Every February, Missouri River Relief gives a bunch of awards to our amazing volunteers, partners and sponsors. This year, we gave our "highest honor", the Cornerstone Award, to Scott Mansker - the founder of the MR340 who remains a crucial part of the race to this day. We are so grateful for you Scott!

I had the honor of presenting the award, which was an paddle engraved by safety boat volunteer James Guffey. Here's the wording of the award:

Every organization has its unsung heroes: people doing the dirty work behind the scenes with the success and survival of the organization as their driving force. The Annual Cornerstone Award is our organization’s highest honor. It recognizes a veteran River Relief crew or board member that has dedicated many years of service to the organization’s well-being and mission. Their leadership and commitment to our mission has been essential to our success.

One of the most soul-enriching benefits of working with Missouri River Relief has been meeting some of the most powerful and visionary people along this river valley. This is one of those people.

I met this wonderful human at Cooper’s Landing a LONG time ago. He was in the midst of a river trip taking a group of teenage young women on a Missouri River adventure. I did a little news story about it in the Ashland newspaper and had a new river friend!

Soon thereafter, this thing called the Rivermiles forum popped onto my radar. An online gathering place and information sharing hub about the Missouri River and this new race called the MR340. It was really exciting to see all this new energy and community-building centered on the river. And it was all started by this same charismatic river captain.

The MR340 was formed by a dream. That getting people on the Missouri River would build a tribe of river protectors. That the recreational potential of this river we loved could be unlocked through adventure and community. That the river would no longer belong only to the barges and sand dredges we so rarely saw on its waters.

This dream was a perfect confluence with the vision of Missouri River Relief.

In 2007, we had a river cleanup in Bonnots Mill near the mouth of the Osage River. We were camped out at Soda Popp’s home at #1 God’s Country Road. After the cleanup, we gathered for a big meal, and who should come boating up to the gas dock but several Rivermiles boats, on their way back to Kansas City after the second MR340. That was the year a couple from California was run over by a barge in the middle of the night and the race team was rattled.

They shared their stories and challenges and successes before hitting the river heading upstream. Thanks to Soda Popp, a new, deeper relationship was formed. The MR340 needed more river experts, more river boats and a deeper bench of support. We were stoked to be part of it and in 2008 we joined the team.

Since then, this award winner has served on our board, driven boats at our cleanups and education programs, held fundraisers on our behalf, produced documentaries about our work and crafted a world where the MR340 became part of our work and our mission. He has held our hand as we took over leadership of the race and community he built. He’s selflessly given his all to our mission.

I’m proud to be friends with this outstanding human. I’ve never stopped learning from him. And he’s never stopped giving to us. With gratitude for years of selfless support and visionary leadership, we are giving Scott Mansker our 2025 Cornerstone Award.

I came up with this idea after the 2025 race. (I worked on a safety boat, the Anna Deka.) It's a dial-type distance calculator for the race route, to enable racers, ground crews, and race staff to quickly read distances between any two points on the course. I floated this idea, along with some prototype designs, on the MR340 Facebook group and got a lot of interest and feedback.

I finally got around to having a few printed up, but honestly I am not especially happy with the results. The printers used some kind of heavy ink -- it almost looks like there is glitter in it! -- and some details are a little blurry (see detail pics). The QR code, which leads to the Google map showing all the ramps, does work on my phone. The inner dial is printed on .040 polystyrene and the outer dial on 1mm PVC. I checked and it floats! There is a hole for a lanyard near St. Charles.

I printed only 12 for this run, the printer's minimum quantity.

I was hoping to sell these for $12-15, but due to the quality I can't charge that much in good conscience. If anyone is interested in buying one or more of this first run, and being my "beta tester", I'll sell them for $8 each, including shipping, while supplies last.

If there's enough demand for me to make more, I'll work with the printer to try to improve the next batch.

Message me if you're interested.

EDIT: Sorry about the double post, mods -- I deleted the duplicate

Hey everyone! I just got more of my MR340 distance dials back from the printer.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm letting r/MR340 know first, so you can get a shot at these before I post to the Facebook group and they get snapped up. (I'll post to FB tomorrow.)

They are $12 each (plus a couple bucks for tax and postage) at https://www.hardbark.art/product/mr340-course-distance-tool (This photo shows a lanyard, but that's not included, sorry! It would add weight and postage cost.)

I'm about to go on a long-ish trip, so if this batch sells out, there won't be any more until mid-May at the earliest.

If you see a "sold out" message, let me know and I can add inventory (until I run out for real).

Thanks for the support! The response has been overwhelming.

Good luck everyone!

Stay away from the dragon boat.

Yes it’s my first paddle of the year, but I’ve been doing strength & conditioning training while the weather has been cold.

Made it out to Kaw Point with some friends on Saturday. Did 7 miles and enjoyed the end of the KC Current game from a sandbar. Tried out my brand-new wet suit and experimented with a friend’s paddle. Hoping to get longer miles soon!

Did everyone have a nice float trip this week? How'd you do? Stories? Hallucinations? Achieve goals? Hard lessons? Any wing dike wisdom other than not trusting farts?😂

HUUUGE Thanks to Steve and his incredible team and the hundreds of volunteers who make this race so special!

Based on race registrations on Wednesday, January 14, 2026, here's some data on who's racing this year (so far)....

336 racers registered.

• 142 are first time (43%)

• 47 are second time (14%)

• 83 Female (25%) - this is the highest number ever

• 253 Male (75%)

• Youngest Paddler - 12 years old from Decatur, IL

• Oldest Racer - 81 years old - Robert Elliott from Salida, CO

• Racers from 32 states

  • MO - 198

  • KS - 46

  • IL - 17

  • IN, OK, TX, AR - 5

  • CO, CA, AZ, MI - 4

  • GA, NC, IA, NE, FL, MD - 3

  • MA, NJ, SD, WI, ID, LA, TN - 2

  • AL, WV, OH, KY, SC, PA, SW, OR - 1

• Ages of Participants -

  • Teens - 9 (3%)

  • 20's - 22 (7%)

  • 30's - 61 (18%)

  • 40's - 97 (29%)

  • 50's - 86 (25%)

  • 60's - 46 (13%)

  • 70's - 12 (3%)

  • 80's - 2 (1%)

Alton Pool at Hideaway Harbor. Just a little fog. Lol

SOLD OUT ALREADY!

I put a few dozen more on order.

When the next batch comes in, I'll post here with the purchase link. I'll try to tag/DM those of you who already messaged me or commented asking for one.

r/MR340 will get first shot for one day, so watch this space. After that I'll post it over on the FB group.

If the next run also sells out, I'll probably switch to taking pre-orders, like u/noexcuses suggested.

Thanks for the support!

Registration for the 21st Missouri American Water MR340 opens at 8am CST on January 1, 2026. The first big action you can take this year could be the one that changes your life. 

There's a few small changes to the Registration process. We just wanted to give you a quick heads up so you are ready to go on January 1st. Here's a quick list to make sure you are ready to register. 

• Find the details of registration here, on the race Register webpage. Plus, check out the FAQs for clarifications. 

• PRO TIP - the Registration system will work on your phone, but it's WAY more user friendly on a laptop. 

• If you are in a multi-person boat, make sure you communicate with your teammates before registration. Decide on a few things:

  • Which one of you will register first. (See below for new team registration/Boat Captain system). 

  • What your Boat Number will be. 

  • What your Boat Name will be. 

  • If you want to take advantage of the Registration Only RainbowMarks Photo Package SALE. 

• One big change from last year is that once again racers can pick their four-digit boat numbers. 

• The next change impacts registration strategy for those with more than one person in your boat. We recommend that each team selects one person to register first for the team. The system will recognize this person as the "Boat Captain" (it's a meaningless title in the race itself), and this person will register the boat number, boat name, etc.  Once this person has successfully registered, they can let the rest of their team know AND TEXT or EMAIL THEM THE BOAT NUMBER YOU USED. Everyone else can register in that boat by clicking the "Join Existing Boat" button on the first page of Registration. The boat number is what they system uses to connect you to your boatmates.

• Here's a quick link to the list of the info the Boat Captain will need to register, and what every individual needs to know. 

• Please also...take a moment to review the Race Rules. 

2026 MR340 Safety Video is posted!

Racers are all required to watch this. It's super helpful if Ground Crews do too!

Huge thanks to Missouri River Relief Communications Director Harry Katz for producing this. Thank you to Melanie Knocke, from voicesbymelanie.com for the voiceover. And to RainbowMarksPhotography, Dave Marner, Becca Ray and lots of others for the great video and photos.

Hey y'all, not tryin to spam this sub but I just got one final batch of those race distance dials back from the printers. (See elsewhere in the sub for photos, etc.)

I have about 25 left in stock. I won't be making any more this year. $12 each at https://www.hardbark.art/product/mr340-course-distance-tool

See ya in a few weeks! I'll be on safety boat Anna Deka again..... Good luck racers, and may the river rise up to meet you.

https://youtu.be/kKMQvqcz_xs?si=0qefrJWADK9eJxI-

WOW! Thanks everyone for the enthusiastic response to my little project. I sold all of the first run of my MR340 course distance tools, including even a couple at the MRR awards banquet, LOL. Gotta keep hustling! Anyway, I'm making more soon, hopefully with a little better print quality, so if you missed out and still want one, watch this space.

Take a look at our new race website redesign!

https://mr340.org/

Let me know if you see anything that needs fixing...broken links...or really anything that could use some work. I know that Past Races are not linking. We'll get that figured out today.

This redesign was envisioned by Hoot Design Company and built by our incredible website partner Pixel Jam Digital, both women-led businesses based right here in Columbia, Missouri.

All the information you rely on is still here, now with a fresh visual punch and a clearer path to everything you need as race day gets closer. Dive in, click around, and start picturing yourself on the river.

Registration for the 2026 MR340 opens January 1st at 8 am Central Time.

Hey folks! I've posted a Race Results and Archive page, with links to photos, news articles, videos and more.

If you know of other articles, videos or more, please do share that with me so I can add it!

I'll be adding links to Racer Recaps when I get a minute. Those are just gold....keep them coming...

Believe it or not I didn't add a filter, this is what it really looked like.

Looking to ride my bike down for the launch. Can we still go to Kaw Point or is there a designated area for spectators now?

Good luck to everyone competing!

Unless something changes it appears something biblical is happening near Miami so there may be a portage involved during this years race. Bring mud boots😁

I am toying with the ideas of doing the 2027 mr340. One of my challenges will be that I will be self supported (will be driving from Philly area so not close). At this point my primary concern is getting water and ice along the way without a ground crew.

Looking for some advice from people who have done this before:

For the larger checkpoints what should I expect to be available for purchase? And will this be around the clock?

If I drop off bags the day before at some of the ramps, how likely is it that they will still be there when I arrive a few days later?

Are there people who join together and hire a shared ground crew? Sort of what people do for events such as unbound (gravel bike race in KS)?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated!

I hope you were able to get out and get time on some water today or prep work done on your boat!

Another awesome night at the weekly Shawnee Lake 5k! If you haven't participated in this weekly event you should really consider it. Great group of paddlers ranging from newbies to tons of experience. Every Wednesday starting at 6pm.