Finishing off January

I started Friday morning with a gym session, then headed down to the river under a sunny sky and a Fahrenheit temperature in the high 30s.  The workout was two sets of eight 10-second sprints with 50 seconds recovery.  Maks described it as a "sprint endurance" workout in which the power and stroke rate should be consistent throughout.  He told me to take flying starts, and "don't go overboard" with the stroke rate because "power is dominant during sprinting."  So I aimed for 90 strokes per minute (15 strokes per 10-second sprint).  At first I was tending more toward 96 to 100 spm, but by the second set I had settled in and was hitting 90 every time.  I put all the power I possibly could into each stroke while keeping the boat running smoothly.  The workout went by in the blink of an eye, it seemed--it was over just a half-hour after I'd left the dock.  I spent the rest of my hour in the boat working on my stroke, trying to make the improvements I talked about in my last post.  It was during this period that I started to feel the muscle fatigue from the workout.

I got some good news Friday evening: the United States Court for the Western District of Tennessee will not need my services as a juror any sooner than February 15.  So I have two more weeks in which my schedule depends on nobody but me.

Yesterday morning I paddled for 50 minutes, during which I did eight 4-minute pieces with one minute recovery.  Maks said these pieces should be "calm, technical" efforts in the "A1" stroke-rate range (60-75 spm).  So I tried to stay relaxed while focusing on the forward stroke components I'm trying to improve and taking solid strokes that generated smooth glide.  Whenever I checked my stroke rate it was in the mid 60s, but I didn't think too hard about what my rate was as long as it was in "A1" territory.

The weather forecasters had predicted yesterday would be a rainy day, but in the morning I didn't see anything more than a light sprinkle.  The real precipitation arrived a little after 2 o'clock, and I did most of my afternoon session in a light but steady rain.  I did three sets of six 1-minute pieces at 80 spm, with 1 minute recovery.  The first and third sets were done with resistance on the boat, the second without.  Maks urged me to apply the same amount of power throughout the workout, regardless of the presence or absence of resistance.  He said I should feel like I'm flying in the second set, and he was right.  The hardest part of the workout was the third set, with the resistance back on.

I was thoroughly worn out after yesterday's work, and still felt some weariness this morning.  It took a little extra gumption to get moving, and the weather wasn't helping: though the rain had moved out and the temperature wasn't that cold (50 degrees), a swirling northwest wind was making a blustery mess of things and out on the water it had the feel of a more oppressive winter day.

Today's workout was a 75-minute distance paddle for which the only instruction was "be efficient."  Since starting this new training regime I've been staying mostly in the harbor because many of the workouts are so technical that I don't need the distraction of the swirly currents out on the Mississippi.  Today I was hoping to do this relaxed endurance session on the river, but after five minutes fully exposed to the howling wind out there I retreated to the more sheltered environs.  I tried to focus on my stroke, keeping my top hand near my head and searching for the water pressure against my blade.

As soon as my 75 minutes expired I was out of the boat and making a beeline for my dry clothes on the dock.  Chilled to the core, I felt grateful to be off until Tuesday.  Maks tells me the coming week will be "the hardest one yet" but promises an easier week after that.

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Searching for good strokes at various rates

I began my second week of Maks Frančeškin-directed training with three sets of (6 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/1 minute rest/4 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute rest/3 minutes at 68 spm/1 minute rest/2 minutes at 72 spm/3 minutes rest).  Once again I wasn't particularly winded, but by the last set I was really feeling it in my arms, shoulders, and legs.  When I reported this information to Maks, he replied, "I am happy to hear that the workout had the 'empty' arms effect on you.  Those kinds of workouts really result in big power gains."  Sounds good to me!

Before doing the workout I got Joe to shoot some video of me from the dock so that Maks could take another look at my stroke.  Maks said I was doing a better job of keeping my top hand closer to my head but was still not anchoring the blade thoroughly before commencing each stroke.  I'd noticed that myself while watching the video, and it irked me because I'd long thought I was doing a decent job of planting the blade.  I asked Maks if there was any particular feedback I should look for that would tell me how well I'm doing it.  He didn't quite have the magic pill I was hoping for, but he reminded me that "Honestly, the best/easiest way to know when you are anchoring is to feel the pressure. The better you are anchored/catching, the harder it will feel on your arms."  And so, the search continues for forward-stroke perfection.  Oh well... every paddler's stroke, just like every human being, will always be a work in progress.

The first couple of days of this week featured pleasantly mild weather, but that changed yesterday morning.  When I got to the river it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit--not deathly cold, really, but not much fun to go paddling in under an overcast sky with a 10-mile-per-hour north wind blowing and a mixture of rain and sleet falling.  Letting a forced smile be my umbrella, I performed the day's workout: four sets of (5 minutes at 62 spm, 3 minutes at 66 spm, 2 minutes at 70 spm).  Maks didn't specify a recovery interval, so I backed off on the intensity a bit and did the four sets straight through.  I strove to take solid strokes and make the boat glide, for that had been Maks's main instruction for this workout: "glide, glide, glide."

This morning it was colder--36 degrees when I got to the river.  But it wasn't raining, and the clouds were giving way to some sunshine.  It was time for a "resistance" session, so I took my little whiffle-ball-equipped bungee cord down to the dock with me and put it on the boat.  The workout was three sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4 minutes recovery.  The pieces were to be done at 76-78 spm.  Maks said to take a longer rest between sets, so I made that 5 minutes.  The resistance on the boat forced me to apply greater power to each stroke, and that taxed my muscles; meanwhile, the somewhat higher stroke rate got me breathing harder, too.  Per Maks's instructions, I tried to keep my technique the same as it would have been without resistance.

Halfway through my second week under Maks's tutelage, there's plenty of hard work going on.  The good news is that I believe my body is starting to get used to the lower stroke rates and the subtle differences among them, and it's nice to see my patience paying off that way.  The fact is, I've actually been doing this sort of training almost a month now, as the workouts we did at camp down in Florida were heavily Maks-influenced if not written by Maks himself.

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Monday photo feature

My new coach, Maks Frančeškin, lives in the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana, but he spends a lot of time northwest of there in the Alpine valley of Planica running various training camps.  The area is best known for its Olympic nordic center and its famous ski-flying hill, but I assume there must be a river in there somewhere and that's where Maks's athletes train.  ***UPDATE January 27: Maks tells me they're not paddling there, but engaging in intense cross-training: "12-14 workouts of xc skiing, gym and swimming each week."

Maks sent me the photo above to show me how cold it is in his current location.  It makes me feel fortunate to be paddling in temperatures around 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  That sure is pretty country, however... could there be a trip to Slovenia in my future?

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A busy first week in my new programme

When I got up yesterday morning it was freezing, quite literally--the temperature was about 30 degrees Fahrenheit.  But there was no time to worry over the weather, because I had two in-the-boat sessions on the schedule.

The morning session was essentially a warmup for the afternoon one: 40 minutes paddling at what Maks calls the "A1 zone"--60-75 strokes per minute.  I've ordered a Vaaka Cadence Sensor, but until it arrives I'm trying to get better counting strokes and familiarize myself with the various rates.  Yesterday morning I paddled for 10 minutes at 60 spm (easy to do because it's one stroke per second), 10 minutes at 68-70 spm, 10 minutes at 64-66 spm, and 10 minutes at 72-75 spm.  I also continued working on the stroke modifications that Maks recommended.  I stayed in the northern half of the harbor where the wooded banks offered a bit more protection from the biting north wind.

By the afternoon it had warmed up into the low 50s, and the wind had abated.  The prescribed workout was eight pairs of 250-meter pieces with two minutes recovery, the first piece of each pair being done at 84 spm and the second one at 40 spm.

I was expecting it to be an exhausting affair--it's easy to jump to that conclusion when I see sixteen 250s on paper--but once it was underway, I found I was rarely breathing hard.  Instead, it was the concentration required as I tried to get the stroke rate right and take good strokes that made the workout tiring.  I was putting maximum power into each stroke during the 40 spm pieces, and that stressed my muscles pretty thoroughly.

I don't paddle in the afternoon very often, but as I left the river yesterday I was reminded of one of the benefits, especially in the wintertime: the late-afternoon sky reflecting off a calm Mississippi River is beautiful.

On tap this morning was six sets of (5 minutes at 60 spm/1 minute rest/3 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute rest/2 minutes at 68 spm/2 minutes rest).  I did this while paddling up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River and back.  Intermittent showers made me good and wet and chilled by the time I was finished.  The biggest challenge of the workout was the subtle degrees of change from one stroke rate to the next--each time it was a matter of adding just one stroke per fifteen seconds.  Because of that I tried to stay dead-on to each rate, and so I felt like I was expending a lot more brain energy than muscle energy.

Tomorrow is a day off... finally.  It remains to be seen how sustainable this number of sessions per week is going to be for the long term, given all the other "adulting" stuff I have to do.  But for now I want to jump in with both feet and see what happens.  As I mentioned in my previous post, all this "new" stuff has me on the verge of sensory overload, and I'm trying to be patient while my body and brain internalize it all.  I'm definitely putting some faith in Maks to know what he's doing, but it's not a blind faith: down in Florida I saw first-hand how much Chris Hipgrave has improved, and then there's the fact that in the last decade or so the Slovenian team, with which Maks is affiliated, has been right up among the top paddlesports national teams in the world.

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Mmmmm. Cake.

On this day nine years ago, My Training Blog by Elmore put up its very first post.  Thanks to everybody who has encouraged me to keep the blog going this long.

I provide some deeper pontification on the occasion in this post from two years ago.

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A new gym routine

1.  Pushups

2.  4-way abdominals

3.  Hindu squats

4.  Pelvic raises

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Contracting out

Well, I have joined the ranks of athletes who have Internet coaches.  For a monthly fee, Slovenian coach Maks Frančeškin will be writing workouts for me as well as offering technical guidance.

It's quite a change for a guy who, except for attending an occasional training camp, has been self-coached throughout his canoe and kayak racing career.  And it's also forcing some changes to my routine: in recent years I've been a four-days-a-week paddler most of the time, but the training plan Maks has prepared calls for six days a week, with two sessions on one of those days.  I may eventually have to discuss with Maks what I'm capable of fitting in alongside my non-athletic obligations, but at least for now I want to dive in and immerse myself.  Maybe this new challenge will help the winter weeks pass by more quickly and put me in position for a really good race season.

Actually, I might have to back off a bit after next week: I've been summoned to jury duty in federal court for the month of February.  All I know right now is that I must be "on call" for the entire month, so how my life will be interrupted remains to be seen.  I hope I'll at least have a chance to adapt to some of the technical changes this new training regime is imposing.

As I mentioned before, another of Maks's "virtual" athletes is Chris Hipgrave, who led the training camp down in Florida I recently attended.  And so this new training adventure is a continuation of the things we were doing down there.  But Maks also wants to spend the early stages of our athlete-coach relationship getting a lot of feedback from me and basically getting to know me.

One of the first things he asked me to do was send him video of myself paddling at a couple of different stroke rates.  I've learned over the years that no matter how good I think my stroke is, I should always expect some criticism whenever an expert coach takes a look at it.  Sure enough, while Maks thought my rotation at the hips and pelvis was good and that I was doing a good job of using my upper hand to control the working angle of the blade, he pointed out that I was starting my stroke before the blade was fully submerged, and also that I was moving my top hand too far forward, away from my head, resulting in a smaller anchoring angle, a shorter stroke, and less rotation and power from the legs.

It took me a while to understand exactly what Maks was saying--I've always learned best when a coach is right next to me and walking me through every step.  But Maks sent me videos of several of his top athletes in Slovenia, and after studying them for a while I began to see that I was sort punching forward with my top hand while Maks's athletes kept their top hands near their heads.

I've been working on that in the boat for the last several days.  Even a small change to your stroke makes paddling seem much harder for a while.  Getting your body to do something unfamiliar adds another layer of stress.  Another added stressor is paddling at the various stroke rates that Maks's workouts call for.  Until I get myself one of those Vaaka Cadence Sensors, I'm using the age-old method of counting my strokes for 15 seconds and multiplying that by four.  So my brain is having to process a lot more information than usual when I paddle.

On Wednesday I did eight 5-minute pieces with one minute recovery at 64-66 strokes per minute.  I did this workout with extra weight (about 5 kilograms of barbell plates) in the space fore of my footboard.  Maks explained that the extra weight was to make me feel more pressure on my blade and improve my glide (What's the proper physics term for that?  Momentum, maybe?).  I could definitely feel both things going on.

Yesterday I did three cycles of 4 minutes at 76 spm, 2 minutes at 72 spm, and 1 minute at 84 spm.  There was one minute recovery in between pieces, and the cycles started at 14-minute intervals.  Maks instructed, "Try keeping the same power through the whole workout.  Last minute is meant to be a hard one!  Find the smoothness and relaxed feeling through the longer reps."

Under this new training regime there's just one gym session per week, and at least for now, Friday is gym day.  I'm keeping it simple and trying to focus on core exercises, leg exercises, and "pre-hab" exercises that target the muscles that oppose those used in paddling.  My new routine is here.

After doing my gym this morning, I headed to the river and did today's workout: two sets of (5 x 3' on/1' off at 45 spm and 5 x 1' on/1' off at 80 spm).  All told I think the workout went okay, but 45 spm is a very low stroke rate and it wasn't until the second set that I started to get the rhythm down.  The point of the workout, as described by Maks, was to "find the grip and water pressure on the blade at the lower stroke rate, then try transferring this same power and technique to the higher rate."  I think I did that pretty well.

I'll just add this remark about these low-stroke-rate sessions: in a surfski my legs and feet are exposed to the elements, and that longer pause between strokes means longer moments of water dripping off the blades onto my legs and feet.  Not fun in the wintertime!  It wasn't ridiculously cold today, but a chilly north wind was blowing pretty hard, and I couldn't wait to get back to the dock and into dry clothes.

One last note: Maks counts strokes on both sides in strokes-per-minute figures--in other words, a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right count as two strokes.  This is different from how I've always done it.  When I mention my 8-stroke sprints, for instance, I mean eight cycles of left strokes and right strokes. Maks would consider them "16-stroke sprints."  So this is yet one more thing I'm having to get used to.

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Monday photo feature

One of my challenges as I settle into training back home is not having the motivation and feedback of another paddler next to me.  Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was among those who filled that role during our Florida training camp.

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Settling into some cold labor

Winter has made itself at home in the Mid South.  The extended forecast shows daytime Fahrenheit highs mostly in the 40s and overnight lows in the 20s and 30s.

I try not to dwell too much in this blog on my dislike of winter, because I know there are other parts of the world whose winters are much harsher than where I live.  But then again, if somebody from North Dakota, let's say, wants to get on my case over it ("Quit your whining!  40 degrees is WARM!!!!"), all I have to do is ask why North Dakotans take their winter vacations in Florida or the Bahamas or Cancún when they could simply come to Memphis and bask in our 40-degree bliss.  That'll shut that person right up.  Maybe.

In any case, the next six or eight weeks promise to be the least glamorous part of the training year.  At this time last year I had my trip to South Africa to look forward to, but this year there's not much I can do but put my head down and grind out lots of base miles, technique work, and resistance training, mostly in the harbor where there's protection from the wind a lower risk of an icy swim.

Yesterday it warmed up from around 39 degrees to 43 degrees during the 60 minutes I was in the boat.  The sky stayed mostly cloudy.  After a 10-minute warmup, I did the same workout we did on the afternoon of January 3 down in Florida, with the little golf-practice whiffle balls on my boat for resistance.  It was two sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4 minutes recovery.  I felt fine for the whole workout, and tried to take solid, explosive strokes throughout each piece.

I could tell first thing this morning that today would be nicer, for the simple reason that the sun was out.  And it wasn't quite as windy this morning as it's been since I returned from Florida.  I went to the river and did an ordinary paddle--no worrying over the stroke rate or anything like that.  I was in the boat for 70 minutes and did a brisk aerobic paddle.

I'm still discussing a training programme with Maks Frančeškin, and I'll report more on that here soon.

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Recovering and pondering what's next

On Monday morning I drove through some blizzard-like conditions on my way through northwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi.  The snow wasn't sticking to the road, fortunately, but in places there was a decent amount of accumulation on the trees and grass.

Once I was back in Memphis there was little accumulation, but a light snow fell most of the afternoon and the conditions were windy and frigid.  But since then the weather has been milder, and the extended forecast shows Fahrenheit temperatures in the 40s and 50s for the foreseeable future.

I'd planned to join Joe for our usual Tuesday paddle, but he called and told me he couldn't make it.  As it turned out, I was happy to take another rest day after the long drive home as well as the exhausting ten days in the boat.  I spent Tuesday getting re-settled at home, cleaning my boat and putting my gear away, and otherwise doing nothing.

On Wednesday morning I decided to go down to the river.  The temperature was in the high 30s, but the sun was out and it was warming up quickly.  I got in the boat and did a workout similar to a couple we did down at camp: eight 3-minute pieces with one minute recovery, the odd-numbered pieces being done at 60 strokes per minute and the even-numbered pieces being done at something closer to, but still a bit below, what I would normally do.  Paddling at 60 spm was simple enough because I could simply look at my watch and take a stroke each second.  For those other pieces, I was sort of all over the place, paddling anywhere from 69 spm to 77 spm...  I may need to invest in one of those Vaaka Cadence Sensors if I'm going to continue doing a lot of stroke-rate-based work.  And I had a hard time translating the effort into any particular boat speed: at the outset I thought maybe 7.0 miles per hour was a reasonable target, but in fact it was very difficult to maintain that, and I frequently dipped as low as 6.3 mph.  A stiff south wind was blowing and that made a mess of my desire for reliable G.P.S. readings.  Down in Florida I didn't pay much attention to my speed because we were paddling both upstream and downstream on the Rainbow River, and the presence of other athletes provided feedback on how well I was moving the boat.

Since then I've continued to feel very tired, and I might just need to chill out a while longer and let myself recover from the camp.  Chris Hipgrave mentioned in his blog that he too was falling apart by the end of camp, so at least there's nothing unusual about my exhaustion.

The workouts we did at the training camp were part of a training regime that Chris has designed with help from a Slovenian athlete and coach named Maks Frančeškin.  Chris told me that he's about eighteen months into his online coaching arrangement with Maks, and I could see that it was paying off significantly: Chris has always been a strong athlete in the almost 25 years that I have known him, but at the camp he seemed to be performing at an entirely different level.  In short pieces and long pieces, using low stroke rates and high stroke rates, he was leaving me in the dust time and time again.

Maks is available to create a training plan for any athlete (for a fee, of course).  I've exchanged a few e-mails with him to see what he thinks would work for me.  I'll share more soon about what he suggests and how I decide to go about things.

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Movie time

I made a short film about the manatees we saw at the Weeki Wachee River last Thursday.  As one friend of mine put it, "Manatees are everything humans aren't these days."  Watch and forget your worries.

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Monday photo feature

Chris Hipgrave asks a manatee to say cheese during our visit to the Weeki Wachee River last Thursday. 

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Wrapping up and breaking camp

For those curious to know more about the Rainbow River where we've been having our training camp, here's a map of the area:

Blue Run Park (marked "B.R." at the bottom of the map) is where we access the river.  The lake (marked "L," just above the icon for Swampy's Bar & Grille) is where we do our sprints.  KP Hole Park is where we started our time trial on the "Strava" segment on Wednesday.  Rainbow Springs, the main source of water for the river, is as far up the river as we can paddle; above the springs the riverbed sort of disappears into reeds and sawgrass, as you can see at the top of the map.  The distance from Blue Run Park up to Rainbow Springs is about 8 kilometers (5 miles).

I woke up Friday morning feeling achey and sore--not at all how I'd hoped to feel after a day that was supposed to be easier on Thursday.  We had a couple of tough training days scheduled for Friday and yesterday, and I confess to feeling a bit anxious and overwhelmed as I had breakfast.  But the only way out of it was through.  The next workout was scheduled for 8:30 AM sharp, so I got myself down to the river and into my boat.

The workout was six 8-minute pieces, and within each piece we were to vary our stroke rates: 2 minutes at 60 spm, 2 minutes at 72 spm, 2 minutes at 60 spm, and 2 minutes at 80 spm.  There was a 2-minute recovery interval after each 8-minute piece.

Once again, Chris H. glided steadily away as the first piece got underway.  I kept pace with Roy a little bit longer, but eventually he opened a gap on me too.  As the first piece wore on I wondered if I really would be able to complete five more.  But once I was into the second piece my body started to come around.  I focused on exploding through each stroke while maintaining a smooth motion overall and keeping my boat running quietly.  Soon enough, the workout was over.

I went back to my place for lunch and got some rest, and was back at the river for the 4 o'clock workout.  It was time for more sprints on the lake: four 250-meter sprints at 6-minute intervals, with a 10-second sprint thrown in at the 3-minute mark of each interval.  Chris H. advised us to keep the stroke rate low enough to stay in control and take solid, precise strokes.  The workout was intense, painful at moments, but it went by quickly.  I was right around 68-69 seconds for all my 250s.

Oddly enough, I felt the best I'd felt all day after this workout.  I think the endorphins were the reason.  Once they'd worn off I felt tired and sore, but still satisfied after giving a good effort through two hard sessions.

I got up yesterday morning hoping I had the mettle for one more hard day left in me.  First up was another low-stroke-rate session.  We did eight 4-minute pieces with a one-minute recovery interval.  We did the first two pieces at 56 strokes per minute, the next two at 60 spm, the next two at 64 spm, and the last two at 68 spm.  Chris reminded us once more to focus on putting as much power as possible into each stroke.  Just like with the low-stroke-rate workout we did a week ago, I was not really winded in this one but I could feel it in my muscles.

After some lunch and some rest, I returned to the river for a more intense session: three eight-minute pieces, starting at 16-minute intervals, at 5K-race pace.  I was ready to bring 'em on and get it done.  The pieces were suitably taxing, and the last couple of minutes of each were particularly tough, but overall it wasn't any kind of workout I haven't handled many times before.

Yesterday was rather chilly--the Fahrenheit temperature was in the 30s in the morning and the afternoon high wasn't much over 50, and the wind was not friendly.  We got more of the same this morning: it was 38 degrees when I got up.  Sure, I regularly paddle in colder temperatures at home, but I wasn't really expecting such weather in Florida, and I brought only just barely enough clothing to stay comfortable.  In those TV commercials the Florida tourism board puts out, people are always wearing bathing suits and shorts and stuff.

Anyway, it was my last session before departing, so I figured I could handle it one more time.  Chris H. and Alessia and I paddled from Blue Run Park all the way up to Rainbow Springs and back.  It was mostly a recovery paddle, but apparently the section of river from KP Hole to Rainbow Springs is another one of those "Strava" segments, and Chris couldn't resist recording a time for himself.  Alessia decided she wanted to do it too, and I, faced with the alternative of being That Guy, went along with the crowd, albeit halfheartedly (I don't do Strava myself).  Chris had predicted the segment would be about a mile, but my G.P.S. device measured it at about 2500 meters--more than a mile and a half.  

Once we'd dispensed with that chore, we paddled easy back down the river.  The environs were lovely and the wildlife was active.  At one point we saw two otters tangled up and making a lot of racket; it was unclear whether the encounter was hostile or amorous.

Once we'd returned to Blue Run Park I quickly changed into dry clothes and got everything loaded up for the trip back north.  I eschewed I-75 in favor of the more scenic U.S. 19/98 that runs through the Gulf Hammock of the Nature Coast (formerly known as the Mosquito Coast).  It didn't get me anywhere fast--it took me more than four hours to reach the Alabama State Line.  I made it several dozen miles north of Montgomery and then decided I'd had enough.  I'm staying the night in the town of Clanton and I should be home by a reasonable hour tomorrow.

All told, it was a very productive camp.  The training was quite intense, and I'm returning home with some fresh ideas to incorporate.  I'll talk more in the coming days about how I plan to do so.

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Putting my body through the wringer

My first couple of days in Florida were warm and muggy with Fahrenheit temperatures in the low 80s.  Cooler weather has moved in since then.  For the last several days I have woken up to temperatures in the 30s, and the afternoon highs have been in the 60s.  It's not ideal beach weather, but it's quite acceptable for a few days of hard training in the boat.

I had a nice restful day Monday, and then on Tuesday morning I got back at it with a vengeance.  Terry, Alessia, Chris N., and I got together for a set of ten 5-minute pieces with one minute recovery in between.  (Chris H. had done the workout earlier so he could participate in a job-related conference call.)  The pieces were to be done at a low stroke rate--around 65 strokes per minute or less--with a lot of power in each stroke.  While I never felt like I was hurting, the workout took a lot out of me.  By the last couple of pieces I had little power left to put in my strokes.

Afterward we said goodbye to Terry, who had to head back to Chattanooga.  I returned to my lodging to have lunch and get some rest.

Tuesday afternoon's workout was less of a grind but no less intense.  Both Chrises, Alessia, Steph, and I did three 150-meter sprints at 5-minute intervals, four 100-meter sprints at 3-minute intervals, and five 50-meter sprints at 2-minute intervals.

One thing I learned back on Friday was that for years and years, when starting my boat from rest, I'd been doing it wrong.  For some reason I'd long had the idea that one was supposed to use a few quick staccato strokes to get the boat moving.  But when Chris N. saw me doing that, he informed me that this technique wasn't getting me anywhere.  The two Chrises went on to explain that one should start with his blade in the water and do several longer strokes with a lot of bicep involvement to get the boat moving, and then let loose with a high stroke rate before settling down into a sustainable race pace.

And so Tuesday afternoon's workout for me was a chance to work on improving my starting technique.  And the effort will be ongoing.  Both Chris H. and Alessia were getting off the line much faster than I was.  I was moving the boat better once I'd settled into a rhythm, but I'll just have to keep practicing my starts.

Tuesday evening was the first time on this trip that I've felt truly beat to the socks.  I slept soundly and got up yesterday morning feeling a bit sore but mostly ready for more.  I drove to our usual putin place at Blue Run Park, where our group had grown by one: in addition to the Chrises, Steph, Alessia, and me, Roy Roberts had come down from Chattanooga.  We paddled easy upstream to a spot on the Rainbow River known as KP Hole, and for our morning workout we did a time trial back down to Blue Run Park, a distance of about 5.3 kilometers.  (This course is apparently an established Strava segment.)

We started at 1-minute intervals with Steph leading off, followed by Chris N., Alessia, me, Roy, and Chris H.  Chris H. had urged us all to keep our efforts under control, and once I'd started I tried to keep the stroke rate under 80 and take strong, precise strokes.  As the trial wore on I felt the same sort of fatigue I typically feel over the course of a race of that distance, but I refrained from any hard surges.  I reached the finish with a time of 25 minutes, 59 seconds.  Since I'm not a Strava enthusiast, I don't know where that would put me in the Strava rankings.  Chris was the fastest of our group, more than two minutes faster than I, while Roy beat me by around 45 seconds.

After Tuesday's efforts and yesterday morning's time trial I was tired indeed, but there was yet another substantial workout to go.  Yesterday afternoon I joined Chris H., Roy, and Alessia for a set of six 4-minute pieces with six minutes recovery in between.  Once again Chris reminded us not to let effort overwhelm technique.  He pointed out that we were all tired and ready for a break, and this workout would train our bodies to push past that and continue paddling with good form.  And so that's what I did, keeping my stroke rate under control while trying to keep pace with Chris and Roy, who opened a gap on me in each piece anyway.

After two very taxing days, we'd earned a little break.  On tap this morning was an "active recovery" paddle.  For a change of scenery, we traveled an hour or so south of Dunnellon to the Weeki Wachee River to do it.  The Weeki Wachee is a clear spring-fed stream like the Rainbow River, but it offered us something we haven't found yet on the Rainbow: manatees.  We observed a dozen or more manatees hanging out in a deep pool near our putin spot at Rogers Park:

Once we'd said "Awww" over those adorable creatures a few times, we headed on up the river.  The Weeki Wachee is quite a bit shallower and more winding than the Rainbow, and it took quite a bit of energy to paddle up it.  Besides the "bottom drag" one experiences in shallow water, we had to concentrate hard to find the most efficient lines and avoid fighting the current as much as possible.  We finally reached the turnaround point up at Weeki Wachee Springs (where the mermaids roam) and paddled a spirited pace back down.

There's an annual race on the Weeki Wachee that I participated in some 12 years ago, but I'd forgotten how long it is from Rogers Park to Weeki Wachee Springs.  The round trip is nearly 19 kilometers.  It turned out not to be the most relaxing "recovery" paddle I've ever had, but at least I got my blood flowing.  We took this afternoon off, and I hope that bit of rest will have me ready for some more hard workouts tomorrow and Saturday.

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Monday photo feature

 

Among the fauna of the Rainbow River at Dunnellon, Florida, cormorants are the ones I find most endearing.  These birds can be seen swimming and diving up and down the river, and fairly often I see one poking its head above the surface, checking me out.  The tree to my right in the photo is one of their favorite hangout spots.

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Exploring some dif'rent strokes

As I mentioned in my last post, Chris Hipgrave drew up the training plan for our camp here in Florida.  We'll be doing some pretty intense workouts and some more relaxed workouts, but overall there's a strong technical theme that focuses on stroke rate.

Stroke rate is something I've thought about a fair bit over the years, inasmuch as I've played around with trying to lower my stroke rate while maintaining a given speed.  But I've never really gotten any more sophisticated about it than that.  Now, here at camp, I'm taking a good hard look at it.  Chris has based our training regime on information from this podcast interview with Dr. Brendan O'Neill, a coach in the New Zealand flatwater racing program and the inventor of the Vaaka Cadence Sensor, an in-the-boat device that tells a paddler his or her stroke rate in real time.  Dr. O'Neill helped the Kiwis achieve excellent results in the 2012 Olympics with a training program that sought to determine each athlete's optimum stroke rate and elicit maximum propulsion at that rate.

In the Friday afternoon workout that I mentioned in my last post, we did 100-meter sprints at a crazy-high stroke rate and 200-meter sprints at a more controlled rate, and the main objective was to get our bodies used to the idea of varying the rate as opposed to just using the same rate at all times.

Yesterday morning we did a workout that involved abnormally low stroke rates.  We did a series of pieces in which each cycle consisted of 2 minutes at 50 strokes per minute and 1 minute at 68 strokes per minute.  (For me, a "normal" stroke rate at a comfortable cruising pace is around 72 strokes per minute.)  The idea was to put as much power into each stroke to move the boat as fast as possible.  Chris H. and Terry Smith and I ended up doing this workout as a group, and in each piece Chris gradually pulled away while Terry and I tried to keep up, Terry moving just a hair faster than I.  This was consistent with years of race results in which Chris and Terry and I have almost always finished in that order.

The workout didn't have me breathing that hard, but I could feel it in my muscles.  When it was over I had a few hours for running errands, eating lunch and resting.  I was feeling ready to go once more when we reconvened for the afternoon session.  Cory Hall had departed for home, and Alessia Faverio had arrived from Asheville.  Chris Norbury and Steph Schell were skipping the workout, so our group for the afternoon was Chris H., Terry, Alessia, and me.

The workout consisted of three cycles of 5 minutes on, one minute off, 3 minutes on, one minute off, 2 minutes on.  We had six minutes recovery between the end of one cycle and the start of the next.  The pieces were to be done at around 75-85 strokes per minute, or about what one would do in the middle of a 20-minute race.

I tried to match the stroke rate of Chris, who had his Vaaka sensor set to 82 spm.  Chris pulled away pretty quickly in the first 5-minute piece, leaving Terry and me to duke it out for the whole workout.  Terry and I have been fairly evenly matched in most of the races we've done together, and it was good to have him next to me for feedback on my speed.  It was tempting to quicken my stroke rate whenever Terry pulled ahead, and it took some concentration and discipline to resist that urge and pull a little harder on each stroke instead.

The workout was taxing, but again I held up reasonably well.  I got a good night's sleep last night and returned to the river this morning for a relaxing distance paddle.  Chris H. and Alessia and I chatted and watched the birds, fish, turtles, and otters that call the Rainbow River home.

This afternoon it was time for a resistance workout.  Chris H., Chris N., Alessia, Terry, and I all looped ropes around our boats that had little whiffle balls (the kind used for golf practice) on them.  With these objects disrupting our glide, we did two sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4-minute recovery.  Besides providing a strength workout, Chris H. said, the resistance is intended to force the paddler to lower his stroke rate and put greater power in each stroke.

The workout was a nice send-off into our scheduled day off tomorrow.  The plan is to get back at it Tuesday morning with our bodies and brains rested up and ready to go.

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Let's go to camp!

On Tuesday morning I did my last gym session before my training camp down in Florida.  I haven't decided yet what sort of gym I'll do during the camp.  If I do anything, it'll probably be minimal since we'll be doing two in-the-boat workouts most days.

After the gym session I headed out into a bleak, overcast, 40-degrees-Fahrenheit outdoors to paddle.  My arms were tired from the gym work and it had the feel of a "let's just get this done" session.  I stayed in the harbor and paddled a pretty strong aerobic pace for 60 minutes.  It wasn't fun because I was achy and tired but I had a nice feeling of accomplishment when it was over.  I was buoyed by the idea that my next paddling session would be on a clear spring-fed stream, probably in much nicer weather.

Wednesday was a day for resting and packing, and yesterday I hit the road.  It was 38 degrees and pouring down rain when I left Memphis.  Sunshine State, here I come!

I made it as far as the town of Marianna in the Florida Panhandle yesterday.  According to Google I should have made the trip in 7 hours 45 minutes, but it took me more like nine and a half hours.  None of my stops was terribly lengthy, but I guess it all added up to at least an hour.  And I'm just not a particularly fast driver.  I stopped once to refuel, once to eat my sack lunch in the parking lot of another gas station, once at a clothing outlet store south of Montgomery that I like, and once to get some Chinese takeout and eat it at an outdoor table in Dothan.  Anyway, I got a good night's sleep in a motel and was back on the road by 7:45 AM, which might as well have been 8:45 because I crossed from Central Time into Eastern Time a short distance east of Marianna.

I arrived at my destination around 1 o'clock Eastern, and got checked into my Air B and B near Rainbow Springs State Park.  Once 4 o'clock rolled around I headed down into Dunnellon and met my training group along the Rainbow River for the afternoon session.  The temperature was a lovely 80 degrees or so and I donned the same sort of clothing I wear in the summertime.

On hand today were Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina; Cory Hall and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Pennsylvanians Chris Norbury and Steph Schell.  Our workout schedule for the camp was drawn up by Chris H., and both Chrises will be providing coaching services.

We started at Blue Run of Dunnellon Park, and to warm up we paddled upstream to a basin that branches off from the main river.  Here we did a workout that consisted of six 100-meter sprints and six 200-meter sprints.  We alternated between a 100 and a 200, and started each one at three-minute intervals.  The 100s were to be done at as high a stroke rate as each paddler was capable of ("to shock the nervous system," Chris H. said), while the 200s were to be done at a lower, more controlled rate.

It was a taxing workout, but I was pleased with how my body responded considering that I'd just spent a day and a half driving and I hadn't done sprints of any kind since October.  I recovered pretty quickly from each sprint and felt good once the workout was over.

I'll talk more later about the objectives of this workout and of the training camp as a whole.  I can tell already that I'll be analyzing certain training topics to a deeper extent than I ever have before, and that alone should make the camp worth it.  I've long believed that the best reason to attend an occasional training camp is to pick up new ideas that you can take back home and apply to your training there.

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