Thursday, September 30, 2021

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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