I paddled in some fairly stiff winds both yesterday and today. Yesterday was nice and sunny, but today I had some occasionally heavy rain to deal with.
At this time of year, when I'm in the boat no more than four times a week, I have the luxury of looking at the weather forecast and picking out the least-miserable days to get out on the water. So why did I choose to go out in the wind and rain this weekend? Because it's about to get a lot worse.
The temperature while I paddled this morning was a not-bad-at-all 49 degrees Fahrenheit. But according to my latest check of The Weather Channel website, the temperature is supposed to drop this afternoon on its way to an overnight low of 10 degrees. Tomorrow, the high temperature--the high--is forecast to be 13 degrees, followed by an overnight low of 7 degrees. It's been quite a while since the Mid South has had a single-digit Fahrenheit temperature; our local newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, says this will be the coldest weather we've had since 1996.
So, I got some paddling in this weekend so I can hunker down indoors for a couple of days. I paddled for 60 minutes both yesterday and today. Yesterday I warmed up for fifteen minutes and then did six-stroke sprints at maximum intensity at the top of each minute, doing eight of them in all. Then I did some pieces across the harbor, practicing balance on the beam waves driven by the south wind.
Today I paddled at anaerobic threshold from 0:15 to 0:45. I did this with the wind at my back until I got to the north end of the harbor (the wind was from the south again), doing about the last five minutes into the wind.
Kev Brady's aluminum canoe, "Orca," was still sitting on the dock at Mud Island Marina this morning. I wouldn't blame him a bit for choosing to wait out the cold here in the Memphis area.
Yesterday I started up a strength routine for this new month. I'm doing some rubber-band exercises, and I'll explain it more once I come up with a full routine to stick to for the rest of the month.
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