Yesterday I observed what seems to have become an annual ritual: a time trial for one lap of the harbor. You can read my account of last year's trial here. The 2014 edition is here.
I first timed myself over one harbor lap seven or eight years ago; I'm pretty sure I still had my old Speedster surf ski when I did it. My time was 56 minutes and change. I don't think I did it again until two years ago, when I wanted a fitness check several weeks before my first race of the year down at Ocean Springs. This time my time was 50:32, and since then a sub-50-minute performance has been on my wish list. It hasn't happened yet, however.
My "starting gate" for the course is between two trees at the north end of the harbor. I paddle all the way to the south end and make a 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've picked out a spot on the Beale Street Landing dock to help me determine when to make the turn. The finish line is the same as the starting line. For a better idea of what I'm talking about, read my description of Wolf River Harbor here. It includes a map.
Using a time trial like this as an indicator of fitness and race-readiness is not an exact science. A big part of the reason is that weather and water conditions affect how "fast" the course is, and so it's hard to compare one year's performance to another year's accurately. This year the conditions appeared to be good for a fast time: the water level was a medium-high 26.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, meaning I could cut the insides of bends closer and take more direct lines than I would be able to at lower levels; skies were clear and the temperature was in the low 60s Fahrenheit; and the wind wasn't too bad, maybe 8 or 9 miles per hour from the southwest.
A good or bad time trial also does not necessarily predict a similar result in an upcoming race. In a race you're typically doing some tactical things--sitting in a pack and trading wake rides, for instance. In a time trial you just put the hammer down and try to go as fast as you can.
Anyway...
Yesterday I put my boat in the water and used the paddle up to the north end of the harbor as a warmup. I did three eight-stroke sprints and then moved into the starting gate. When my watch reached the top of the next minute, I was off. Starting fast and getting good position early in a race is always important, and I went hard off the line yesterday. I kept the intensity high for about two minutes--longer than I probably would do in a race.
Then I settled into the pace I hoped to maintain for the bulk of the trial, a little bit under anaerobic threshold. Again, this was harder than I'm likely to go in a race, but one of the things I want to accomplish in a time trial is to make a race seem easy by comparison.
By the time I passed the marina, which is about halfway between the ends of the harbor (and thus the approximate quarter-mark for the entire time trial) fatigue was setting in, and I knew I was in for a struggle. My exposure to the headwind increased as I moved south of the monorail bridge. I reached the turnaround point in about 26:55, well off the pace for a sub-50. But I was switching from a light headwind to a light tailwind, so I refused to give up hope.
Of course, a tailwind is not without a couple of drawbacks. My sunglasses began to fog up, and sweat started stinging my eyes. I think two different times I had to stop paddling and splash my face.
By the time I was back north of the monorail bridge I was hurting pretty good. I lowered my stroke rate and tried to paddle with the best form I could manage.
I crossed the line in 52:15, slower than I'd hoped for. Then again, I was encouraged by my negative split: I was a minute and 35 seconds faster in the second half than in the first.
Utterly exhausted, I paddled slowly back to the marina. My total time on the water was just over 90 minutes. I had put some well-above-average stress on my body and I could feel it the rest of the day. I managed a small bit of landscape work in the afternoon but I was too spent to do much else. I slept the sleep of the dead last night.
I felt surprisingly good this morning--not too stiff or sore. Some recovery time is definitely on the schedule for the next several days, but today I wanted to get in another good quality session if I could. I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River. During this period I tried to maintain a good solid pace without feeling like I was really pushing it.
Then I picked up the pace, paddling up the Wolf near anaerobic threshold, turning around at the Second Street bridge, and continuing my elevated pace back down to the Mississippi.
I paddled easier back down the big river. A towboat was pushing a barge up into the harbor when I arrived down there, and the pilot must have been on a tight schedule because he was going faster than a towboat really should go in the harbor, generating some nice-looking waves. Tired or not tired, I couldn't resist the urge to surf. I managed to ride a couple of little bumps briefly. Then the towboat slowed to a crawl in the no-wake zone at the Mud Island Marina between the monorail bridge and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and I caught up and overtook his stern. Once beyond the no-wake zone, the pilot revved the engines again, and this time I was in perfect position and grabbed a long, sweet ride on an ample wave. There were some spectators up on the Bass Pro Shops observation deck, but if they were oohing and aahing at my masterful display I didn't hear them.
I finally washed off the wave, and several hard sprints couldn't quite get me on another. So I retired to the dock to conclude what turned out to 100 minutes of good-quality work.
Like I said, I plan to take it easier for the next several days. Maybe I'll manage one more decent workout that my body will have time to absorb before the Battle On The Bayou race at Ocean Springs on the 19th.
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