The Fahrenheit temperature rose all the way into the 70s on Thursday. When it gets that warm at this time of year, it's usually accompanied by strong winds, and that was the case Thursday as the wind blew from the south at 15-20 miles per hour.
I started my 60-minute paddle Thursday by heading south, into the wind. As I reached the Mud Island marina, about a thousand meters south of my own marina, I starting doing my three 8-stroke sprints. I was starting the third one as I was looping around the marina and heading back north, and a wave moving in from my right upset my balance. Into the water I went, and I was right next to the marina's store and I'm sure somebody saw my mishap. How embarrassing. I remounted in a matter of seconds and continued on my way, hoping that maybe it would look like I'd actually meant to flip.
Now, with the wind at my back, I began the day's workout: ten 30-second sprints at 3-minute intervals. I tend to want to take as many strokes per minute as possible during short sprints like this, and I had to make myself back off the stroke rate a bit and focus instead on making each stroke as good as it could be.
A front moved through on Friday with a strong north wind that pushed the temperature downward some 20 degrees during the day. I was happy to stay in and do the strength routine. By yesterday the wind had died down but there was plenty of rain. It didn't rain for all of the 60 minutes I paddled, but a heavy shower moved in during the last five minutes and so I was good and soaked when I got back to the dock.
The Mississippi is on a big rise right now. In the last week the level has come up from below 12 feet on the Memphis gauge to 22.6 feet this morning. Right now the forecast says it'll go up to 27 feet, but I expect that to be revised upward, as there's apparently been a lot of rainfall in the eastern U.S. lately. Yesterday's rain moved eastward into the Tennessee and Cumberland and Ohio watersheds, all of which feed the Mississippi upstream of Memphis. A day or two ago somebody on Face Book posted a picture of high water on the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, and that, too, will eventually flow by Memphis.
Along with a rising river we got a bit of a surprise here this morning: sunshine. The weather forecast has been looking overcast, rainy, and bleak, but the sun managed to break through for a while. I decided today was a good time for a trip around the Loosahatchie Bar. Starting and finishing at Harbortown Marina, this paddle typically takes me around two hours; I think the fastest I've ever done it is around an hour and 50 minutes, but I never do it as an all-out time trial. I push the pace during parts of it and back off during other parts of it. Today I paddled strong from the dock up to the mouth of the Wolf River, and then I eased up for ten minutes or so to gather myself for a fast ferry across the river. With the east wind at my back during the ferry, sweat ran into my eyes and I had to stop paddling and wipe them off several times--kind of a chore with pogies on. So I lost some time here because whenever I wasn't paddling I was drifting back downriver. Once I had "summited" the north end of the Bar I had the current in my favor again as well as a nice breeze to keep my eyes dry. I paddled pretty hard for the last 50 minutes or so, hoping maybe I could still duck under two hours. I pushed the pace until about the last 400 meters, and reached the dock at almost exactly the two-hour mark.
I'm always utterly worn out for the rest of the day after paddling around the Bar, and today is no exception. The distance of this paddle is about 12.6 miles, and it's a fairly wilderness-intensive 12.6 miles with exposure to wind, sun, and strong currents.
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