Time trial

I'm feeling somewhat better today, though there's still a bit of discomfort on my right side, along with some stiffness in my upper spine.

In what might be turning into an annual thing, I timed myself over a lap of the harbor today.  (You can read my summary of last year's effort here.)

Conditions this morning were pretty good: mostly-sunny skies (finally!), about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, a moderate breeze blowing from the north-northeast, and a water level of 26.3 feet on the Memphis gauge.

Wolf River Harbor (so named because it was the bed of the Wolf River before a slackwater harbor at downtown Memphis was created by diverting the Wolf directly to the Mississippi up above) is about three miles long.  The marina where I keep my boat is approximately halfway between the north end and the south end.  I warmed up by paddling up to the north end, where I would start and finish.  I did four 8-stroke sprints before assuming my position in the starting gate between a pair of submerged trees.

I went out hard for about 200 meters before settling into a pace I hoped I could sustain; it was pretty intense despite the lower stroke rate.  I passed the marina, breaking its southern plane at about the 13:30 mark.  I was starting to feel some fatigue by the time I passed under the monorail bridge, several hundred meters before the turnaround point.

I made the turn around an imaginary buoy that sits on the line you get by extending the center-line of Beale Street down into the harbor (I had earlier picked out a landmark on the Beale Street Landing dock so I would know exactly where to make the turn).  My split there was about 25:30.  Heading back north I faced a headwind, but it wasn't too bad; I was actually grateful to have a breeze to dry the sweat from my face.

By the time I was back on the north side of the marina I could really feel myself starting to struggle with the pace.  I lowered my stroke intensity a bit and tried to take the best stroke I could, using all the muscle groups like I've been practicing.  With about a hundred meters to go I picked it up and crossed the finish line 52 minutes, 30 seconds after I'd started.

The time was two minutes slower than last year's, and I'm a little disappointed at that, but there's no reason to dwell on it.  There are a lot of variables at play whenever you time yourself on a body of water of any size.  And even if my speed is in fact off a bit right now, it's not necessarily the harbinger of poor race performances, because a time trial, in which you just go as hard as you can in pursuit of your best possible time, is different from a race against competition, where there's bound to be some wake-riding and some tactical devices afoot.

The good thing about doing something like this as the race season approaches is it gives me a chance to rehearse my race-day routine: I try to eat, stretch, warm up, and prepare my equipment the way I would the morning of a race.  If I've forgotten any details in the months since my last race, I catch it now instead of at my first race.