Saturday, August 8, 2015

Summer continues its ups and downs

This week we've had some lower temperatures, but not lower humidity.  Between Wednesday and yesterday several inches of rain fell here.  I mentioned two Sundays ago that the Mississippi was about to start dropping fast, and it has done just that: when I paddled this morning, the Memphis gauge reading was a hair under 15 feet.

On Thursday I paddled for 50 minutes, doing several of my backpaddling-then-forward-paddling power drills followed by steady paddling with a couple of long surges. Yesterday I continued to get my body used to the August strength routine.

This weekend we're heading back to some high heat indices, but it wasn't bad at all when I paddled this morning.  A mild north breeze kept things bearable.  I started off my 60-minute session with a warmup and three 8-stroke sprints, and then did eight 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  Actually, I took a break after the sixth sprint because a down-bound barge rig was putting out some good waves and I had to surf.  I got several brief rides and then one totally sweet ride before my waves began to mix with the wake of an up-bound rig and the water became too confused for surfing.  Once my frivolity had run its course, I got back down to business and did my last two 30-second sprints.

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