a mere 260 miles to go.
