A little of everything today

This morning I did two sets of the April strength routine and paddled for 120 minutes.

I paddled from the marina up to the mouth of the Wolf River in less than 45 minutes, something I don't do very often.  I paddled a pretty strong pace, but I also got a lot of help from favorable weather and water conditions.

After that I paddled a couple of miles up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge.  The bottom couple of miles of the Wolf is usually flatwater, backed up from the Mississippi, but today there was some steady current coming down: the Memphis area got three inches of rain on Thursday, and it's still draining.  So I paddled up against some resistance, especially once I had gotten solidly above the elevation of the Mississippi's level.  It was slow going, but of course the trip back down with the current canceled that out.

When I got back to the Mississippi, I thought I had taken a wrong turn and arrived at a different river.  The steady south breeze that had blown during my trip up the river had grown into a gusting gale, and on top of that the river was suddenly choked with barge traffic, so I had to navigate some rough water for the two and a half miles or so down to the harbor.  It was a challenge to keep the boat moving and not let too many of my forward strokes be replaced by braces.

When I reached the harbor, I had the wind at my back and I breathed easier as I let it blow me back to the marina.  It was a classic training day on the Memphis riverfront: in one session I encountered five or six different water conditions.