My first race of the season is now less than a week away. On Friday I will make the six-hour drive down to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, for the annual Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race. This event debuted in 2010 and will go off for the seventh time Saturday. It starts in the Back Bay of Biloxi and quickly enters Old Fort Bayou, following this mostly-currentless creek some nine and a half miles (approximately 15 kilometers) to a finish line next to The Shed barbecue joint.
I won the first two editions of this race rather easily, but since then the competition has beefed up a bit and I've managed only one victory in the last four Battles. The likelihood of my notching another win this Saturday plummeted this past week when Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, signed up. Mike is a three-time Olympian (1988, 1992, 1996) in flatwater sprint kayaking and a member of the tiny group of U.S. paddlers who have medaled at the world championships (he won two silvers and a bronze at the 1990 and 1991 worlds). He has stayed in excellent shape in his middle age, and in 2014 he returned to world championships competition at age 53 as a member of the U.S. marathon team.
At the non-world-class level Mike still likes to get out his boat and race, and since he and I live in neighboring states I see him at races several times a year. What usually happens is that after we wish each other luck at the starting line, Mike rockets into the lead and vanishes from my view in a matter of minutes. I wish I were more competitive with the man, and I have a feeling Mike wishes I were, too: he's a competitor and relishes a good hard-fought contest. But the truth is, we're in different leagues. If our sport were baseball, Mike would be in the majors while I might be playing my whole career in double-A ball.
As far as my preparation for next Saturday goes, nothing really changes. My task is to put Mike out of my mind and stick to my own race plan. I know at least two or three other boats have registered that should give me plenty of competition; the only difference now is that we're racing for second place overall.
My plan for this week is to get some rest, but that doesn't mean just lying around doing nothing, and it also doesn't mean paddling so slowly my heart rate barely rises above normal. Actually, I'll do some very high-intensity paddling this week, but not so much in any one session that I'll get worn out.
I paddled for 60 minutes both yesterday and today. Yesterday I warmed up for ten minutes and then did three of my backpaddling-then-forward-paddling power drills. After that I paddled at a medium-highish speed--about the pace I'd be going in a race while sitting on a competitor's wake and not pushing the pace. Today, after warming up, I did eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals to work my ATP-CP energy system, and then did some more paddling at non-surging-race-pace. At the end of both sessions this weekend I did not feel tired even though I'd done some high-quality paddling, and that's what I'm shooting for in the days leading up to a race. Sometimes I feel fresher after such a session than I'd felt before.
The greater Memphis area is pretty soggy right now. I've managed to avoid paddling in the rain since Thursday's session, but we had some heavy rainfall yesterday evening and we may get one more round of it this evening. After that the weatherman says it'll dry out and be lovely for a good long time.
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