Monday photo feature

I'm a little speck in the middle of El Horrendo, a big drop on the Russell Fork of the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River.  The Russell Fork, which crosses from Virginia into Kentucky near Elkhorn City, Kentucky, sees water releases each October and is a wonderful place to enjoy the fall foliage.  Ward Graham took this photo in October of 1997.

Knowledge is power. At least, I hope it eventually will be.

I got up at 5 AM CDT yesterday and was on the road by six.  According to my car's in-dash temperature display it was 63 degrees Fahrenheit at that hour, but the voices in the car's radio were talking about a front heading toward Memphis that would send the temperature plummeting into the 40s by the mid-afternoon.  That same front would eventually reach Chattanooga, where I was headed, but I hoped it wouldn't get over there until well after my stroke clinic.

I arrived in 'Nooga around one o'clock eastern time and parked in Coolidge Park, the announced site of the clinic, on the river-right side of the Tennessee River.  The clinic was scheduled to start at 2:00, and I started getting worried when nobody had shown up by 1:45.  Two o'clock came and went, and it was clear to me that some change had occurred for which I had been out of the loop.  (No, I was not able to check my e-mail on my phone.  I am about a decade behind the times in the hand-held technology department.)

In a state of panic, I ended up paddling across the river to Ross's Landing Park, and there I finally found the clinic in progress.  Morgan House, the instructor, was very apologetic about the communication failure and promised to give me a refund, but I replied that we should just get on with the clinic and worry about that later.

In the end, I got more than my fifty bucks' worth and the refund talk was put to rest.  I had just missed the dry-land lecture but was able to get up to speed quickly as we put our boats in the water.  My eight or so fellow students included familiar faces Ted Burnell of Chattanooga; Joseph DiChiacchio of nearby Rising Fawn, Georgia; Lauren Drummond of Gulfport, Mississippi; and Myrlene Marsa of Rising Fawn.  The temperature was balmy (low 70s) but it was quite windy, and we paddled upstream to find some calmer water on the river-left side of MacLellan Island.

Morgan had been watching our strokes during the paddle up there and he had pointers for each of us once we were gathered back together.  His critique of my stroke centered around my exit: I was bringing my blade out of the water too far out from the boat.  He told me to bring my stroke-side hand up closer to my head: said hand would now be the top hand for my next stroke, and with it closer to my head I would be set up for a more vertical next stroke.  The way I had been exiting, he explained, was setting me up with a more horizontal shaft on my next stroke, and the result would be more of a forward sweep than a pure forward stroke.

Since I first tried using a wing paddle about 20 years ago, I have understood that the blade is supposed to move away from the boat during the course of a stroke, and I guess I had developed a stroke that overdid that detail.  Morgan said that while a wing blade is in fact supposed to move away from the boat, it doesn't have to do so as much as mine was doing.  My objective, he said, should be to put as much of my effort into the "straight-back" motion of the blade as possible, and keep the away-from-the-boat drift to a minimum.

Another point of emphasis for Morgan was to hesitate between strokes, and allow the boat to glide for that half-second or so.  He said we should strive to get all the boat movement we can out of each stroke, and go faster with a lower stroke rate.

After an hour of working on these things, I felt as though I'd entirely forgotten how to paddle, and a day later I'm a bit sore from movements that my middle-aged body hadn't been used to.  But that's normal.  Every time I've made even a minor change to my mechanics in the past, it's been a tiring process that required much effort and concentration to get used to.  And that's what's in store for me now as I head into this offseason.  There are definitely some stroke drills in my future.  Morgan showed us a few good ones, including the "one-two-three-four-FIVE" drill where you take four easy, relaxed strokes and then take the fifth one as hard as you can; a one-sided paddling drill, something I've done many times before, except that Morgan's version has a more specific focus; and drills that isolate each discrete component of the stroke, such as the catch and the exit.

There's a little uneasiness here, as I wonder whether I'm truly capable of internalizing Morgan's advice and emerging with a stroke that's better than ever.  But mostly I'm excited to have a "mission" for this offseason as opposed to just putting my time in on the water.

With things to do back here in Memphis this morning, I started heading back west shortly after the clinic's conclusion.  The temperature remained in the 70s all the way to Murfreesboro; then, once I'd turned onto Interstate 840 that bypasses Nashville to the southwest, it began to drop quickly.  It took less than a half-hour to sink into the 40s, and soon I was driving through some heavy rain that the front brought with it.  By the time I reached Jackson I was out of the rain, and back here at home we're in for a few partly-sunny and cooler-than-normal days.  I'll be bundling up a bit when I get back in the boat to start working on my stroke.

Monday photo feature

The second torso from the right in this photo is that of Morgan House, a member of the U.S. flatwater sprint team for most of the last decade.  A native of Gainesville, Georgia, House is training here with his K4 teammates on the Ala Wai Canal on the island of Oahu.  The photo appeared in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser as part of this article on August 13, 2010.

This Friday House will be taking a good hard look at what I and a few other pupils are doing in our boats.  The two-hour clinic will take place on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga.  The last time I checked there were some spots still available; anybody interested in taking this clinic may sign up here.

My search for this photo began when I typed "Morgan House" into Google Images.  All I got was a bunch of pictures of houses.  Typing "Morgan House kayak" still brought up a bunch of houses, but it led me to this photo as well.

Back to school

I'm signed up for a clinic this Friday.  It's on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, and it will be coached by former U.S. flatwater sprint team member Morgan House.

I can't say this is the most convenient time for me to drive someplace five and a half hours away, but I'm doing it because it's been a long time since I've had a pair of expert eyes take a good look at what I'm doing in the boat.  And this early stage of the offseason is an ideal time for attending a clinic.  The day of the clinic is not when you actually improve what you're doing; the improvement comes in the weeks and months after the clinic, as you incorporate the things you learned into your skill set.  So with any luck at all, by the time I line up for a race next spring I'll have spent a solid few months refining my mechanics and technique.

Anyway, when the clinic's over I'll tell you how it went.

One more thought

So I have declared my 2017 season at an end.  "Declared" seems like a funny word, because when we think of sports we tend to think of a regular season followed by playoffs that lead to the crowning of a champion.  Athletes in those sports don't "declare" their seasons over; they either make it all the way to the final or are eliminated by somebody else.

Canoe and kayak racing doesn't really work that way.  Sure, there's the possibility of making the Olympic team (but only in the disciplines of flatwater sprint and whitewater slalom) or some other national team.  That's all but reserved for much younger people than I, however--people at the peak age for human athletic potential.  For folks my age there's just an assortment of races over the course of the year, and you pick out a few, and you go and race in them, and when they're over, they're over.

What's my point?  Oh, I don't know.  I guess it's similar to what I was saying in my previous post: that paddling is just a hobby that I devote myself to and enjoy.

Takin' away some takeaways

I have done my last race for 2017.  So, what wisdom has been gained?  What lessons have we learned here at My Training Blog by Elmore?

To begin to answer that question, I'll share an experience from a previous life.  I had been a decent high school distance runner, but not a great one, and now, as a college sophomore, I'd been training hard hoping to achieve mere respectability among Division I competition.  I was at the Mason Dixon Games, an annual indoor meet in Louisville's Broadbent Arena.  I was entered in the 3000-meter run, for which there would be two heats: a "fast" heat and a "slow" heat.  My previous PR was just barely fast enough for me to be put in the "fast" heat.  I was scared.  I didn't think I was going to beat anybody.  My heart pounded as I warmed up and timidly stepped up to the starting line alongside maybe twenty other guys.  As we embarked on 15 laps of a 200-meter track I hung near the back of the pack, cautiously gauging my body's response to the quick pace.  After about four laps it was finally sinking in that I felt pretty good, and when I heard my coach shout "Go by him, Elmore!" I surged past the guy in front of me.  After collecting myself for a few moments I realized I was still feeling good, and I surged past another guy.  My confidence growing, I began to overtake more guys on each straight while tucking to the inside of each curve.  The race went on, and I kept passing people, and then it was over before I'd even realized it.  I had no idea what place I'd finished because the field had strung out all around the 200-meter track, but then I saw my coach (actually a graduate assistant who'd been working closely with me) walking toward me in a state of utter giddiness.  He told me I'd finished sixth, and showed me his watch.  My time was 8 minutes, 52 seconds--more than 40 seconds faster than I'd ever run a 3000 before.

For the next couple of weeks I basked in the glow of my achievement.  There was buzz all around the team about how I'd "taken it to the next level."  I wouldn't say I let it go to my head--I knew I had to keep working hard if I wanted to keep performing so well--but I was feeling pretty special just the same.  But I'd get sort of a harsh reality check at my next race, an indoor 2-mile up at Cincinnati.  I had none of the "pep" I'd had in Louisville, and felt flat from start to finish.  My time was 10:02.  Two miles is about 3219 meters, and so my equivalent 3000-meter time would have been 9:25 or thereabouts.

I was bummed out, but my coach reminded me that bad races happen to everybody and that I'd bounce back soon enough.  And he was right.  Unfortunately, neither one of us could foresee what was to come: a week or two later I was doing a set of 400-meter intervals and felt an awful surge of pain in my upper left leg.  It turned out I had a severe case of iliotibial band syndrome, a fairly common overuse injury for runners.  The intensity of training I'd been doing was more than my body was ready for, and this was the price.  I was unable to run at all for the next three or four months, and when I finally did start running again I couldn't build any kind of base because the injury kept threatening to return.  I'd end up spending the next half-dozen years dealing with one nagging ailment or another, and trying and failing to regain the form of that evening in Louisville.  Eventually I shelved my running career and redirected my energy into canoe and kayak racing.

The main point I'm trying to make in sharing this story is that moments of glory are fleeting.  You spend all these hours training.  You're careful to make sure you're getting enough rest and eating good food.  You pay close attention to your technique and your mechanics to maximize your quality of performance and minimize your chances of injury.  Then, finally, you go out and accomplish something truly special.  And then it's over, and unless you're in a sport with millions of fans and lots of media attention, nobody will even remember it but you.  And there's no guarantee you'll ever do something as impressive again.

So why does anybody even bother?  Well, I suppose everybody who participates in any sport has his own reason.  But I believe that the people who achieve sustained success--and by "success" I mean not only winning major medals or titles but also simply sticking with it for decades like I've done as a paddler--derive deep fulfillment from the process.  They enjoy the everyday routine: the workouts, the technique, the intellectual challenges, the solitude, the camaraderie with other athletes.

While sparing you the whole sob story, I'll just say that this past year or so hasn't been the easiest in my out-of-the-boat life.  There have been some things going on that have brought me more than my share of stress and grief.  I think that's helped me appreciate the ritual of going down to the river more than ever.  Rarely this year have I not felt better after paddling than I'd felt before.  I've enjoyed working on my mechanics, trying to make each stroke a little better than the previous one.  I've enjoyed paddling hard pieces and getting my heart rate up.  I've enjoyed cruising along and watching the turtles and the birds and the fish and the beavers.  I've enjoyed the beautiful calm sunny days and the days of not-so-ideal weather.  I've enjoyed communing with the mighty Mississippi River in all its many moods over its broad range of water levels.

And I've enjoyed mostly good health this year.  There were certainly aches and pains here and there, but not once did I have to miss a training session because of a physical ailment.

It all added up to my best competitive season in at least several years.  I even had a race reminiscent of that 3000-meter race in Louisville all those years ago: at our race here at Memphis in June, everything just seemed to fall into place and I felt fantastic even as I was paddling as hard as I could. Good performances continued for the rest of the summer.

And that brings me back to the main point.  Competitive success is fleeting.  Peak form can last only so long.  I want to believe I'll achieve it again next year, and the next year, and the next, but there's no guarantee of that.  And so, I continue to savor the process.  Every time I am physically able to get in a boat and paddle it is a precious gift, and I've got to remember that.

Right now I'm enjoying another nice gift: a bit of time off.  Believe it or not there are some positive things in my out-of-the-boat life too, and I'm looking forward to spending a bit more time with those.

Thanks for reading all this, and thanks to everybody who's said nice things about this blog.  Nothing makes me happier than knowing that other people might be getting some benefit from this stuff I scribble out on my computer keyboard.

Relishing the offseason

I finally got back in the boat today.  Joe made it this time, and the harbor looked lovely after last week's yucky conditions.  Some extra water helped: although the remnants of Hurricane Nate veered well to the east of the Memphis area ten days ago, it dropped a good bit of rain in the Tennessee River basin, and that water is now flowing past Memphis.  Today's level was 4.85 feet on the Memphis gauge.  That's still quite a low level, but around our dock it makes all the difference in the world.  Compare this photo, taken this morning, with the one I posted back on September 25:

The overnight temperature had been in the 40s Fahrenheit, but by the time I got to the river it was rising above 60 degrees.  Joe and I did a lap of the harbor in 80 minutes.  Every spring I do a timed lap of the harbor, clocking almost a half hour faster than that.  Clearly, Joe and I were just cruising and talking and enjoying the beautiful sunny day.

Monday photo feature

This past week ended with no appreciable canoe and kayak activity taking place.  I was busy with out-of-the-boat concerns.  To wit: the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, an annual event at which I demonstrate the craft of bowl carving.

One of the other artists I met over the weekend was photographer Lorri Honeycutt of Carolina Beach, North Carolina.  She creates all kinds of quirky scapes using tiny figurines, and photographs them.  I purchased a couple of her pieces including the one above, entitled "Koolaid Challenge."

Motivation killer

My friend Joe and I have a standing appointment to paddle together each Tuesday, but yesterday he had to go to the dentist and couldn't make it.  So I went down there myself, planning to do another easy paddle for an hour or less.

Some heavy thunderstorms had passed through here overnight.  We'd barely had any rain since the remnants of Hurricane Harvey came through here in early September, so this rain was welcome.  But when I got down to the riverfront I saw the downside: the harbor, already very low as I've reported here before, was choked with litter that had washed in from the storm drains and tributary creeks.

I am constantly defending our riverfront against the myth that it's nothing but a big open sewer with no possible recreational value whatsoever.  People who believe that are typically longtime Memphians (and therefore self-proclaimed experts on all things Mississippi River) whose only contact with the river is the occasional trip downtown for the nightlife or a music festival or some such thing.

I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that the river is pristine.  In fact, it faces constant pollution threats that require ongoing vigilance among those to whom the river belongs (that would be me, you, and every other human being).  But it's not a place where you have to hold your nose, either.  I would say that nine days out of ten it's no less appealing than the waterfront of any other large city in the world.

But there's always that tenth day out of ten, and that's what I found yesterday.  Because of the rain, along with the low water and the prevailing wind and the barometric pressure and who knows what other variables, the harbor surface was as unappealing as I've ever seen it.

If Joe had been there I'd have gone ahead and paddled with him.  And if there were competitions coming up, I'd have done my work.  But standing there alone I thought, it's my offseason now, I'm tired, I'm ready for a break, and I really don't feel like hosing a bunch of scum off my boat when I'm done paddling.  I think I'll skip it today.

To make myself feel better, I picked up all the aluminum cans from the water that I could reach from the dock--well over a dozen of them--and carried them up to the collection bin outside the grocery store.  The proceeds from the redemption of those cans is supposed to benefit the Humane Society, and I can't imagine who would object to that.

I do want to get in my boat at least once a week for the next little while, and carry on some sort of strength routine, too.  But I doubt much will happen the rest of this week because the big annual crafts fair that I'm always involved in is this Friday through Sunday.  I'll start setting up for that this afternoon.

I guess I'll conclude this post with a moral: do not litter!  Seriously.  Once in a while I even see somebody I consider a good person drop something on the ground.  Stop doing that!  And if you see some litter, pick it up!  I can tell you exactly where it will end up if you don't.

Monday photo feature

There were canoe and kayak races all over the place this past weekend, and it's hard to believe there are enough paddlers for each of them to have had a decent turnout.  But apparently there are.  In addition to the Gator Bait Race that I attended down at Jackson, Mississippi, there was the Tour du Teche on southern Louisiana's Bayou Teche, an event that had to be cut short as Hurricane Nate approached; the Kayak Trader Challenge, hosted by the 1996 Olympics flatwater sprint venue on Lake Lanier at Gainesville, Georgia; and the Middle States Divisional Championships, hosted by the venerable Washington Canoe Club on the Potomac River at Washington, DC.  And there were probably more that I simply don't know about... in the upper Midwest or out on the West Coast, perhaps.

The photo above, taken by Craig Impens of Toms River, New Jersey, shows a bustle of activity on the Washington Canoe Club dock along the beautiful Potomac.  That's the Francis Scott Key Bridge over yonder.

Oh buoy! I've won a race at last.

I got up at 4:15 AM CDT yesterday.  The Gator Bait Race was scheduled to start at 9:30 AM.  I like to get to a race site an hour and a half before the start so I can go through my whole pre-race routine--readying my boat and gear, stretching, warming up, and so on--at a relaxed pace.  So eight o'clock was the goal.  It typically takes me three hours to drive to Jackson, so I wanted to be on the road by five.

I made some coffee, ate a bowl of cereal, prepared some fruit to eat in the car, and pulled out of my driveway at 4:55... right on schedule.  Unfortunately, my digestive system wasn't being entirely cooperative: my body is used to being fed two hours later than it was this morning.  So I had to make a lengthy rest stop south of Batesville.  Then, as I entered the northern outskirts of Jackson, the warning light came on telling me I needed to refuel.  I'd thought I had enough gasoline that I wouldn't have to get more until after the race, but now, with at least 20 miles still between me and the race site, I didn't want to push my luck.  So I stopped for gas, and visited the restroom again while I was at it.

In the end, it wasn't until 8:30 that I finally pulled into Pelahatchie Shore Park near the southeast corner of Barnett Reservoir.  So I had just an hour to get ready.  But I would be fine.  I'm a cautious guy who always overestimates how much time he'll need, and the fact is that an hour was plenty.  The nice ladies at the registration table got me checked in without delay, and I went through my stretches during the pre-race competitors' meeting.  Soon I was in the water getting loose and ready to start.

The gun went off at 9:30 sharp.  I sprinted off the line and spent the first few hundred meters with Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi, on my stern wake and Seth Garland of Brandon, Mississippi, off to my left.  The course crosses a stretch of open water before entering a network of backwater channels, and by the end of the open-water stretch I was alone in first place.

Barnett Reservoir was created by the construction of a dam on the Pearl River, and like most reservoirs in non-mountainous regions it's a vast, open body of water.  But this race takes place on one of the more interesting parts of the lake.  Pelahatchie Bay is the inundated bottom portion of Pelahatchie Creek, and it's a smaller, more intimate place with a trail through a marshy area behind some islands (there's a good course map posted on this page; racers proceed in a clockwise direction).  So the race course, 5.5 miles or about 9 kilometers in total distance, has a nice mix of open water and secluded channels to engage and challenge the participants.  The drawback is that the water is not particularly deep.  It was never hit-the-bottom-with-your-paddle shallow, but in those back channels it was shallow enough to create some bottom-drag ("suck water," some racers like to call it).

And so as I made my way through that back part of the course I was feeling the strain in my arms and shoulders and upper back.  This stretch is maybe 2000 or 2500 meters and I yearned to be out of it and back on deeper water.

Finally, I got my wish: I emerged from the back channel and entered the course's second open-water crossing.  Now I had a new challenge: to find the buoy at the end of it (the one in the bottom right corner on the course map) and point my boat at it.  I looked and I looked, and could spot no buoy.  My long-distance vision has never been very good, and I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm now in my second half-century, but I was hoping I could at least find a color that contrasted with the water and the surrounding landscape.  Most of the previous buoys I'd seen on the course were pinkish and that's what I hoped to see now.

But I never saw a thing.  So I paddled toward where I thought the buoy should be, based on my past participation in this event.  I drew closer and closer to the bay's southern shore, and still saw no buoy. Finally, convinced I was veering much too far to my left, I made a hard right turn and started the last leg of the course, toward the finish line.  Moments later I saw the buoy: it was a green alligator pool toy (purchased several years ago in keeping with the "Gator Bait" theme).  My feeling was a mixture of relief that I hadn't cut a corner of the course and annoyance that I'd added a couple hundred meters to my distance.  Over my right shoulder I could see my nearest pursuers, who had seen my mistake and were now gaining some distance on me.  I still had a comfortable lead and didn't really think they would be able to catch me, but nevertheless I spent the last two thousand meters of the race plagued with nightmarish visions of being run down just before the finish line (hey, it's happened to me before).  By this time my muscles were severely taxed from the shallow-water paddling and any kind of late-race surge would be a tall order.

Stroke after stroke I pulled myself toward the finish, trying to paddle as efficiently as I could.  The nightmare never came true and I finished in first place with a time of 47 minutes, 21 seconds.  It was my first overall victory in two years.  I won the 2015 edition of this race, and since then victory had eluded me until now.

96 seconds later Jeb Berry came in to finish second overall.  Jeb has been a tough adversary for me this year, pushing me hard at Ocean Springs in March and then edging me out for the win at Pascagoula in April.  I learned that he was dealing with some acute tendinitis in his elbow and that's the main reason I was able to build a cushion on him yesterday.

Adam Davis of Memphis took third place; Henry Lawrence of Brandon, Mississippi, was fourth; and Mike Womack, who lives just over the Mississippi state line from Memphis, rounded out the top five.  Camille Richards of Ridgeland, Mississippi, was the top overall female finisher.  The complete results are posted here.

I told the race organizers that they really ought to mark the end of an open-water crossing with a more visible buoy, and they very kindly said they would in the future.  Fortunately I don't think the buoy issue caused any major trouble yesterday: once the leaders had figured out where it was, the rest of the field was able to follow them.

We were all treated to a lovely catered lunch and a chance at winning some door prizes.  Awards were handed out and we parted company in high spirits after a good morning of competition and camaraderie.

Back here at home I woke up this morning remarkably less sore than I'd expected.  Yesterday's course was quite similar in character to the USCA Nationals course I raced on in August, and I was sore for days after that race.  Of course, I raced 13 miles on that course, compared with just five and a half yesterday.  In any case, a recovery paddle was in order today, and I went down to the riverfront and stretched thoroughly on the dock before getting in the boat and paddling a mostly-easy 40 minutes.

Is there one more in me?

The week has gone about the way I'd hoped it would.  I did the strength routine on Monday and Wednesday and paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday.  Yesterday and today I did shorter sessions in the boat--50 minutes yesterday and 40 minutes today--and practiced starts and high-speed paddling with some 12-stroke sprints.  I did six sprints yesterday and four today.

My last race of the season is tomorrow morning on Barnett Reservoir on the northeast side of Jackson, Mississippi.  I plan to get up in the wee hours of the morning to make the drive down there.

Monday photo feature

I'm probably no different from most folks in that I get a lot of mail from nonprofit organizations that have gotten my address one way or another.  And each year I get several calendars: at this moment there are calendars from the Ocean Conservancy, the National Parks Foundation, and the Trust for Public Land cluttering up my desk.

I don't need but one calendar, and the one I keep and use year after year is the one from American Rivers, of which I've been a member since I was in college.  I just got my 2018 American Rivers calendar this past week.  As usual, it has twelve beautiful photos of rivers all over this great nation.  Pictured above is a lovely shot of Ohio's Little Miami River.

Almost done

I did the strength routine as planned yesterday morning, and this afternoon I paddled mostly easy for 60 minutes on the incredibly low Mississippi River.  The level was six feet below zero on the Memphis gauge.

With my last race of the season coming up next weekend, I'm trying to get some rest and do some easy paddles with some short sprints.  I'm feeling some late-season weariness and I will welcome a break.