Feverish goings on this spring

This past week was a crazy one with a lot of out-of-the-boat things to deal with.  I managed to do about all the training stuff I'd do in a normal week, but the time to write about it here proved elusive.  Here's my attempt to make up for that.

I got in the usual three rounds of the strength routine this week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

At this time of year warmer weather is typically accompanied by strong winds, and that's what we had in the later part of the week.  When Joe and I met to paddle on Tuesday, it was still calm, sunny, and cooler: the temperature was in the mid 50s Fahrenheit.  By the time I got back in the boat on Thursday it had warmed up into the 70s and the wind was screaming out of the south.  I dealt with it by staying in the harbor and arranging for a workout with the wind at my back.  I warmed up paddling toward the mouth of the harbor, into the wind, and I did three 8-stroke sprints into the wind as well.  Then I turned around and commenced the workout: ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  Tiring as they were, the sprints felt good and smooth and fluid.

On Saturday I would be involved in an all-day event in the arts district where my workshop is, so I decided to paddle Friday afternoon.  By then I was dead-dog tired, I guess from the strength routine that morning combined with all the things that had been going on all week.  I felt as sluggish in the boat as I'd felt in a long time.  The wind was blowing again, and I just tried to stay relaxed and paddle easy for 40 minutes.

Some heavy rain came through yesterday, and today we're immersed in the cooler air than moved in behind it.  The temperature was in the mid 40s when I got down to the riverfront this morning, with a pretty stiff wind blowing out of the west.  My usual Sunday routine is to do a longer paddle, but with a race coming up next weekend I didn't want to make it super long.  So I paddled for 70 minutes, doing a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals and then paddling on the fast side of medium the rest of the time.  I paddled out on the Mississippi for a short while--I didn't stay out there long due to some towboat wakes intensified by the windy conditions.  In any case, by the time I returned to the dock I was feeling better than I'd felt at the outset, and that was satisfying after Friday's lethargic session on the water.