Various stuff that's going on

My back is feeling better and I'm doing my strength workouts again.  Yesterday I did three sets of Jingjing Li's exercise ball drills and today I did the other little thing I do--pushups and cinder block lifts and step-ups and stuff.

I'm still paddling twice a week right now; I've fallen into a Friday and Sunday routine.  Today was a nice day and I thought about paddling today since we have some unpleasant weather on the way.  But I didn't.  We'll see if I regret it when it's time to go to the river on Friday.  Channel 5 weatherman Dave Brown says we're going to have some serious wind tonight and tomorrow, and I hope that moves on out by Friday.

My friend Don Walls, an Arkansan who's a mighty good canoe racer both in C1 and in C2 with partner Dale Burris, has a device that's both a heart rate monitor and a GPS, and he downloads maps of where he's paddled and graphs of what his heart has done.  An example from one of his workouts is here.

Don Walls (bow) and Dale Burris en route to victory in the 2012 Aluminum Nationals on the White River near Allison, Arkansas.

I especially enjoy looking at the map feature.  While I'm certainly interested in the physiological stuff that goes on during training, I'm also interested in where a paddler goes and what he sees and experiences.  One reason I like paddling so much is that it's a sport that engages all the senses.

As for a heart rate monitor, I used one back in the late 1990s and early 2000s until the chest belt broke, and since then I've just trained by feel.  Most of the time I think I know when I'm in the aerobic zone and when I'm going lactic and stuff like that.  I know great athletes who claim that a heart rate monitor is indispensable, and maybe I'll come around to that view by and by, but for now I'm happy enough without one.