GRAYLING – Katie, 27, and Kristi Treston, 22, grew up watching the AuSable River Canoe Marathon and it became their ‘life dream’ to one day cross the finish line. Now, they are preparing to do it again for the second year in a row.
For Christmas 2013, their mother Jan Treston, of Grayling and their father Paul Aurand, of Port Huron surprised the sisters with a Gillies canoe.
‘Our mom said it was time to go and make our dreams come true.’
Katie, a trauma physician’ assistant at Munson Medical, said she and her sister, Kristi, a nursing student at Western Michigan University, immediately got in the boat and began to train. In 2015 the sisters entered the race after more than 200 hours of training and finished 64th. They hope for an earlier finish this year because they smoothed out some difficulties from the 2015 race.
‘It was so difficult,’ Katie said of the race, noting there were struggles along the 120-mile jaunt. ‘We could not stay up-right. it took a lot of mental grit and it was intense.’
However, prior to the 2015 race finish line, the sisters made a commitment to race again this year.
‘I would not want to do it with any other partner,’ Katie said of racing with her sister.
She said seeing the finish line was so ‘amazing.’
‘The best moment for me was when I saw the light of the Mio Dam cutoff,’ she said.
Katie said other paddlers said if teams make it to that point, they have a good chance of finishing the race.
‘The stars had aligned and we could hear he cheers and we knew we were going to make it to the cutoff.
The sisters started training for the race in November and paddled all through the winter, Katie said.
‘We’ve trained together a lot, at least a couple times a week,’ she said.
Yet, Katie said they couldn’t do it without a tribe. Katie is thankful to their feed team, her co-workers who covered her shift so she could train or qualify for the race, their father who taught them a strong work ethic and especially to their mom, also a nurse, who is the team captain.
‘We call her Mama Manager,’ Katie said.
For more information on the 2016 AuSable River Canoe Marathon and/or follow teams during the July 30 and 31 race days, visit http://www.ausablecanoemarathon.org/
