By Tuesday morning my shoulder was feeling much better, and it felt fine when I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe. We saw one rather adorable sign of the mating season: a family of Canada geese. An adult couple was paddling around the marina with its five newborn goslings.
I love our harbor.
It's taken me most of this week to get fully recovered from my taxing experience on the Kentucky River. I did the strength routine on Monday, Wednesday, and today and generally tried to get back into normal training mode.
The time of year for Thursday Evening Sprints has arrived, and I was hoping to join the group out at Shelby Farms yesterday. But stormy weather and conflicts for other participants scuttled that idea. So today I went down to the riverfront planning to do four sprints over the 450-meter stretch of the harbor between the south edge of the monorail bridge and the south edge of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.
After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I carried out this workout. The recovery interval was five minutes, during which I paddled back to my starting position at the monorail bridge.
And what did I learn? I learned that my speed needs some work. At the peak of my form last summer I was breaking two minutes for all four of these sprints, but today my times were 2:03, 2:05, 2:06, and 2:07. (For a full 500 meters, this would be 2:17, 2:19, 2:20, and 2:21.) I felt a bit tense in the boat, not particularly relaxed. And I didn't have that higher gear that I feel like I have when I'm at my best; my only gears today seemed to be Slow and Slower.
But there's no reason to mope about it. Getting faster is a process, and as long as I stay healthy and get in some consistent workouts, I should enjoy the satisfaction of faster times in the coming weeks.
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