Friday, September 29, 2017

Manual labor

On Tuesday I paddled with Joe for the first time in quite a few weeks.  One or the other of us had been out of town for many Tuesdays in a row.

I did the current strength routine on Monday and Wednesday.

Yesterday I went down to the riverfront for my last hard workout before my race on October 7, and likely my last for the year.  I'd planned to go in the morning, but something came up at a rental property I own that I had to go deal with, so I had to push paddling back to the afternoon.  The "something that came up" included picking up and stacking over a hundred bricks, and once the job was done I was feeling it in my arms and lower back.

In the afternoon I did another set of four sprints in the harbor between the monorail bridge and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  The recovery interval was five minutes, during which I paddled back to the start.  My times were 2:02, 2:00, 2:03, and 2:01.  Though I didn't manage any sub-2 clockings like I did last week, I felt better throughout the workout.  I was certainly tired by the fourth piece but I wasn't completely falling apart like I was last week.  The weather was working in my favor: last week the Fahrenheit temperature had been in the low 90s, but yesterday it was some ten degrees cooler than that.

Today I was due for some recovery from the brick-moving and the workout, so I went back downtown and did an easy 40-minute paddle.  Most weeks I do the strength routine Friday and paddle on Saturday, but tomorrow I have things to do out on the east side of town, so I decided to flip-flop those two things.

Monday, September 25, 2017

Monday photo feature


This is my dock this morning, at which time the Mississippi River's level was 4.2 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge.  That's my boat in the white cover in the left side of the photo.

At more "normal" levels there's at least 50 meters of water between the dock and the bank, but right now you can almost jump across.  If the water drops another couple of feet or more, the dock will run aground.  (The all-time recorded low reading on the Memphis gauge is -10.7 feet in July of 1988.  I don't think this marina was in place back then.)

As I was paddling on Saturday morning, I saw a boat using sonar to take depth readings near the mouth of the harbor, where a lot of silt gets deposited.  I knew a dredge wouldn't be far behind.  Sure enough, by yesterday morning the lower reach of the harbor was crisscrossed with pipes and the dredge boat was firing up its cutterhead.  That's the mouth of the harbor way off in the distance in this photo, but unless you're Steve Austin with his bionic eye I don't think you can see the dredging apparatus.

Sunday, September 24, 2017

"Crunch!" Sigh.

I went down to the river yesterday intending to keep the intensity moderate.  As I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor I focused on my stroke mechanics, making sure I was inserting the blades fully and firing all the relevant muscles, from my feet up through my shoulders and arms, in unison.  As I ventured out onto the Mississippi I found rather choppy conditions even though the weather was calm--there were a fair number of fishing boats and small pleasure craft about.  I tried to keep taking good strokes on this less-stable platform.

I ferried over to the Arkansas side and worked my way upriver.  Here there are wing dams built by the Corps of Engineers to direct water into the main shipping channel, and at the current low water level (-3.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday) they are exposed.  The dams are basically just piles of rocks, and most of the time I can read where the deep water is around them, but yesterday I apparently wasn't giving them a wide enough berth because I suddenly felt and heard that awful Crunch!  that every paddler of a lovely composite boat fears.

It was my rudder that had taken the impact, and just like that I found myself with no steering.  The rudder was stuck so that my boat pulled sharply to the right, and I had to use sweeps and backstrokes and stern pries to muscle the boat alongside the wing dam so I could hop out and inspect the damage. The rudder's tip was a tattered mess, and the post was bent so that it couldn't swivel like it should.  I tried to bend it back into a state of functionality but couldn't get the needed leverage.  In the end I forced the rudder into a straight-ahead position so that at least I'd have a skeg.

I didn't really doubt that I would get back across the river, but I knew it would be a chore.  I was upstream of the mouth of the harbor, so I pointed my boat at the east (Tennessee) bank and began to paddle, letting the current carry me downriver.  An upstream-bound barge rig had just passed, and there were some good-looking waves in its wake, but without a rudder I'd have to pass up that bit of fun and frolic.  Instead I employed the trusty whitewater skill of using the waves to steer the boat: even a 21-foot surf ski can turn pretty easily when it's up on the crest of a wave.

Soon enough I was back in the harbor, pointed at the marina some 2000 meters distant.  The boat was pulling ever so gradually to the right, so once in a while I had to do some corrective strokes to get back on course.  Back at the dock I put the boat away and walked up to the parking lot grumbling I can't believe I did that through clenched teeth.

And I guess that raises the obvious question: why did I paddle into water of uncertain depth in the first place?  My answer is pretty simple.  Deep down I'm a whitewater-river kind of guy, and I enjoy messing around in the eddies and whirlpools and boily water created by wing dams and bridge pilings and stuff.  Yes, I know boats are expensive and repairing them is a chore, and for that reason I am in fact quite careful most of the time.  But I'm not going to let fear of a little boat damage stop me from paddling the way I want to paddle.  A wildwater racer I know summed it up best.  "Wildwater" is downriver racing through rapids, and as you might guess, such racers lead the paddling world in banged-up boats.  I once asked Michael Beavers, who raced on several U.S. wildwater teams in the C1 class, if the possibility of hurting his boat was ever in the back of his mind during training and racing, and he just shrugged and said "You gotta learn proper boat disrespect."

And so, I got over my frustration quickly and was feeling pretty chill by the time I was heading back to the river this morning.  I took a spare rudder with me, along with the necessary tools for making the swap, and in no time my boat was functional again.  I'll take the damaged rudder back to the shop, where I'll bend the post back straight, grind off the raggedy stuff, fill the gouged-out parts with some thickened epoxy, cover it with a new piece of carbon fiber, and sand it nice and smooth, good as new.  Ain't nothin but a little rudder, after all.

In 60 minutes of paddling today I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then paddled a healthy tempo out on the river.  I stayed in the deep water.  Yes, I've learned my lesson, at least for a little while.

Friday, September 22, 2017

Hanging on a little longer

It's low-water season on the Mississippi River.  The level was two and a half feet below zero on the Memphis gauge when I paddled on Tuesday and -3.5 feet yesterday.  It's still plenty of water for paddling, but the commercial (barge) traffic has more trouble.  We'll likely see some dredges in operation soon if the water continues to drop.

That's the least of my worries as I try to keep myself sharp for one more race on October 7.  I've been racing well and feeling fit and strong for more than three months now, but the average human being can sustain that for only so long.  Both my body and my brain are ready for this season to be over.

I did a round of the new strength routine on Wednesday.  Having done lunges in the previous routine, I thought my body would be pretty well conditioned to handle the Hindu squats.  But when I woke up yesterday my quadriceps muscles were big-time sore.  I guess the squats hit a muscle group that's just different enough from what the lunges hit.

On Tuesday I did a pretty typical 60-minute paddle, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then paddling a healthy pace out on the river before taking it back in.

I believe our "Thursday evening sprints" have petered out for this year, as participants have kids back in school and are tapering off for late-season races and stuff like that.  But I want to get in a couple more good sprint workouts myself in these next two weeks, and that was my plan as I headed down to the river yesterday afternoon.  I really didn't feel like doing it, and it took all the discipline I've got to make it happen.

The stretch in the harbor between the southern edge of the monorail bridge and the southern edge of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge is right at 450 meters (when I measured it with my G.P.S. device several weeks ago, it came to about 450.62 meters).  My plan was to do this sprint four times, like we typically do during Thursday evening sprints.  I would take five minutes for recovery in between, during which I'd paddle back to the monorail bridge to start the next one.

I knew as soon as I started the first sprint that it would be a tough workout.  My sore thighs were screaming, and the afternoon heat (above 90 degrees Fahrenheit) wasn't giving me a break.  I managed to keep it together for two sprints, but by the third I could feel myself falling apart a little bit.  The fourth was a true struggle.  In the end my times were 1:59, 1:58, 2:01, and 2:05.  Historically anything under two minutes is a very good effort for me, so I was happy, at least, that I'd managed two sub-two clockings.

450 meters is 90% of 500 meters, so by dividing each of the above times by .9, I get my projected 500-meter times: 2:12, 2:11, 2:14, and 2:19.  Those times won't win me a spot on the flatwater sprint national team, but seeing as how I'm a 50-year-old guy who was feeling not so in-the-pink yesterday, I'll take them.

My thighs are still sore this morning, but not as bad as yesterday.  I did the strength routine again but went easy on the Hindu squats.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

A new strength routine

Here's a re-post of something I posted a few months ago regarding my approach to strength work.  Maybe I'll start re-posting it every time I post a new strength routine.  Below it is the routine I plan to do for the next little while.

*****

I've said many times before that strength work is my least favorite part of training, and because of that I've developed a give-and-take relationship with it.  I try to follow a few simple guidelines:

1.  Keep the routines short and simple.  I focus on quality, not quantity.  This way I'm not dreading spending a big chunk of my day doing tedious and sometimes uncomfortable exercises.  I try to work in exercises for each general area of the body--legs, core, and arms/shoulders.

2.  Good technique is more important than the amount of weight.  Paddling is a highly technical sport and I think it's important to be precise in the gym as well as in the boat.  And on a similar note, let's not forget that I'm a paddler, not a body builder, so those commercial gym slogans like "Exercise your right to look good" don't really resonate with me.  I happen to think that accomplished paddlers do in fact "look good," but there's a difference between "show muscle" and muscle that actually performs useful tasks.  A bulky body is generally not an asset in our sport, so I do stuff to bring about good lean muscle tone, "prehab" exercises to prevent injuries, and explosive power.  Also, at age 49 I'm thinking more and more about the issues of aging, and I look for exercises that emphasize continued flexibility and range of motion.

3.  Don't get all upset if you miss a session.  Most of the time I try to do strength work three times a week, but if life gets in the way and I have to miss a session, I just tell myself it's not a big deal, and I'll get back on track the next time.

I do my strength work in the comfort of my own home, where I listen to whatever music I want and can play with my cats in between exercises.  I've got some dumbbells, a rubber band, a pair of gymnast's rings, and a few other simple things, and that's more than I need for a good routine.

And so, now that all that has been said, I present you with my latest strength routine:

1.  Hindu pushups

2.  Hindu squats

(Hindu pushups and Hindu squats are both demonstrated in this video)

3.  Pullups

4.  Core exercise on a stability ball, demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:35 of her video that's posted here.



Monday, September 18, 2017

Monday photo feature


Here I am working on my "J lean" during an offside surf in Five Boat Hole on the lower Gauley River in West Virginia in 1994.  Jason Salomon of Memphis hones his surfing skills behind me.  That's an old Gyra-Max C1 I'm paddling.  I look so young!!!!!!!!

"Gauley season" takes place every September during the annual drawdown of Summersville Reservoir upstream.  That means it's Gauley season right now, and once again I'm missing it.  Part of the reason is that I don't have a good boat for it since my main whitewater boat got stolen last year.  And part of the reason is that I'm all consumed with mindless chores here at home and out of touch with the whole world of whitewater.  I want to re-connect, and sooner or later I will.

I'm trying to remember who took this photo.  I remember handing my camera to somebody on the river-left bank... it might have been Greg Raymond, or it might have been Dennis Rhodes... I'm not sure.

A quiet week

After the previous weekend's taxing trip down to the Bayou country and back I was ready for a mental break as much as a physical one.  I did get in my boat last week, but my mind was on other things.  My next race (and most likely my last for 2017) is in three weeks, and I'm just trying to maintain a decent fitness level so that I can give it an effort I'll feel good about.

Paddling last week was unstructured aside from a set of 8-stroke sprints each time out.  I paddled hard when I felt like it and coasted when I felt like it.  I did this strength routine on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; I plan to draw up a new one to start doing this coming week.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Monday photo feature


Mr. F.C. "Butch" Felterman, the donor of the prize money for the Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races on Saturday, addresses the competitors as event director Ray Pellerin looks on.  By coincidence, Saturday was Mr. Felterman's 90th birthday.  The flags flying in the background represent the communities involved in the Tour du Teche series of races.  Photo by Denise D'Abundo.




CORRECTION  In this photo feature back on August 21, I mis-identified Calvin Hassel's partner as Jody Runyon.  It is in fact Bill Torongo.  The correction has been made.  My Training Blog by Elmore regrets the error and is happy to set the record straight.

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Bayou racing, Part 4: recovery begins

The gossip mill had indicated that I might be asked to join a K4 for the "big boat" race, the last of the three events of the day.  But the invitation never came, and that was okay with me, for after two six-mile races I was thoroughly tired and wicked sore.  If I had been asked, I would have done it--we paddlers rarely get paid for what we do, so it would have been worth suffering for 50 more minutes to put a few more dollars in my pocket.  But it's just as well that I didn't have to make that decision.

The "big boat" race was won by the K4 consisting of Brad Pennington, Andrew Korompay, Brian Poda, and Robin Lashway.  Their time was 47 minutes, 16 seconds.  In second place was a K3 paddled by Randy Hargroder, Jeff Schnelle, and Brad Rex.  Another K3 consisting of Carson, Conrad, and Peyton Pellerin took third.  The results are posted here.

I could have used a nap upon the conclusion of racing, but instead I got in my car and began the long drive home.  Getting back over to Interstate 55 north, the road that would take me home to Memphis, involved driving east on U.S. 90 almost all the way to New Orleans.  A landscape dominated by water, much like a mountainous landscape, offers few direct routes to anywhere.

The last leg of my drive, north of Jackson, Mississippi, was particularly tough.  Keeping some blood circulating in my legs was a challenge, and I had to point the air conditioner right on me to discourage dozing off at the wheel.  When I finally pulled into my driveway in the beautiful Binghampton section of Memphis, I was nearly catatonic.  I grabbed only those things I would need to get ready for bed, went upstairs and took a badly-needed shower, and hit the hay.

I spent this morning relaxing, unpacking the car, putting my boat and gear away, and updating this blog for my beloved readers.  This afternoon I was feeling a bit more energetic (though still very sore), and headed down to the riverfront for an easy 40-minute paddle.  I did some thorough stretching before getting in the boat, and once in the boat I paddled slowly but deliberately, encouraging blood flow in all the fatigued muscles.

Bayou racing, Part 3: racing solo

When I got in my boat to warm up for the solo race, I was definitely feeling some strain in my shoulders from the tandem race.  My "top gear," for sprinting off the starting line and so on, was diminished as well.  There was nothing I could do but make the best of it.

I found a place at the start alongside nine other racers, and at eleven o'clock sharp we took off.  Brad Pennington and Andrew Korompay were considered the class of the field, and as expected they sprinted into the lead immediately.  I attempted to maintain contact, first on the "diamond" wake between their boats, and then on one of them's stern, but they steadily began to pull away.  Jeff Schnelle, my partner in the tandem race, was just over my left shoulder.  I settled in and tried to determine just how quick a pace I could maintain for the full six miles.  I was beginning to open a gap on Jeff, but I didn't want to get over-enthusiastic about it.

Up ahead Brad and Andrew were increasing their lead ever more: at each buoy turn I checked my watch to measure their lead, and from buoy to buoy their 30-second lead became 60 seconds, and then 60 seconds became 90 seconds, and so on.  It looked like my best hope was to stay alone in third place and hope I didn't die.  The wind, blowing from upstream, had picked up since the first race, and that didn't help.

I spent the next half-hour paddling as hard, yet as efficiently, as I could.  At each buoy turn I could see that I'd added a bit to my lead over Jeff and the rest of the field, and that was encouraging.  And so it went until I made the last buoy turn.  With a half-mile to go I knew I could surge as hard as I could, for even if I bonked completely I would still make it to the finish line.

Brad and Andrew had spent the entire race together, trading wake rides.  When the finish line came into their sights, it was Andrew who sprinted away for the victory and the $500 first prize with a time of 50 minutes, 13 seconds.  Brad took second, and $250, three seconds later.  Nearly three minutes later I finally moved my boat across the line for third place and a hundred bucks... not bad for less than an hour of work.  Jeff finished a respectable fourth.

Janet Perry of Saint Charles, Illinois, was the female winner with a time of one hour, four minutes, 22 seconds.  Denise D'Abundo of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, came in second about three minutes later.

The complete results are posted here.  It would appear that Denise Dugal of Lafayette, Louisiana, schooled us all, and on some level perhaps she did.  But she was the lone entrant in the two-mile "recreational" race, and was lumped together with us six-milers by the Web Scorer computer algorithm.

Bayou racing, Part 2: racing tandem

The first annual Lower Atchafalaya River Sprint Races would consist of three six-mile events: one for tandem boats at 9 AM, one for solo boats at 11 AM, and one for "big boats" (three or more paddlers) at 1 PM.  A single benefactor, Mr. F.C. "Butch" Felterman of Patterson, had donated a $5000 purse, and as a result each race offered, for men and for women, a $500 prize for first place, a $250 prize for second place, and a $100 prize for third place.

Several racers of repute came to Patterson hoping to raise their net worth a little.  Notable among them were Brad Pennington of Houston, an accomplished flatwater sprint and marathon racer, and Andrew Korompay of Kingwood, Texas, a former member of no less than the internationally-dominant Hungarian national team.  The organizers had hoped for an even greater turnout of paddling talent, and I suspect the main reason they didn't get it was simply that the word didn't really get out: the addition of the prize money hadn't been announced until just several weeks prior.  Participation was particularly sparse on the women's side.  Hopefully more racers will have this event on their 2018 calendar now that some paddlers have walked away from the 2017 edition a little bit richer.

I had myself a partner for the tandem race: Jeff Schnelle of Irma, Wisconsin.  Jeff and I had seen each other a month earlier at the USCA Nationals up in Iowa; a dealer for a couple of boat manufacturers including Epic Kayaks, Jeff had made the trip down to deliver a boat to a customer, and he had Epic's new tandem surf ski with him for us to paddle.  So as soon as the pre-race meeting was over we quickly put the boat in the water for a warmup.  After practicing a couple of starts and getting a feel for each other's stroke rhythm, we paddled up to the starting line.

The gun went off at nine o'clock sharp, and we got a pretty good start off the line.  In short order we were among the top three boats: to our right was the team of Brad Pennington and Andrew Korompay, and right in front of us was the team of Pellerin brothers Carson and Conrad.  As the first half-mile of the race passed beneath us I was a little surprised that these two teams didn't leave us in the dust.  Both were paddling ICF K2s, presumably much faster boats than the stable tandem surf ski Jeff and I were in.  And both teams were made up of what I would consider very solid paddlers: I have mentioned Brad and Andrew's CV above, and the Pellerin boys are strong 16-year-olds whom I have watched improve rapidly over a few years.

By the time we reached the first buoy turn Brad and Andrew had opened a lead of several boat lengths while Jeff and I sat on Carson and Conrad's stern wake.  Even though our boats were similar in length, Jeff and I made a much tighter turn and just like that we were on the brothers' left-side wake.

The course was three laps of a two-mile loop.  Having just rounded the buoy positioned a half-mile upriver from the start/finish line, we now headed downstream toward a buoy a half-mile below the start/finish.  There might have been a small bit of current helping us in this direction, but not much.  Technically we were racing on Bayou Teche, but the event's "Lower Atchafalaya" moniker was apt because down here the main Atchafalaya and all its tributaries and distributaries are part of the same mass of marshy swampland moving toward the Gulf of Mexico.

As we covered the mile from the top buoy to the bottom buoy Jeff and I held a comfortable spot on Carson and Conrad's side wake.  Brad and Andrew increased their lead on us a bit but were still not dominating the way I'd thought they might.  As we approached the bottom buoy the Pellerins threw in a surge that knocked us back to their stern wake, and I thought they were hoping to break away soon.  But once again Jeff and I made the turn tighter and were back on their side wake when it was over.  I was hoping our tenacity might be getting in the brothers' heads a bit.

Overall I was pleased with how Jeff and I were doing so far.  One reason was that our boat was proving faster than I'd expected: Epic has long manufactured a longer, tippier tandem ski that's intended for more elite-level racers, and I'd assumed that paddling this ski, made for the not so highly-skilled athlete, would be a drag by comparison.  But it was holding its own quite well.

Another reason is that racing in team boats in general is hard.  For the person used to racing solo, where anything he does affects nobody but himself, paddling a team boat can be a real psychological adjustment.  Not only is the boat itself bigger and heavier, but also you've got the extra weight of the person or people in the boat with you, and you can feel that extra inertia with every stroke.  Paddling in sync, so that the power of all the boat's paddlers is concentrated into every stroke, is paramount.

To our right Carson and Conrad were demonstrating beautiful synchronized paddling.  The two have grown up paddling team boats, usually a K3 with their brother Peyton, and it showed.  Jeff and I, who had never paddled together until 15 minutes before race time, probably looked sloppy by comparison.  I was in the bow so that I couldn't see how in sync we were, but I think he was faster to pull on the paddle after the catch than I was, because I could often feel that burst of power a split-second before I pulled myself.  But all told, I think we were making a competent go of it.

Up ahead of us Brad and Andrew looked anything but fluid, and I was a bit surprised considering how good they are as individuals, but even elite-level paddlers don't always mesh in a K2.  A few years ago Mike Herbert's wife Christel told me that the U.S. team coaches once tried putting Mike in a K2 with Greg Barton.  That would seem like a no-brainer, teaming up the two most successful international racers the U.S. has ever had.  But the two men's paddling styles were so different that the experiment was a flop.

We made another buoy turn and came back down to the start/finish line to mark the halfway point of the race.  Shortly after that Jeff and I broke away a bit from the Pellerins.  Carson and Conrad moved over so that they were off our left shoulders, and I thought maybe they were hoping to be on the inside of the next buoy turn; but Jeff and I threw in a little surge and soon we had increased the gap.  When we rounded the bottom buoy I could see that it would be a tall order for the boys to pull back even with us.

Jeff noticed it too, and he asked me if we should start trying to reel in Brad and Andrew.  "Yes, but slowly," I replied.  The Texans were a tantalizingly short distance up ahead, certainly, but I didn't want to get too zealous about going after them.  I had at least one more race to do, and I didn't want to blow myself out completely in this one.  Brad and Andrew had more racing to do as well, and I had a feeling they were holding something back themselves.  If they saw Jeff and me making a run they would likely surge away from us, and Jeff and I would have spent a lot of energy with nothing to show for it.  Then again, I didn't want to be a wuss or be afraid to take chances... and so in my usual wishy-washy fashion I advised that we go about it with caution.

As we moved into the final lap I think we did close the gap a bit.  We picked up the pace a little more as we approached the bottom buoy for the last time, and then, with a half-mile left, we surged hard.  We gained some more ground--partly because Brad and Andrew drifted over to the left quite a bit, adding some distance for themselves--but with a couple hundred meters left I could tell it wouldn't be enough.  Brad and Andrew crossed the line in a time of 48 minutes, 21 seconds.  They would split the $500 first prize ($250 apiece).  Jeff and I came in 21 seconds later for a second-place payday of $125 each.  We urged Carson and Conrad across the line about two minutes later.

There was only one female pair entered in this race: Jill Tamperello of Berwick, Louisiana, and Beth Felterman of Patterson.  One must show up to win, and that's exactly what these ladies did.  Hopefully there will be a bit more competition for the female title in the future.

The complete results are posted here.

It would be just over an hour before my next race, so I headed back to my car to dry off, drink some fluids and eat an orange and a banana, and relax for a bit.

Bayou racing, Part 1: pre-race

I made it down to the riverfront Friday morning for a quick 30 minutes in the boat.  I warmed up, did four 12-stroke sprints, and cooled back down.

I went back home, put my gear in the car, loaded my boat, and headed for Interstate 55 south just before lunchtime (I ate my lunch in the car).  I was determined to make this race trip a quick down-and-back affair even though I knew it would be an exhausting one, the race site located at least seven hours away.

Andre Pellerin, whose triplet sons Carson, Conrad, and Peyton are growing up in the same universe of canoe and kayak racing in which I find myself, had invited me to spend the night at their house in Breaux Bridge.  I arrived there around seven o'clock, and for the next 12 hours or so I'd be immersed in their world.  We drove the 16-year-old boys to their high school's football game, and then Andre and I went out to eat.  I was hungry and I eagerly wolfed down a 10-inch sausage pizza at a place called Buck & Johnny's.  It was utterly yummy but it left my digestive system with a formidable overnight chore.

After supper we retrieved the boys (Breaux Bridge High had been denied victory on the gridiron, sadly).  We went back to the Pellerin compound and got ready for bed.  Conrad and Peyton went to sleep in their grandparent's house a few dozen yards away so that we'd have room for several house guests.  Brad Pennington, Andrew Korompay, and Brian Poda, strong racers from the Houston area, were due to arrive in the early morning hours.  I quickly fell asleep myself and though I think I woke up briefly when the Texans arrived, I got a pretty solid night's sleep.

That was a good thing because we were up and at 'em before six the next morning.  The race site was more than an hour away in the little village of Patterson, and we were breakfasting on the run.  I'm normally persnickety about my race-morning routine and it was a challenge to give myself over to the Pellerins' more hectic schedule, but that's typically the price when you accept an offer of a free place to stay.  We stopped at a doughnut shop and I got myself a simple doughnut and a cup of coffee that I supplemented with some fruit I'd brought along.  The drive down to Patterson went smoothly enough even though Andre had a habit of barreling his truck-and-boat-trailer rig through intersections with a half-second of yellow light left, meaning I had to run a seconds-old red light to keep up with him.  All I need is a moving violation on my record.

But we arrived in Patterson without any blue-light detentions.  The first person to greet us was race director Ray Pellerin, Andre's father and the triplets' grandfather.  "Mister Ray" is one of the true workhorses in our sport: he is the founder and organizer of the Tour du Teche series of races that take place throughout the year in the Louisiana Bayou country, culminating in the multi-day ultra-marathon Tour de la Riviere Rouge, Tour du Teche 135, and 410 de Louisiane events in October.  I honestly can't think of a finer pillar of his community than Mister Ray: he recognizes what an asset canoe and kayak racing can be to a region, and he has taken it upon himself to bring paddlers to the Bayou country to celebrate the beauty and culture one can find there.  As a shorter-distance athlete I haven't made it to many of these races, sadly, but there is a 7.7-mile race (the "Top of the Teche") in the spring that I've done once and would like to do again, and when this new 6-mile "sprint" event was announced earlier this year I put it on my calendar right away.

And so here I was, ready to get down to business.  Task One was to find the restroom, and happily there was no line at the lone port-a-let on the race site.  A while later I emerged feeling that I just might be race-ready.

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Racing this Saturday, healthy or otherwise

I'm now officially registered for the Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races this Saturday.  There will be several different races for different classes, and I think I'm going to join a friend in the tandem race as well as race solo like I normally do.  The distance for each race is six miles--not really a "sprint" in my opinion, but the organizers of this race also organize annual races measured in the hundreds of miles, so I guess six miles is a sprint to them.

Sprints are what I've continued to do in the boat, at any rate.  Yesterday I did six 12-stroke sprints during a 60-minute session.  I've also done the strength routine both Monday and yesterday.  I'll skip it tomorrow since I'm racing on Saturday.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I haven't had any injuries that made me miss time in the boat this season.  But the aches and pains have been getting to me lately.  Maybe I just need to resign myself to a life of aches and pains as long as I insist upon doing hard athletic stuff at age 50 and beyond.  But I welcome relief wherever I can find it.  I woke up Monday with acute soreness and tightness in my lower back--so bad that I could hardly bend over at all.  That discomfort has eased since then, but now I've got a knot up in my right shoulder and neck area.  Yargh.  I've dealt with these things for years now, and they always get better eventually, but that doesn't mean I'm growing to like them.

Monday, September 4, 2017

Monday photo feature


My niece Ada and nephew Joel explore a foggy White River near Calico Rock, Arkansas, in the summer of 2008.

Sunday, September 3, 2017

Keeping it speedy late in the season, and learning from another sport

Yesterday I got in the boat for 60 minutes, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then heading out onto the Mississippi.  I paddled a mile or so upstream and met a barge rig coming downriver, but this one wasn't producing anything like the sweet waves I rode on Thursday.  I followed it back down to the mouth of the harbor, and mostly got pitched around in boily water.

I've mentioned the gar that have been populating the Memphis riverfront all summer.  They're generally docile and non-threatening, but many of them are quite impressive in size.  As I was paddling out of the harbor yesterday I saw one break the surface about 20 meters in front of me, and it looked like a dolphin coming up for air.

I haven't pulled the registration trigger yet, but I do think I will be going to this race in Louisiana next Saturday.  I've been thinking about how best to prepare: at this point in the season I think the main objective is to maintain fitness, not build it, so whatever workouts I do the rest of this season will be moderate in volume but high in quality.  And so today some hard short sprints were on the agenda in a session of 60 minutes overall.  I warmed up for ten minutes and then did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals near the mouth of the harbor.  Then I paddled up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and back, maintaining a brisk but comfortable tempo.

Back in the harbor I paddled up to the monorail bridge and timed myself in a sprint from there to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I had broken two minutes in this sprint once or twice in the past, but most of the times I do it my time is closer to 2:10.  Today my time was 1:58.  It was a nice mental boost to know I'm still moving the boat pretty well.

(As measured by my G.P.S. device, the distance from the southern edge of the monorail bridge to the southern edge of the HDB is 0.28 mile.  Using the international standard of 1609.344 meters to one mile as a conversion factor, that's about 450.62 meters.)

In the summertime I'm a regular listener to Saint Louis Cardinals baseball games on the radio, and as such I find myself thinking a lot about the technical challenges faced by both paddlers and baseball players.  The Cardinals have a player who's built a career as a good hitter but has struggled mightily at the plate this season.  Discussing his troubles during yesterday's game at San Francisco, the radio announcers pointed out that he seems to be swinging only with his arms, and not getting his entire body involved from the feet up.  The announcers went on to say that pitchers, too, often struggle when they don't use their entire bodies to throw pitches.

The point I'd like to highlight here is that technical issues must constantly be worked on.  Players at the major league level are the best in the world at the game of baseball, and yet even for them perfect technique is not automatic.  When a player is "hot" it usually means that all parts of his body are moving together in perfect harmony, but when he's "in a slump" everything seems to fall apart.  This Cardinals player actually got sent down to the minor leagues for a while this season so he could work on his batting technique out of the spotlight.

Paddling is, of course, a full-body endeavor as well, and doing it right requires ongoing concentration.  I've mentioned in the past that sometimes my 8-stoke or 12-stroke sprints feel fluid and natural and other times they feel like a sloppy mess.  Sometimes all it takes to make them go better is for me to say to myself "Use your feet!" or something like that.

Anyway... that's my "deep thought" for now as I try to finish up a pretty successful race season on a high note.

Friday, September 1, 2017

Storms and surfing

I was still feeling really tired and sluggish on Monday, so I made it a rest day.  I didn't paddle and I didn't do the strength routine that I normally do on Mondays.

By Tuesday morning I was feeling a bit more energetic, but I didn't want to push my luck, so I paddled for just 40 minutes.  That was enough time to get loose and do three 8-stroke sprints and a couple of surges.

On Wednesday I did the strength routine, and yesterday I got back in the boat for a 70-minute paddle.  Yesterday was the day that Tropical Depression Harvey was to make its trip through the greater Memphis area, and Thursday evening sprints had been called off to spare us all the negotiation of flooded streets to get out to Shelby Farms.  But in the mid morning there was no more than an occasional light drizzle falling.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi to see what was going on.

What was going on was a barge rig coming downstream that was producing some premium surfing waves in its wake.  This rig was unusual in that it wasn't moving that fast--usually they pull away from me quickly, taking their best waves with them--and yet its screws were churning up good surfing waves.  So I was able to surf without working too hard, and could have continued doing so for miles and miles if I'd wanted.  As it was, I surfed from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge until we were down below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, and then I decided I should bring the fun to a close before I was faced with too long a paddle back upriver.  I worked my way up the bank alongside Tom Lee Park until I was safely back in the harbor's flatwater.

At this time some heavier rain moved in, and I paddled that last 2000 meters or so back to the dock in a drenching downpour.  But I was unconcerned--paddling is a water sport, after all.  By the time I was back on the dock and in dry clothes the rain had backed off enough that I could walk up to the car without getting too soaked.  The rain was coming down in earnest by the time I got home for lunch, and would continue on into the night.

The rain was gone by the time I woke up this morning.  As the city dried out I did another round of the strength routine.