Down in the dumps

The euphoria of last weekend has given way to sort of a letdown for much of this week.  I've been uncertain of how to proceed with training for reasons related to my stiff upper back and to the paucity of races on the calendar.

Though Tuesday night's massage was helpful, my back tightened up again overnight and was quite uncomfortable Wednesday and Thursday.  It's felt a bit better yesterday and today, and I'm just hoping that trend will continue.  I feel like I should start up a new strength routine for the month of April, but I'm worried about aggravating my back pain.  With another race coming up next Saturday, down at Vicksburg, I'm thinking maybe I'll wait until after to hit the weights again.

But that brings up another problem: I'm not a hundred percent sure I can even make it to Vicksburg next weekend.  I have sort of a work issue--not exactly an obligation, but one of those things that make me ask myself whether I'm devoting too much time to my hobby and not enough to my livelihood.  In any case, if I don't race at Vicksburg, then my next race might not be until two months later, when the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race takes place here at Memphis.  We've lost a race-calendar fixture in the Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race at Little Rock; the director decided not to put it on this year, and I can't say that I blame him one bit, seeing as how putting a race on is an incredible amount of work, and too often the reward is a bunch of busybodies critiquing this or that aspect of the job you did.  That leaves us with just three races in the spring season that are anywhere near this part of the country, and I worry that these three may go away sooner rather than later.

So, it's all been enough to put me in a funk.  I usually have a solid plan for training, but at the moment I'm just drifting aimlessly.  I guess I'll probably keep things relatively light until Vicksburg (assuming I even go), giving my back a chance to improve, and then start a long training phase for the weeks leading up to the OICKR.

On Wednesday I did a bit of a workout in my 60-minute paddling session, doing six three-minute pieces in which I paddled at anaerobic threshold for two minutes and at sub-max intensity for one minute.  The recovery interval was three minutes.  On Thursday I met Joe and we paddled easy for 70 minutes.  After taking yesterday off, I paddled for 60 minutes this morning, doing six power drills where I backpaddle a few strokes and then take six hard forward strokes.  I did these at two-minute intervals.