The work gets a bit more substantial

The weather has become slightly more humid than it was last week, but it still isn't so hot.  Fahrenheit highs have been below 90 degrees.

I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday.  Yesterday I returned to the grind with three sets of five (1 minute on/1 min. off) at 60 strokes per minute, paddling at HIGH POWER (emphasis Maks's).  In addition, Maks told me to do two sprints up to 10 seconds during the rest intervals between the sets.  I made those intervals 5 minutes, and did a sprint at Minute 2 and Minute 4 of each of the 5-minute periods.  A main point of the exercise was to get as much power as I could from my legs.

Today was a rainy day, with a system of showers parked over the region.  I went back to the river for a 60-minute paddle at a moderate/strong pace in the "A1" stroke rate zone (up to around 72 spm).  Said Maks, "Strong continuous A1 workouts are slowly starting again.  Make sure to prepare mentally for the suffer-fest of them :)."  Not a subtle guy, that Maks.  I was happy to have some rainfall as a diversion: I think rainy days out on the Mississippi are beautiful.  I also had some interesting conditions created by a barge rig that was well upstream by the time I reached the harbor's mouth.  The waves weren't big but were ridable here and there, and I tried to catch them while keeping my stroke rate in the A1 zone and as steady as possible.  With about 20 minutes left to paddle I returned to the harbor and tried to take solid, strong strokes back to the dock.  Fatigue was definitely settling in but my form held up fine.

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Monday photo feature

That's me in the foreground, wearing a blue shirt.  It sure looks like I have the inside track on the 2017 USCA national title on the Mississippi River at Dubuque, Iowa, but this is no more than several seconds into the race, and the camera angle makes it look like I've got a bigger lead than I do.  I ended up fourth.

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"Away on business"

There hasn't been much posting here lately because I didn't do much paddling last week.  From Thursday through yesterday I was involved in an annual crafts fair where I demonstrate wooden bowl carving.

Last Tuesday I embarked on a loop of the harbor with Joe, only to have it cut short by a storm with much thunder and lightning.  Wednesday was a nicer day and I was back in the boat doing the closest thing to a real workout for the week: four sets of (3 minutes at 64 strokes per minute/1 min. at 80 spm/2 min. at spm/2 min. rest), followed by six times (1 min. on/1 min. off) at 84 spm.  This was a largely technical exercise done near anaerobic threshold.

By this morning my biceps and forearms were quite sore from all the bowl carving.  Monday is usually a day off for me, but Maks gave me an assignment to ease myself back into paddling: four sets of (5 min. at 60 spm/3 min. at 64 spm/2 min. at 68 spm), with a minute rest between pieces and two minutes between sets.  He told me to start slow and concentrate primarily on stroke mechanics and posture.  The session relaxed my body nicely.

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Monday photo feature

I never get tired of seeing the Herbert family when I go out racing.  At the Landing to Landing canoe and kayak race at Branson, Missouri, on Saturday, Mike Herbert and his daughter Savanna both had good days, with Mike taking first place overall and Savanna finishing first among women and fourth overall.

But these weren't the only Herbert clan members present.  Savanna's husband Dylan was the fastest paddler in the 3-mile race, while Mike's other daughter, Michelle, performed admirably at that distance as well.  And of course, Mike's wife Christel was there to drive the shuttle vehicle and keep everybody out of trouble.

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Racing in the heart of the Ozarks

It was a lovely sun-shiny day as a small group of racers gathered for the start of the Landing to Landing canoe and kayak race at Branson, Missouri.  The start was on the White River just below the Table Rock Reservoir dam.  Because of another dam downstream, the piece of water we would be racing on is known as Lake Taneycomo, but its narrow channel made it feel more like a river, and the first couple of kilometers there was a modicum of flow.  The course distance was 8 miles, or not quite 13 kilometers.

The starting area was tight, and the presence of a half-dozen fly fishermen restricted our maneuverability that much more.  As a result I found it difficult to get in my normal warmup.  Once the gun went off I was straining to persuade some blood into my muscles as I sprinted for a good position.

Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, moved quickly into the lead.  While trying to keep contact with him, I found myself alongside a tandem surfski paddled by the father-son team of Brad and Ethan Daniels, who hail from the nearby town of Hollister, Missouri.

Early on we had to navigate a few shallow stretches where my rudder dragged on the bottom.  My rudder continued to function, fortunately, but it was a distraction as I jockeyed with the Danielses for a decent position.

Eventually the water began to deepen as we entered the pool of Lake Taneycomo.  It appeared that Mike was his old self as his lead on the rest of us grew and grew.  I settled onto the Danielses' wake to conserve energy for some surges later in the race.

I was working as hard as I cared to in a race of this distance, but it seemed like my speed wasn't what I think I should be capable of.  When I looked down at my G.P.S. device it was most often showing about 11.1 kilometers per hour (6.9 miles per hour).  The water we were paddling was quite cool, probably because it came from the bottom of Table Rock Reservoir, and I thought of some research that Maks cited to me earlier this year, that a boat moves more slowly in colder water.  I'd be curious to know what impact it had on Mike's hull speed.

There were many motorized craft on the water, and around the 3-kilometer mark a bass boat moved in front of us.  Ethan and Brad sprinted to catch the boat's wake, so I did the same.  I was aware that what we were doing wasn't exactly fair either to Mike in front of us or the other racers behind us, but it sure was nice to get a breather while still traveling between 11.0 and 11.5 kph.  After a couple of minutes the bass boat began to veer from our race course, so I took the initiative to abandon its wake and encourage the Danielses to follow.

A short while later I began to open a gap on the tandem ski, and I threw in several surges to press the advantage.  It would mean paddling all by my lonesome the rest of the race, but if the Danielses were falling off the pace then it was the right thing to do to preserve my at-least-theoretical chance to reel Mike in.

For the next twenty minutes or so I moved along at the quickest pace I could manage, but with 5 kilometers to go fatigue was beginning to set in, and a few glances over my shoulder revealed that I hadn't really opened much of a gap on Ethan and Brad.  It was pretty clear that catching Mike was not in the cards, so I backed off the pace and allowed the tandem team to regain contact with me.  Now I could do some wake-riding with the hope of finishing strong and being the second boat across the finish line.

As the race wore on our speed dipped down toward 10 kph.  Having never paddled against the Danielses before, I wasn't sure whether they were fading or were just gathering themselves for a strong finish of their own.  As we paddled beneath the U.S. 65 bridge some 1500 meters out from the finish, I got my answer: they began to surge.  I knew I wasn't ready to sprint yet and I tried to hold onto their starboard wake.  We continued along like this to the railroad bridge, and though I was still comfortable with the pace I was definitely working much harder.

Past the railroad bridge we could see the pair of bridges for Veterans Boulevard and Branson Landing Boulevard, with the finish line a couple hundred meters beyond.  Here, Ethan and Brad put the hammer down.  I dug in and tried to hold their side wake, but their advantage in horsepower was clear as they edged farther and farther in front.  I fell back onto their stern wake and tried to gather myself for one last charge.  Mike, who had finished several minutes earlier, was off to the right cheering us on, and I knew I couldn't throw in the towel with him watching.  100 meters became 50 meters, and though I was sprinting hard the confused water behind the Danielses made it feel more and more like my efforts were in vain.  With less than 50 meters left I moved to my right and made one last mad dash, cutting their lead from a full boatlength to maybe seven-eighths of a boatlength, but there wasn't enough race left.  Ethan and Brad's bow broke the finish line five seconds before mine did.

I congratulated the father-son team and paddled easy as my heart rate returned to normal.  I watched as more racers came in to the finish.  Mike's daughter Savanna won a furious sprint with Don Walls to claim fourth place overall and third place among single kayaks.  Don, paddling an outrigger canoe, was the fastest single-blader, with OC1 paddler Stephen Lynn finishing 27 seconds later.

The results are as follows:

1.  Mike Herbert 1:04:32

2.  Ethan Daniels/Brad Daniels 1:09:11

3.  Elmore Holmes 1:09:16

4.  Savanna Wright 1:15:43

5.  Don Walls 1:15:45

6.  Phil Capel 1:16:03

7.  Stephen Lynn 1:16:12

8.  Frank Walker 1:25:53

9.  Karen Kesselring 1:34:05

10.  Andrew Peters 1:37:22

11.  Matt Andrews 1:43:16

12.  Sharlyn Todd 1:53:45

13.  Kyle Todd 1:53:46

14.  Kurt Hallow 2:11:34

15.  Jeff Holley 2:38:35

16.  Linda Blair 2:38:39

17.  Larry Ford 2:54:31

The race officials didn't make any distinction between kayaks and canoes or between women and men in distributing the awards.  Among the top nine finishers, every racer was in some type of kayak except Don and Stephen.  I'm not sure about any of the racers who finished behind Karen Kesselring.

I carried my boat up to my truck, which Karen's husband Dan had kindly helped me shuttle to the finish before the race.  I inspected my rudder and found that it had suffered a bit of damage that I'll have to repair when I get a chance.  Great... another item on my to-do list.

I socialized a bit with my fellow racers, whom I've seen sparingly in Pandemic Times.  Then it was time to hit the road for the five-hour drive back to Memphis.  A while back I mentioned to Maks that a race within five hours of my home is considered "close by," and he couldn't believe it.  Over there in Slovenia he has a lot of events within just a couple of hours.  That must be nice.  After my exhausting trip to the Pacific Northwest and back this summer, I'm only just now finding the gumption to drive even a short distance for a race.

The drive gave me ample time to ponder how my race had gone.  In general I didn't feel great about it, particularly the slowish speed I had maintained.  But obsessing over speed is probably not a good idea.  Besides the cold water, there were many areas of "suck water" (i.e., water that's shallow enough for bottom-drag to be a factor).

And I really had no reason to expect to do any better than I did.  For a few weeks after the big trip in July, Maks gave me (at my request) some easier training plans while I regrouped; and even though the plans are getting a bit more substantial now, they're still not anything that will get me into peak racing form.  Mostly, I'm feeling that the work I'm doing at this point in the year is preparation for 2022.  I hope I can define some clear goals for next year as race dates are announced.

All told, I'm glad I went over and did the race even though I'm not exactly gleeful over how I did.  Hopefully this is a first step toward breaking out of the inertia I've been stuck in for the last couple of months.

This morning I felt pretty chipper when I woke up.  It wasn't until I was down at the river that I realized how tired I actually was.  My oblique abdominals were a bit sore and my back and shoulders were stiff.  Maks had assigned an 80-minute endurance paddle that forced me to pay attention to the stroke rate.  I did four 18-minute pieces with 2 minutes rest after each one, with the first and last pieces done at 60 strokes per minute and the middle two at 64 spm.

Training will be abbreviated this coming week because of an annual crafts fair I'm participating in Thursday through Sunday.  Hopefully I'll be feeling ready to go Tuesday and Wednesday.

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After a long layoff, a race

Each fall I demonstrate bowl carving at a local crafts fair, and with this year's fair coming up next week, I spent several hours Monday morning driving around Midtown Memphis in search of material.  When trees are trimmed or cut down in this city, the standard practice is to leave logs on the curb for collection by a city sanitation crew.  That means free wood for resourceful artisans such as I.  It also means backbreaking labor.  Though I tried my best to rely on my logging tools, I managed to tweak my back a bit while lifting a couple of logs into the back of my truck.

By Tuesday morning the back discomfort had eased, but my hamstrings and quad muscles were achy and sore from the work they'd done.  I went down to the river and did one of Maks's "non-continuous endurance" workouts.  It was 3 times (4 minutes on/1 min. off) at 60 strokes per minute; 3 times (3 min. on/1 min. off) at 66 spm; 3 times (2 min. on/1 min. off) at 72 spm; and 3 times (4 min. on/1 min. off) at 60 spm.

My sore leg muscles didn't bother me too badly during this session, and by Wednesday morning they had largely recovered.  I went back to the river for six 3-minute pieces, within each of which I did a minute at 80 spm, a minute at 90 spm, and a minute at 80 spm.  The idea was to carry the technical precision from the lower stroke rate into the higher one, and make a smooth, focused transition back to the lower rate.

Yesterday morning I made the decision to attend my first race in two months: the Landing to Landing canoe and kayak race on the White River at Branson, Missouri.  It's 8 miles (12.8 kilometers), and while I don't feel like I'm anywhere near peak racing form, I hope getting out to a race will help me snap out of the sluggish feeling I've had since returning from my trip out West this summer.

With a race now on the agenda, I departed from Maks's assignments for the rest of the week in favor of rest and (I hope) some polish to my speed.  Yesterday I paddled for 40 minutes and did six 12-stroke sprints at maximum intensity to boost my ATP-CP system and get some start practice, too.

This morning I did almost exactly the same thing, except I did just four 12-stroke sprints.  Then I got in the car and headed across the river and off to the west.  Now I'm in Branson, one of those places I probably wouldn't ever visit if it weren't hosting a canoe and kayak race.  Here's hoping for a good night's sleep and some good racing in the morning.

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Monday photo feature

The 2001 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race was one to remember.  Pictured above are the top five finishers.  From left, they are Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas; Greg Barton of Seattle, Washington; yours truly; Peter Braul of Kincardine, Ontario; and Scott Cummins of Indianapolis, Indiana.  Photo by Emerson Wickwire.

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A nice weekend with a dash of high intensity

I started the weekend with a gym session on Friday.  I also spent Friday finishing up a workshop project that had taken me about a month, and it was nice to get that off my plate.

Saturday's assignment was "a bit of a lung and muscle burner": six sets of (30 seconds at 90-95 strokes per minute/15 sec. rest/15 sec. all-out sprint), starting a new set every 8th minute.  Maks said, "Not an easy workout!  That's not a threat, it's a promise!"

Okay, he didn't actually say "That's not a threat, it's a promise."  I sort of read that part in.

Anyway, I went out and did the workout, and it didn't seem too bad until the last couple of sets, when I really had to dig deep to crank out the 15-second all-out sprint at the end of each set.

This morning I did a calm 75-minute paddle.  The "Ida bump" on the river has moved on, and we're back to typical late-summer low levels.

We've continued to enjoy low-humidity weather through the weekend.  But it's been awfully hazy the last couple of days: both at sunset yesterday and at sunrise this morning, the sun has been a dark orange orb in the sky.  I don't know if this is more wildfire smoke from out West, or just routine air pollution.

Because I've been feeling good in the boat lately, I was leaning toward signing up for a race next weekend--an event on Center Hill Reservoir in middle Tennessee that I've attended a couple of times in the past.  But when I visited the registration page yesterday, I learned that the event has been canceled.  Apparently the director's mother is seriously ill and he is turning his full attention to her care.  So, late summer continues without many opportunities to race.

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Early fall on the river

So far this week the weather has been warm but not sweltering hot, and mostly sunny... in other words, gorgeous.  Not coincidentally, my time in the boat has felt quite satisfying the last several days.

On Tuesday Joe and I paddled about two thirds of the harbor.  Then Joe had to go and I commenced this workout: three sets of three (3 minutes on, 1 min. off) at 64 strokes per minute (first set), 70 spm (second set), and 60 spm (third set).  Maks described these as "technical" sets, and he also said that this week we're moving "back to more endurance and grinding workouts."

For yesterday, Maks assigned "an anaerobic workout broken into shorter sets with short rest intervals."  It was four sets of (3 min. at 80 spm/1 min. rest/2 min. at 80 spm/1 min. rest/1 min. at 80 spm), starting a new set every 14th minute.  Maks went on to say "it is supposed to be a moderately hard workout, but not the 'killing' type."  That statement turned out to be accurate: I felt reasonably taxed but not utterly exhausted.  What I did not feel was that I was going anaerobic--breathing hard, yes, but not in oxygen debt.  I decided to play around with this a bit by nudging the stroke rate into 82-84 territory for the third and fourth sets; I didn't want to alter the workout beyond Maks's intentions, but just see if i could get a bit closer to anaerobic.  The higher stroke rate was definitely more taxing, but still not quite anaerobic.  Oh well... I think it was a good workout, all told.

Today I did eight sets of (8 min. on/2 min. off) at 60 spm, with some extra weight in the boat.  It was basically a distance paddle with a heightened sensation of the water pressure against my blades.

The Hurricane Ida rain that fell in the Mississippi watershed is now reaching Memphis.  Yesterday's river level was 11.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, the highest stage we've had in quite a while.  I did my workout out on the big river and it was fun to escape the monotony of the harbor.  The river went on to crest at 12.1 feet and this morning I paddled with a level of 11.9.  Once again I enjoyed the expanded paddleable real estate out on the river.  I don't normally enjoy these grinding sessions, but the higher water combined with lovely weather has lifted my mood.

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Monday photo feature

Four years ago I raced on Fontana Reservoir in western North Carolina, then drove all the way up to Dubuque, Iowa, for the USCA nationals the following weekend.  Along the way I camped one night on Lake Barkley in western Kentucky, where I had a lovely view of the full moon.

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Strength, power, and endurance

Friday was a gym day.  I found time during a busy day in the workshop to do a few strength exercises.

I was back on the water yesterday morning for a "brute power" workout.  I did four sets of four (20 seconds at 100 strokes per minute/20 sec. rest/20 sec. at 100 spm) with moderate resistance on the boat.  Maks didn't specify a recovery time after the second sprint of each rep, so I made it 1 minute.  He told me to "make longer rests between the sets to (almost) fully recover," so I made that 3 minutes.  It was definitely a hard session, but I didn't feel utterly exhausted after it was over.

We've enjoyed some cooler-than normal weather this weekend.  This morning some rain moved into the area, and I paddled in intermittent showers.  I did four sets of (5 min. at 56 spm/4 min. at 60 spm/3 min. at 64 spm/2 min. at 68 spm/1 min. at 72 spm), with a minute break between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  It was your basic longer endurance session, with the varying stroke rates forcing me to concentrate the whole time, making it pretty tiring.

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So many ways to wear myself out

Well, the remnants of Hurricane Ida missed the Memphis area almost entirely.  From Monday afternoon through Tuesday we had a bit of rain and a few wind gusts, but nothing serious.  The storm moved farther east than forecasters expected, and it sounds much of this country from the mouth of the Mississippi up to the Northeast have not been as fortunate as we.

On Tuesday I had a somewhat taxing endurance workout to do: eight sets of (2 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/1 min. at 72 spm/2 min. at 60 spm/1 min. at 72 spm/2 min. rest), all with some extra weight in the boat.  The added weight enhances the sensations associated with planting the blade and rotation and leg drive, and though I wasn't out of breath by the end of the session, I was feeling the effort in my muscles.

Yesterday I pushed the intensity higher.  I did eight sets of (45 seconds at 80 spm/15 sec. rest/45 sec. at 84 spm/15 sec. rest/30 sec. at 90 spm).  In other words, it was eight two-and-a-half-minute pieces of which two minutes was done at a pretty high intensity.  Per Maks's instructions, I focused on posture and mechanics while paddling hard.  It took me a couple of sets to get a feel for each stroke rate; early on I was paddling at a higher rate than I should have.

After putting stress on my body in these different ways, Maks relented today and assigned a basic 80-minute paddle.  I kept the stroke rate at 60-64 spm and enjoyed the nice day.

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