This morning was reasonably nice by wintertime standards. The sky was partly sunny, and with the gentlest of breezes blowing from the south, the water in the harbor was dead calm. At 50 degrees Fahrenheit it was right on the cusp of being cold enough for pogies, and I opted to go without. Pogies are a wonderful invention (thanks to whitewater racing pioneers Bill Nutt and Bonnie Losick for the roles they played in their conception and development), but any day I don't have to wear them is a good day in my book.
I started by warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor. The sprints are still feeling rusty, as my body just doesn't seem to have much turnover right now. Then I paddled out onto the Mississippi, ferried over to the Arkansas side, and paddled up above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge before coming back downriver and returning to the harbor.
The thing I decided to focus on today was getting my blades fully immersed at the beginning of each stroke. For some reason I've long had a tendency not to get my right blade all the way in the water; you can see me doing that at times in this video, most of whose footage was shot around 2011-12. I think I've done a better job of it in more recent years, but I probably ought to charge up the Go Pro camera and shoot some new footage soon so I can see how I'm doing.
Of course, stroke mechanics is something I'm always working on, to one degree or another, every time I paddle. But today was one of those days when I moved one particular component onto the front burner in my mind, if that makes any sense. And so I paddled along and tried to plant the blade with precision each time--"speared the fish," as it were--without thrusting my body forward and causing the boat to bob.
I got back to the dock 70 minutes after I'd started. I can check off another day of practice as a new season looms off in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment