The gears are grinding

This week I started up a strength routine for the first time since August.

Each fall I take a bit of time off after my last race of the year.  How much of a break I take depends on a whole variety of circumstances.  In some years I've stayed out of the boat entirely for as much as six weeks; in other years, like this one, I've kept up a paddling routine of once or twice a week.

In no year have I ever had trouble finding other things to do.  And every fall, these other things promptly expand to fill the time I have freed up by backing off the paddling and training for a while.  There's always work to do in my workshop, and this fall I've had a couple of projects going on.  Also this fall I've been having some major renovation work done on a rental property I own.  Even without canoe and kayak racing to think about, I have felt nothing but busy-busy-busy.

I've mentioned here a number of times before that strength work is my least favorite part of training.  Sitting inside lifting weights or doing repetitive exercises just doesn't appeal to me that much.  But my biggest challenge in getting a routine going again is not the tedium or the discomfort, but the time that I must take back from my non-training activities.

This week I took back that time.  This little routine is what I hope to do three times a week for the next few weeks:

1.  Torso twists with 10-lb. medicine ball
2.  Pullups
3.  Core exercise demonstrated by Jing-Jing Li at 1:34 of this video
4.  Shoulder "pre-hab" exercise demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 5:47 of this video

I started on Wednesday, doing just one set of each exercise to ease my muscles into their new jobs.  Not surprisingly I was quite sore Thursday and yesterday, but yesterday I moved into my normal practice of doing two sets of each exercise.

After the strength work yesterday I went down to the river for a 60-minute paddle.  Still quite sore, I slogged toward the mouth of the harbor against the stiff south wind that was blowing.  Once out on the river I played around a bit in the small downwind conditions that said wind had created.

With a high temperature around 75 degrees Fahrenheit, yesterday might have been the last day that was warm enough for me to do so without a serious threat of hypothermia should I swim.  Indeed, a front came through in the late afternoon, and today's high will be in the mid 50s.  Winter is on its way.