Monday photo feature

It's hard to believe this was four years ago.  I took a trip up the Eastern Seaboard in August of 2016, the ultimate destination being the USCA Nationals on the Connecticut River at Northfield, Massachusetts.  Along the way I visited my buddy Rob, who lives in Dutchess County north of New York City, and one day we went paddling on the Hudson River at Peekskill.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

It's water sports season

It's been a pretty hot, humid weekend, especially today.  On both days, the river was the nicest place to be.  Out there you get a breeze that doesn't really penetrate the middle of town where I live.

Yesterday I did a simple 60-minute paddle, doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor and then just paddling steady out on the Mississippi.

Adam Davis joined me this morning, and we spent about 100 minutes doing a bit of everything.  When we got to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, we did a drill I've been doing for years that involves ferrying from one piling to another, following as straight a line as possible.  In addition to having to paddle pretty hard, you have to pay close attention to your ferry angle and boat control.

Then we paddled up to the outflow channel from Dacus Lake.  The river has been dropping the last couple of weeks and water from the lake has been draining back into the main channel, and right now there's a small waterfall at the mouth of the channel.  There also were some big fish hanging out there, enjoying the not-so-sediment-laden water coming from the lake.

We paddled a ways up into the Loosahatchie Chute.  At the current river level the dikes are just below the surface, and we had to do some little attainment moves to get up over them.

Finally, as we were coming back downriver, there was an upstream-moving barge rig creating some good waves, and I paddled out to do some surfing.  By this time I was pretty tired from all the paddling we'd done, but I got three or four decent rides before letting it go and returning to the harbor.

Like I said... a little of everything.  It was a satisfying way to spend a hot early-summer morning.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

An unremarkable week

The first week of summer has featured the usual as far as this blog goes.  On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe.  Yesterday I did a 60-minute paddle that included a set of three 8-stroke sprints and chasing some waves behind an upstream-moving barge rig out on the Mississippi.  The waves were small and I had to sprint hard to get anything, but I ended up getting several decent little rides.  If nothing else, it was another good "play" workout of the sort I mentioned in my post last weekend.

All told, the weather has been rather nice for the month of June.  We've had a few uncomfortably muggy days here and there, but for the most part the temperature has been below 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity has been bearable.  There's still plenty of time for the dog days to settle in--I trust our Mid South climate to be our Mid South climate--but I'll take any nice bones that Mother Nature decides to throw my way.

This morning I did another round of the strength routine.  It's overcast with chances of rain, and today's high temperature might not exceed 85 degrees.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Pandemic wanderlust

I mentioned in my post last weekend that the homebound life is getting to me.  This week I've been pondering my travel options here in Pandemic Times.  Below is a short list that's resulted from my brainstorming.  #1 is by far the most feasible.  #2 is sort of feasible.  #3 is barely feasible.


1.  The spring-fed rivers of southern Missouri.

In the Ozark foothills here are a few streams fed by springs that have been filtered by the karst geology.  They include the North Fork of the White River; the Jack's Fork; the Eleven Point River; and the Current River.  All are protected under the Ozark Scenic Waterways

This area is no more than three hours from where I live, so I could drive there easily with minimal reliance upon travel industry establishments and be self-contained for several days with food and camping gear.

For paddling, I'd have to dust off one of my old whitewater boats, as these streams are too small and shallow for a surfski with an understern rudder.  Since I'd be relying on my bike for running shuttles, I'd have to find sections of river with reasonable-length shuttles--not always easy in remote areas.

I guess the biggest cost of traveling someplace not far from home is the expectation that the place be different from home.  Certainly the weather won't be much different: if it's sweltering hot in Memphis, it'll probably be sweltering hot in southern Missouri.  On the other hand, these spring-fed rivers have lovely, cool, clear water that screams "SWIM!!"  Adam Davis and I were agreeing recently that even though we love our Mississippi River, once in a while you like to paddle on something different, and there's no better contrast to the Mississippi than a stream with clear water.

In any case, close means easy, and there's a good chance I'll be wandering up toward this area sometime this summer.


2.  Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Nebraska.

Why Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Nebraska?  Well, I have a goal of paddling in all 50 states, and these are four states that I haven't paddled in yet and are located where I'm not so likely to pass through them en route to some other destination.  So they'll just have to be my destination.

I've been curious about Lake Superior for the last few years, so I'd likely spend several days along that lake's Minnesota shore.  Meanwhile, the Missouri River crosses the North Dakota-South Dakota border south of Bismarck, so some kind of overnight trip on that section would be in order.  I could maybe hit a section of the Platte River in Nebraska while heading back south.

Really, the only obstacle to making this trip happen is my apprehension about being out on the road and exposing myself in places like motels and restaurants.  Sure, I could be super-disciplined and do all my own cooking and stuff like that, but in my long experience with road trips I've learned that that gets old fast.


3.  Juneau and Haines, Alaska.

Alaska is the one state I have never visited at all.  For my first time there I'm looking at the region that includes Juneau and Haines, towns separated by about 75 miles of water with several state marine parks along its length.  I'm thinking that would be a plausible and fascinating one- or two-night trip in a touring boat.

Sadly, this trip almost certainly cannot happen this year.  Driving out there is out of the question because I'd have to go through Canada and the Canadian border is closed these days.  Flying there would make me dependent on the equipment rental industry there for a boat and gear, and it appears that it's largely closed this season because of COVID-19 concerns.

Maybe next year, maybe the following year.  Maybe I could piggyback it onto my trip to the Columbia Gorge one summer, although my investigation of that option has revealed a sobering reality: when looking at the driving route from Hood River, Oregon, to Haines, Alaska, on the Google Map, I discovered that the distance is 1900 miles!  Memphis to Hood River is about 2200 miles, and as I learned two years ago, that's a longlonglonglonglonglonglong trip.  Continuing on to Haines practically doubles that!  And this is the close part of Alaska we're talking about.

Yeah, this trip will likely have to wait until the public health situation is truly back to normal.  But it's fun to think about.  Until now visiting Alaska has been nothing more than a very abstract idea and my head, and researching some specific locations like Juneau and Haines is helping bring it more into focus.



For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

This past Thursday local real estate broker Fancher Smith was closing the sale of the historic Shrine Building downtown when he spotted me paddling my boat up the harbor.  He pulled out his phone and snapped the photo above.  He calls the photo "Where's Elmore?"--you know, like "Where's Waldo," except my name is Elmore, not Waldo.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Glum

Summer has begun, and I'm having a hard time not feeling completely bummed out.  All the things I look forward to in the summertime--my trip to the Pacific Northwest, travel to races in my region, baseball, concerts and social events--have vanished into the ether this year.

Make no mistake: I consider myself one of the more fortunate people here in Pandemic Times.  But the prospect of spending a sweltering Mid South summer stuck here at home with very little in the way of social and recreational options seems to sandbag my mood a bit more heavily each day.

I was feeling super-sluggish when I got up yesterday morning.  The act of going down to the river and getting my boat seemed like a bigger mountain than I could possibly climb.  But I went through the motions one task at a time: stretching, putting my gear in the car, driving downtown, getting my boat off the rack, getting in it and starting to paddle... and there I was.  Adam Davis met me down at the cobblestones, and we headed up the Mississippi, and soon I was feeling comfortable and fluid again.

We paddled maybe halfway up the Greenbelt Park.  A couple of barge rigs were coming downriver, the second of which was producing some good-looking waves, so we paddled out and followed it.  The waves were moving just a hair too fast: several times I rode the crest of a wave for a few seconds but was unable to get myself down into the trough.  After several minutes of throwing in short, hard sprints, I was gasping for breath, and I had no sweet rides to show for my trouble.  But hey... good practice, good training.  That stupid maxim we heard as kids is true: "It's better to try and fail than to fail to try."

The Fahrenheit temperature rose into the 90s yesterday, but it wasn't too unbearable.  The humidity was moderate and there was a light breeze blowing.  Late in the day some clouds moved in, and around two o'clock this morning I woke up and heard torrents of rain pouring down on my roof.

In the wake of that, today has been a pretty nice day: partly to mostly sunny, not too humid, and a few degrees cooler than yesterday with a pleasant breeze.

I felt somewhat lethargic again this morning, but not as bad as yesterday.  This time my enthusiasm was on the rise by the time I was headed out the door.  Down at the river I got in the boat and did 70 minutes of relaxed paddling.  I did several hard workouts in preparation for my "virtual" OICK race last weekend, but now, with no races on the horizon, I'm letting myself do whatever I feel like doing every time I paddle.  Until further notice, all workouts will be "play" workouts.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

On the road again, briefly

On Monday I made a little road trip.  Over in Little Rock a few racers gather each Monday afternoon for a "sandlot" race, and I'd gotten a message from Phil Capel encouraging me to join them this week.  I hadn't left Memphis since February, and Little Rock is close enough to Memphis (about 140 miles) that it seemed like a trip I could make without too much exposure to lurking viruses.  So I decided to go on over there.

It seems like every time I go to Little Rock in the summer months, it's a few degrees hotter than Memphis (and Memphis is plenty hot in the summer).  Monday's high in Memphis was around 88 degrees Fahrenheit, but as I was driving into the Little Rock area the temperature display in my car was reading 93 degrees.

I exited Interstate 40 onto I-430 and crossed the Arkansas River.  Then I exited at Cantrell Road and followed River Mountain Road to the Little Maumelle River boat launch, where I found a group of paddlers preparing their craft for some racing.  Among them were familiar faces like Phil Capel, Phil's son Andy, Andy's wife Ashley, Karen Kesselring, Stephen Lynn, Lou and Charlie Payton, and Robert Orr.

Our course was an up-and-back circuit on the Little Maumelle River, which flows into the Arkansas River just above the I-430 bridge.  There was no current to deal with because the water was backed up behind Murray Dam about a mile down the Arkansas.  We would start and finish beneath the Two Rivers Park pedestrian bridge, and the turnaround spot was a tree in the middle of the Little Maumelle approximately two and a half miles up.

We did a staggered start, with slower racers going first and quicker ones going last.  Soon it was just Andy and me sitting beneath the pedestrian bridge, and when we agreed it was time to go, we went!

We sprinted out for the first 150 meters or so and then settled into a pace a little over 7 miles per hour.  I spent most of the first half of the race on Andy's stern wake, trying to conserve energy for some surges later on.  Around 3000 meters in I moved up onto Andy's left-side wake, and as our turnaround tree came into view I took the lead so I could make my turn without any unexpected mishaps.

I threw in a surge coming out of the turn, hoping I could open a gap, but Andy covered the move and held onto my stern wake.  So I led for a while, trying to paddle as efficiently as possible while the sun beat down.  Eventually the Two Rivers Park pedestrian bridge came back into view, and it looked "right there," but knowing it was still at least a mile off, I kept paddling steady.

With maybe 800 meters to go, Andy moved up onto my right-side wake, and took the lead a minute later.  I settled onto his side wake and pondered when to make my big move.  The local rowing club has a dock about 400 meters out from the finish, and I decided to go as soon as we reached it.  I began to paddle hard and pulled even with Andy.  Andy responded and I knew I had a real fight on my hands.  I dug deep and began to move into the lead an inch at a time.

Once it was down to about 30 meters to go, I had built almost a half-boatlength lead and finally began to believe that I had him--but only if I kept the hammer down.  Meanwhile, my body was screaming "Stop!  STOP!!  I can't take another ten seconds of this!!!!"  Somehow I ignored those inner voices and got myself across the line.  My G.P.S. device measured the course at 7700 meters (about 4.78 miles), and my time was 39 minutes, 33 seconds.

After racing Andy three times last year, I mentioned in this post that he was getting a little bit harder to beat each time.  That trend continued Monday, with Andy finishing just five seconds back at 39:38.

The other racers produced the following results:

Robert Orr 43:28
Dave Grundfest 44:46
Frank Walker 47:45
Jillian Elwart 47:48
Phil Capel 49:51
Karen Kesselring 50:40
Lou and Charlie Payton 56:40
Ashley Capel 59:02
(Stephen Lynn flipped and was unable to finish.)

The water was bathwater warm, but I flipped my boat anyway.  My feet could feel cooler water five feet down.  After a while I remounted and paddled back to the boat ramp, and returned my boat to the top of my car.  I'd now done two races in three days.  It felt good to get back to some racing even in an informal setting.

After a bit of conversation I embarked on the trip back home.  It was pushing 7 o'clock--suppertime--and I was reminded of one of the main challenges of road-tripping in Pandemic Times.  I'm feeling pretty skittish about going into restaurants these days, and I-40 between Memphis and Little Rock doesn't offer many good choices even in normal times.  I ended up getting a burger and fries at a Wendy's drive-thru in Forrest City... not what I consider much of a meal.  I think if I go to any future Monday afternoon sessions in Little Rock, I'll pack a sandwich or something on my own.

I got up Tuesday morning and did a round of the strength routine (again with no dips, as I'm still having this puzzling achiness in my upper arms).  Then I met Joe, and our relaxed loop of the harbor felt good after all that intensity.  On Wednesday I enjoyed a well-earned day off.  Yesterday I was back in the boat doing a typical 60-minute paddle that included a set of three 8-stroke sprints and some messing around out on the Mississippi.

This morning I did another round of the strength routine.  The summer solstice occurs tomorrow, and it looks like we'll have a hot weekend to go with it.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Now playing

The "virtual" race I did this past Saturday has turned into a video project.  This short film is about the storied past, the "virtual" present, and the hopeful future of canoe and kayak racing on the Mississippi River at Memphis.






For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

The Wolf River originates in northern Mississippi, flows north into Tennessee, and then flows westward across Fayette and Shelby Counties and finally meets the Mississippi River just north of downtown Memphis.

I shot this photo last week while riding my bike on the Greenline, a bike trail that runs through the heart of Memphis atop an old Louisville & Nashville Railroad bed.  The Greenline crosses the Wolf River on the east side of town near the Shelby County Penal Farm.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Virtually racing

We lucked out with the weather for yesterday's "virtual" Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  The morning was sunny and pleasant, the humidity was down, and the wind was light, giving me hope that I could submit a decent time.  I loaded up my boat and headed down to the historic cobblestones on the Memphis riverfront.

I'd invited people to join me on social media, and I ended up having two takers, as Adam Davis and Scott Andrews arrived with their boats.  We lined up with a pair of utility poles on the cobblestones, from which we would paddle north in the harbor for 2500 meters, make a turn around a concrete structure by the old LaFarge plant, and return to where we'd started to complete the 5000-meter course.

Somebody yelled GO!, and off we went.  Adam and I were neck-and-neck out front, and I settled onto his right-side wake, where I would spend most of the first kilometer.  We moved along at around seven and a half miles per hour.

Once we'd passed beneath the Hernando DeSoto Bridge I moved into the lead and pushed the pace up to around 7.8 or 7.9.  I knew I couldn't sustain that for all of the remaining 4000 meters but I was hoping I could break contact.  By the time we reached Harbortown Marina I had a lead of three or four boatlengths.

The turnaround spot came into view: the concrete structure for loading barges next to the old LaFarge plant.  I made a beeline for it.  The Mississippi River has been dropping this week, but with a level of 22.2 feet on the Memphis gauge there was still ample room to made a high-radius turn and head back south.

As I got the boat back up to speed I hoped to maintain 7.1 or 7.2 mph the rest of the way.  I tried to relax and take the best strokes I could.  I was starting to feel taxed but felt certain I had one more good mile in me.  Once I was back south of the HDB I was hoping I could break 25 minutes.  As I passed beneath the monorail bridge I began my final charge to the finish, nudging the speed up around 8.0 mph.  I eyed my watch as the seconds ticked by, closer and closer to the 25-minute mark... and then past it.  I had to settle for a time of 25:12.

I brought my boat around to watch the other two come in.  Adam completed a respectable effort with a time of 26:28.  Scott was paddling a much slower boat but was undaunted by the challenge as he came in at 36:51.

It felt good to race again, even if it was a rinky-dink affair compared to a real OICK race.

Today I waited until the afternoon to paddle.  It was another sunny day, warmer than yesterday, but still not the blistering heat for which Memphis summers are famous.  I paddled mostly easy for 60 minutes.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Trying to get stoked for a "virtual" race

In most respects, the Memphis area got treated gently by what was left of Tropical Storm Cristobal.  I watched the Internet radar and the heaviest rain seemed to avoid the city.  By mid-morning Tuesday the rain had moved out and we had a day of warm, muggy weather.  Then on Wednesday some cooler, drier air moved in and the rest of the week has been lovely.

I did a round of the strength routine Tuesday morning, once again without the dips.  I'm still trying to manage the achiness in my biceps/shoulder area.  After that I did a loop of the harbor with Joe.

A somewhat strong west wind blew all day Wednesday as Cristobal's southern portion moved through.  I hadn't planned to paddle on Wednesday, but by lunchtime I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, there were some viable downwind conditions on the westward-flowing section of the Mississippi River below downtown Memphis.  So around 3 o'clock I put my V10 Sport surfski on the car and drove across the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge to where there's access to the river from the Big River Trail.

I put my boat in the water beneath the Harahan Bridge and headed downstream.  As I rounded the big bend to the right I was hoping to find some good swells, but as it turned out there wasn't much more than some chop.  So there would be no sweet rides, and I spent the next hour trying to get the boat moving on small bumps and stuff like that.

I now turn my attention to the "virtual" Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  As I mentioned last week, I've laid out a 5000-meter course in the harbor:

The course starts and finishes at the magenta line in the bottom left corner, and the turnaround spot is marked in the upper right corner.

This morning I paddled in the harbor and did five 12-stroke sprints, and I also spray-painted a marker on my turnaround landmark so that anybody who wants to join me can recognize it.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Twelve years ago I took a trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  In this photo, I strive to find my way.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Hot weather I can live with

It's been a hot weekend in the Mid South, with Fahrenheit temperatures rising into the low 90s.  But gentle breezes have made the heat quite bearable, and it's been especially lovely on the river.  Would that all above-90-degree days in Memphis could be like this.

Adam Davis joined me yesterday, and we paddled up the Mississippi about as far as the DeWitt Spain Airport before coming back down.  Coming downriver we followed a barge rig that was producing some somewhat-surfable waves.  The waves weren't much good for long, sweet rides, but we got some worthwhile practice working them.

This morning I paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi about halfway up the Greenbelt Park.  Coming back downriver I did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Cristobal should be moving up here sometime tomorrow.  Tomorrow and Tuesday are looking somewhat stormy, but the forecast is showing a string of nice days after that.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Hard work in the boat, ailments out of it

On Tuesday morning I did a round of my new strength routine and then met Joe downtown for a loop of the harbor.

By Tuesday afternoon I was having some pretty bad pain in my right arm.  The new strength routine includes dips, and I think they aggravated the ongoing problem I've been having up in the biceps/shoulder area.  That area, along with my right wrist, has bothered me the rest of the week, continuing a now-yearlong trend of trouble.  I think it's about time to seek advice from the chiropractor I occasionally go to... I need to find out if she's even seeing anybody in her office right now.

If there's any good news, I guess it's that the affected muscles don't seem to be directly involved in paddling.  I've been able to paddle pretty comfortably through all this.

I mentioned in this week's photo feature that there's going to be a "virtual" event in place of the usual Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  People can time themselves on their own 5000-meter courses and submit their times here on the Internet.  It's strictly a "just for fun" sort of thing, it's free to enter, and anybody in the world may participate.  Registration is here.

I plan to do this "virtual" race myself sometime in the next ten days.  I hope I can get at least a couple of locals to join me so it won't be the sort of solitary time trial that's usually an exercise in pain.  I believe the best way to make it fair to participants around the globe is to do it on an out-and-back flatwater course, so I've drawn this one up in the harbor:

The course starts and finishes at the magenta line in the bottom left corner of this image.  The line is defined by a pair of utility poles on the cobblestones.  2500 meters to the north is the turnaround point, marked in the top right corner of the image above.  The actual object is a concrete tower that was used for loading barges at the old LaFarge plant.  If you want to get a better look at it, go to Google Maps and type in the coordinates 35°10'00.5"N 90°02'55.3"W.

I think overall I'm in really good shape; I've been paddling hard and enthusiastically and frequently all spring.  But I don't know if I'm in the best racing shape, with that keen edge to my speed and power.  In the last couple of weeks I've done several workouts in preparation for this "virtual" race.  I went to the river yesterday intending to do some long sprints.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, then paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I did my first sprint from the bridge back to the mouth of the harbor.  I didn't time myself, and it's hard to target a particular pace out in the big river's current, but I went for an intensity level comparable to a 500-meter sprint.

Back in the harbor I did sprints over three sections of the course mapped above.  The first went from the start line to the southernmost bridge; I clocked 1 minute, 43 seconds over this distance of about 370 meters (that's an average speed of 3.59 meters per second).  After paddling easy for a few minutes, I sprinted from the southernmost bridge to the middle bridge; this distance is about 450 meters, and my time was 2:02 (3.69 m/s).  I then paddled easy up to the northeast corner of Harbortown Marina (the two greenish rectangles in the photo above), and timed myself from there to the turnaround point.  That's about 770 meters, and my time was 3:43 (3.45 m/s).

The first ten minutes or so of yesterday's paddle was done in a heavy downpour.  Then the rain moved out and by the end of the hour there were patches of blue sky here and there.  The perfect weather of last weekend already feels like a distant memory, with the humidity now back to oppressive levels and the temperature pushing 90 on the Fahrenheit thermometer.

I did another round of the strength routine this morning, but skipped the dips out of concern for my ailing right arm.  I think dips are a great body-weight exercise and this feeling that I can't or shouldn't do them is frustrating.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A new strength routine

Time to change up the strength routine again.  Here's what I'll be doing for the next several weeks:


1.  Pendulum planks (demonstrated at 3:38 of this video)

2.  Dips

3.  Ball back extension (demonstrated by Lindsey at 1:16 of this video)

4.  Wrist rollers (the old exercise where you raise a weight by rolling a dowel with your wrists)



For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, breathes deeply after winning the 2001 edition of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race on the Mississippi River at Memphis.  Photo by Emerson Wickwire.

The 2020 OICK race was supposed to be June 13--a week from this Saturday--but had to be called off due to Coronavirus concerns.  The organizers are offering a "virtual" event instead.  It's a "just for fun" sort of thing; one can enter for free and participate on any body of water.  Look here for more information.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.