I went down to the river yesterday morning under overcast skies. There was very little wind and the Fahrenheit temperature was in the low 70s. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I paddled out onto the Mississippi and saw a barge rig coming downriver. Downstream-bound towboats usually generate smaller wakes than upstream-bound ones, but this one must have been running behind schedule because its wake was huge. I fell in behind it hoping for some epic surf, but I was reminded that bigger is not always better: I'm no expert on wave dynamics, but something about the shape of these waves made it hard for me to get much of a ride at all. I followed the vessel down just below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and then gave it up. I paddled back upriver along the Tennessee bank at a strong tempo and got back to the dock just in time to make it a 60-minute session.
I did a round of the strength routine this morning. I normally would do it tomorrow but I have some things to do tomorrow that might not leave me enough time.
After lunch I headed down to the river and paddled for 80 minutes. With a race coming up Saturday I did some speed-polishing with a set of eight 12-stroke sprints. Then I ferried across the river and looped through the lower reaches of the Loosahatchie Chute before returning to the harbor. The weather was quite lovely--sunny skies and a temperature in the mid 70s--but it was not a "chamber of commerce" day because of a big fire at a metal-recycling yard not far from my marina. Thick smoke billowed from the facility and a haze covered the entire Memphis riverfront area. As I paddled along breathing the polluted air, all I could think about was the ravaged health of all those World Trade Center first-responders.
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