Yesterday morning I paddled in the harbor for 60 minutes. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a few one-minute surges with two minutes recovery in between. I didn't hammer them at all; I just picked up the pace a bit. I don't remember how many pieces I did--five or six, maybe. It was an unstructured sort of thing.
Today I didn't make it to the river until the afternoon, but it was the highlight of my day. The weather was gorgeous: sunny, mid 80s Fahrenheit, not humid. I paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and then ferried out into the river where a barge rig was heading upstream. The towboat's engines were producing some excellent waves and I got a few absolutely sweet rides. Who says Memphis isn't Surf City USA?
After a while the barge rig had moved on upriver and the waves petered out, and I ferried on over to the Arkansas side. Over there I discovered a new channel that the river has cut through the bottomland sometime in the recent past, and I paddled up it a ways. At one point I paddled right over a gigantic gar and when it reacted in surprise I thought it might flip my boat. I weathered the storm.
I apparently hadn't drunk enough water during the day because for the last 40 minutes of my 90-minute session I was quite dehydrated. I had water back on the dock but not in the boat with me. I don't think I was in any great danger but it made for a sluggish paddle back. My water was in one of those insulated flasks and it was still cold, and once I was back on the dock it felt like heaven to drink deeply.
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