Tuesday, September 3, 2013

A good workout with balance and stroke work

I paddled the K1 for 60 minutes this afternoon.  I mailed my registration form for the 5.5-mile race down near Jackson on the 14th, so eleven days out I wanted to push the intensity some more today.  But I didn't want to go as hard as I did on Saturday, when my stroke quality suffered from the high stroke rate.  So today I timed myself over the length of the harbor, almost: I started next to the barge mooring facility at the intersection of north Second Street and Seventh Street, and finished at the imaginary line that extends into the harbor from the center line of Beale Street.

Balancing that boat is still not second nature for me, but the lower intensity over this not-quite-three-mile piece allowed me to relax and take better strokes than I did on Saturday.  I tried to insert the blades precisely and not let them go "ker-plunk" in the water.

My splits were 12:32 at the northern edge of the Auction Avenue bridge; 15:31 at the northern edge of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge; 18:04 at the northern edge of the monorail bridge; and 22:15 at the finish.

I also did some balance drills before and after the timed piece: paddle-over-the-head, one-sided paddling, and paddling while leaning the boat right and left.

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