If I was to ask you where the longest annual paddle race in the world is,

you'd probably think of places that were along, you know, the longest rivers in the world.

You know, the Amazon or the Nile or the Yellow River, Yangtzee or something, that's

somewhere epic in the biggest landscapes in the world.

But the answer is the longest annual paddle race in the world is actually in Alabama.

Yes, the state of Alabama that's, you know, known for football and being in the deep

south of the U.S. and known for a lot of other things too. But yeah, isn't that crazy? And it goes,

the race basically goes from one corner of Alabama to the opposite corner all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

And it's called the Alabama 650.

And it's 650 miles.

We've had the founder of that race, Greg Wingo, on the show before to talk about it and to promote it.

And today we are talking to John Nippers, who is a friend of mine, but also is the first person to finish that race on a paddleboard.

And why that's so cool is because there's rapids, there's rocks, there's so much to deal with.

There's lakes and boats and gators and ships even.

Once you get closer to the bay, the Mobile Bay, that is.

And it is just a heck of a feat

of adventure to do that while standing up on a paddleboard and why i'm intrigued by that is

paddleboarding is my sport of choice these days i love it uh it's equivalent to hiking on the water

it's like that kind of speed and pace and sensation. And what's neat about that

is, you know, here in Florida, it's a lot more interesting than hiking because hiking here is very

flat and sandy and hot. But the water at least is cooler. There's different animals right there.

It's just, it's amazing. And it's often only accessible by water, a lot of the things you see in the rivers here. So I was really intrigued by this. But another reason we're talking about it is this weekend, like this weekend coming up, I'm going to see John Nippers at the last paddler standing. You might remember that last year I was one of the commentators for that race.

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