During periods like this one, when I'm paddling only a couple of times per week, I try to keep an eye on the forecast so I can arrange to be on the water when the weather isn't too miserable. On Friday it was unseasonably warm, rising into the high 70s Fahrenheit, so I went on down to paddle. When it's freakishly warm in the wintertime like Friday was, that usually means some stormy weather is on its way, and the south wind blew harder and harder during my 80 minutes in the boat. I paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the south end of the Greenbelt Park, then returned to the harbor and did the rest of my paddling there.
Late that night a violent front moved across the region, spawning tornadoes that did catastrophic damage in places like northeast Arkansas and western Kentucky. Here in Memphis we had some power outages, but as far as I know we were spared the suffering of these other areas.
As usual, there was colder air behind the front, and the temperature dropped all day Saturday. Saturday morning it was just as windy as Friday had been, albeit from the north, and the temperature was 30 degrees colder. I was glad to have paddled on Friday so that I could stay indoors Saturday and do a gym session.
The temperature had fallen below freezing when I woke up yesterday morning. This time I had to suck it up and leave the comforts of home for the Sunday distance ride. It is in fact a lot harder to stay warm on a bike than in a boat, mainly because you're moving at a higher speed on a bike. Since the main purpose of my riding is some cardio work I'm less concerned with aerodynamics than more serious riders, and I bundled up pretty good. The ride turned out not to be so bad: the sun was out, and the wind had died down. I spent a little over 90 minutes riding both east and west of my house, and covered 32.65 kilometers (20.3 miles).
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