Monday, May 29, 2017

An energy crisis in more ways than one

I'm just now catching up with the outside world after having no electricity at my house for some 36 hours.  A pretty violent storm moved through the Memphis area Saturday evening and knocked out power for about 188,000 homes, according to our local utility provider.  I do not have one of those new-fangled telephones with a cellular data plan, so I rely on my electric-powered wi-fi router to move about in cyberspace.

I paddled for 60 minutes Saturday morning and felt incredibly tired in the boat.  That listless, lethargic feeling persisted for the rest of the day.  I had a workout scheduled for Sunday but I thought about pushing it back a day to allow myself a bit more rest.

Then the storm happened, and I learned that a big pecan tree had fallen in the back yard of a rental property I own.  It didn't hurt the house, fortunately, but I did have a big mess to clean up.  And so I spent yesterday morning cutting up the tree with my chainsaw.  It was neither a workout nor rest.  It was just... work.

This morning I got back to business, doing a round of the current strength routine and then heading down to the river.  I warmed up, did three 8-stroke sprints, paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and did my "start-to-boat-ramp" workout, just like I had done back on the sixth of May.  This time I started each piece six minutes after the previous piece; that tightened my recovery interval a bit, but not as tight as it was during my workout on Thursday.  I tried to paddle back up to the start in quick order so that I would have 30 seconds or so to sit at the starting line and await the start, just like on race day.

The workout today felt a lot more taxing than it did on May 6.  I was tired from the strength workout and I'm sure I was feeling yesterday's logging work as well.  I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight.

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