Race schedule update

Here's an updated list of races I might attend this year.  The near-future event I've added is one on the Saline River a little ways southwest of Little Rock.  That should be no more than a three-hour drive for me, and I hope maybe some familiar faces from Arkansas and Louisiana and that part of the world will be in attendance.

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, the reason I'm listing the Michigan events in June and July is that I'm pondering a trip to the Great Lakes region around that period of the summer.  I haven't made any real plans yet, but now that we're moving within three months of those dates, I guess I should give it some more serious thought.

April

15    Ouachita River 4-mile Sprint.  Riverton Lake, Monroe, Louisiana.  4 miles (6.4 kilometers) on flatwater.  This race is described as a "sprint" because it's offered as a companion to a 49-mile (78.9-kilometer) ultra-distance race.  Register

29    Saline River Canoe Race.  Saline River from Peeler Bend to Lyle Park, Benton, Arkansas.  4 miles (6.4 kilometers) down a Class I river.  Register (Warning: the registration site this event uses is extremely clunky.)

May

13    Chitimacha Nation Race.  Bayou Teche, Jeanerette, Louisiana.  10 miles (16 kilometers) down a Class I stream.  Register

June

25    45 North Solstice Paddle Festival.  Lake Michigan (Suttons Bay), Suttons Bay, Michigan.  5-kilometer, 10-kilometer, and sprint races.  Register

July

8    Belle Isle Classic.  Detroit River, Detroit, Michigan.  7 miles (11.3 kilometers) around Belle Isle in the Detroit River that flows from Lake Saint Clair into Lake Erie.  Register

September

16    The Firecracker Race.  Mississippi River, Alton, Illinois.  15 miles downriver from Grafton to Alton. Register

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Looking ahead and, I hope, inward

I've spent this week getting settled back at home and figuring out what's next in terms of canoe and kayak racing.  I'm not feeling particularly anxious or in a hurry about it.  For a couple of weeks I think I'll be paddling without a whole lot of structure--whatever I feel like, basically.  Sometime soon I need to ease into another gym routine, too.

On Tuesday I paddled for 60 minutes.  It was sunny but cool with a chilly north breeze, and I was rather underdressed.  I was used to the warm weather I'd had down on the coast last weekend, and I guess I was trying to will it to continue back here.

Yesterday morning it was a few degrees warmer, and I was better-layered.  I paddled for 60 minutes again.  The river has been rising this week as a result of last week's storms that moved across the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio watersheds.

Maybe the biggest news of the week was my visit to an orthopedist's office yesterday afternoon.  My chiropractor had told me that after all the physical therapy and chiropractic therapy and massage therapy I've been through in the last couple of years, it might be time to have an M.R.I. to find out what the problem really is and why none of that stuff has helped.  Though I agreed with her, I'd been putting off seeking such a procedure because I dreaded the fight I would surely get from my insurance company.  But yesterday the doctor, with no real prodding from me, said he thought it was time for an M.R.I.  So now I'm in line to get one, and while I have no delusions of my insurance company respecting a doctor's medical opinion, I hope maybe it'll go along.

The doctor did take X-rays, and while X-rays can't see through bone, the doctor said they help him make an educated guess at what the M.R.I. might reveal.  He pointed out some compression of the vertebrae near the right side of my neck as well as a couple of small bone spurs.

In any case, I'm feeling upbeat at the moment because after months of having these problems worked on with no success, I'm now trying something that should shed some light on what's really going on.

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Monday photo feature

Two kilometers down, about eleven and a half to go.

Standing on the Washington Avenue drawbridge, Phattira Berry captured a bunch of racers heading up Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on Saturday.  In the foreground is the tandem surfski paddled by Phattira's husband Jeb and son Thaison.  Several boatlengths back we see Alessia Faverio on the left and yours truly on the right.  I can only guess the identities of the racers farther back, but I'm pretty sure that's Matt Taylor directly behind Alessia, and I think I see Don Walls over to the right near the marsh grass.

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An annual ritual on the Gulf Coast

On Saturday morning I joined some 70 other athletes for the Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race on Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs.  This was the thirteenth edition of this event: it started in 2010 and has taken place every year since except the pandemic year 2020.  I have attended every one.

We lined up in the cove down the hill from the Gulf Hills Hotel and were off just as soon as race director Mike Pornovets gave the word.  As we made the turn from the cove up into the bayou, I assessed the cast of characters at the front of the pack.  Up in first place was Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, a longtime friend as well as a three-time Olympian, a three-time world championships medalist, and a Pan Am Games champion.  I found myself in his wake jockeying for position with Alessia Faverio of Erwin, Tennessee, whom I’d last seen just a couple of months ago at our Florida training camp.  Advancing quickly to our right was a tandem surfski paddled by the father-son team of Jeb and Thaison Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi.  Also among the early leaders was Matt Taylor of Brantley, Alabama, with whom I wasn’t so familiar but who was moving his boat nicely in the early going.

Mike was methodically extending his lead by the time we reached the Washington Avenue drawbridge.  Jeb and Thaison had moved into second and put several boatlengths on Alessia and me.  By the 2-kilometer mark she and I had settled into some cooperative wake-riding in the hope of eventually reeling the Berrys in.  But then a bit of luck plopped in our laps: the Berrys took a wrong turn in the sometimes confusing maze of marsh channels, and suddenly Alessia and I went from being several boatlengths back to leading Jeb and Thaison by at least the same margin.

Alessia and I continued working together to try to extend our lead.  But the Berrys weren’t done.  In less than ten minutes they had closed the gap and were advancing on our right side.  Alessia moved onto their side wake while I tried to anticipate the next development.  It was clear that Jeb and Thaison intended to move on in front and pull away.  They opened a boatlength on us, and realizing that their generous wake was about to slip away, I threw down a hard sprint to get back up on their stern.  Though it hadn’t been my primary intention to drop Alessia, that was a result of my move.  The Berrys were moving fast and I concentrated hard on holding their stern wake for as long as I could.  I succeeded for a few minutes, but eventually their speed was more than I could handle and I had to let them get away.

As we approached the big island that represented the turnaround point, Mike was all but out of sight in first place.  Jeb and Thaison continued to pull away from me, leaving me in a place no marathon canoe and kayak racer really wants to be: all by my lonesome.  Alessia wasn’t far behind, and I could hear her chatting with a voice that I recognized as that of Don Walls of Russellville, Arkansas.  A many-time national champion in North American-style marathon canoe racing, Don was paddling a sleek outrigger canoe and doing an admirable job keeping up with us double-bladers.  As fatigue began to grip my body, I pondered my options.  I could back off and let Alessia and Don catch me, and then conserve energy trading wake rides with them in the hopes of sprinting away in the closing meters; or I could continue bearing down and make them work to catch me, and hope I would have just a bit more left than they did at the end.  I opted for the latter tactic, and realized that my sprint to keep up with the Berrys earlier had been a crucial move.  Even though I was getting tired and it was very likely that Alessia and Don would reel me in, I was still in a more desirable position than they were.

The second half of the race had an added challenge: the wind was coming from the southwest and the tide was flowing in, meaning that we had to fight both as we retraced our route from the turnaround point back to the Gulf Hills cove.  I’d averaged around 11.5 kilometers per hour on the way out, and it messed with my brain as I struggled to manage even 10 kph coming back.  I had to keep reminding myself that my competitors were all dealing with it, too.

When the Washington Avenue drawbridge came back into view I knew that I was sort of getting close to the end, but the bridge is about 2 kilometers from the finish, and I was probably another kilo from it when I could first see it, so there was still plenty of room for all kinds of funny things to happen.  Soon, what I knew was inevitable finally happened: one of the boats behind me caught up.  It was Don.  In my peripheral vision I could see another boat just behind him that I assumed was Alessia.  I was actually glad to have some company, not to mention some wakes I could ride.  As we passed beneath the bridge I started to gather myself for a strong finish.  As the two kilometers dwindled to just one, I realized there was another boat in our little pack: a tandem ski paddled by Susan Jordan of Lucedale, Mississippi, and Mike Malone of Fort Walton Beach, Florida.  At this point I was just managing my fatigue and I thought, hey, the more the merrier.

At long last, we rounded the point of the last marshy island and pointed our boats straight toward the finish line about 400 meters in the distance.  I found another gear and moved out in front of my competition--a reminder of why I do all those 1000- and 500-meter pieces back home.  My closest challenger was Susan/Mike, and I gauged their reaction to my surges to save as much as I could for the final 50.  I threw down one last splurge of effort and crossed the finish line in third place overall with a time of one hour, 17 minutes, 57 seconds for the 13.56-kilometer (8.43-mile) course.

Mike, of course, had taken the overall victory long before anybody else was even within sight of the finish line, clocking 1:08:52.  At age 62, the man seems in vintage form.

Jeb and Thaison were next across, nearly eight minutes later (1:16:38).  Behind me, the racers sorted themselves out as Susan and Mike in fourth (1:17:58), Alessia fifth (1:18:08), and Don sixth (1:18:12).  Matt Taylor finished in 1:20:02 to claim third place behind Mike and me in the men’s class for racing kayaks.

The complete results are posted here.

The day had been overcast to begin, but by race’s end the sun had come out and we all gathered on the bank to socialize, eat a barbecue lunch, and enjoy the nice day.  Once the awards had been handed out I returned to my accommodations at my friend Nick Kinderman’s house.  I actually had the place to myself, as Nick had just married the lovely Miss Kelly Platt and moved in with her.  (For the record, those two do have their priorities straight: the wedding and honeymoon weren’t enough to keep them from racing.  Nick clocked 1:31:20 to take first place in the men's K1 "Long" class, while Kelly was the third-fastest in women's K1 "Fast" at 1:46:09.)

I enjoyed a slow morning today, easing away from Nick’s house around 9 o'clock.  I needed a recovery paddle, so I drove back over to Gulf Hills and paddled easy in the Back Bay of Biloxi for an hour.  It felt good to get some blood flowing through my ragged muscles, and I also saw some neat wildlife, most notably some diving pelicans and a briefly-surfacing dolphin.  Such things are a good reminder of why I should leave the good old Memphis riverfront and paddle some other places once in a while.  Another cool thing I saw was on the railroad line that crosses the Back Bay near its entrance from Mississippi Sound: there's a bridge that rotates to allow boat traffic to pass through, and I got to watch it close back up in preparation for an approaching train.  I'm still a little kid when it comes to stuff like that.

I hit the road and was back in Memphis around 5 o'clock.  Thus concluded my first race trip of the year.  When will my next one be?  As I said in my last post, I really don't know.  Once I'm settled back in at home I'll give that some more serious thought.

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Ocean Springs pre-race

My mission for this week has been to get some rest, sharpen up my speed, and address a whole list of chores that needed my attention before I left town.

As far as training goes, I've been doing what are more or less considered "peaking" activities, as if the race tomorrow were some kind of major championship.  For me, it sort of is, frankly.  Race events of any kind within a reasonable drive of my home are an all-but-extinct species these days.  It's possible I'll participate in a race or two farther from home as part of a summer vacation trip, but that's at least three months off, plenty of time for me to ease into a whole new phase of training.

On Monday and Wednesday I went downtown and paddled just long enough to get warmed up, do a few short sprints (eight 12-stroke sprints Monday, six Wednesday), and cool back down.

It was pouring down rain this morning when I left my house and got myself southbound on Interstate 55.  My original plan was to stop and paddle on Arkabutla Reservoir about 20 miles south of Memphis, but it was still raining and the western sky looked ominous.  So I continued some 45 miles farther south to Enid Reservoir in Yalobusha County, where I knew the rain wouldn’t arrive until later in the day.  But the wind sure had arrived: I looked out over the water and saw small but genuine downwind conditions.

There was no point doing my usual 12-stroke sprints in those conditions, so instead I paddled into the wind to the far side of the lake and then did a few sprints by way of catching a few runs as I paddled back.

Now I’m down in Ocean Springs hoping to get a good night’s rest for the race tomorrow.  Where the aches and pains are concerned, I've been been feeling neither great nor terrible.  I'm taking some ibuprofen for a couple of days, hoping that will settle it down for the race.

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Monday photo feature

Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, explodes off the starting line as if shot from a cannon.  The occasion is the Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in 2017.  Over Mike's right shoulder the Pellerin triplets of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana--Conrad, Carson, and Peyton--move their three-man kayak into the lead for the "unlimited" boat class.

The 2023 edition of this event is scheduled for this Saturday, and Mike is signed up to participate.  I doubt the Pellerin boys will be there: they're young adults now and busy with other things.  But I hope we haven't seen the last of them in our sport.

Photo by Doug Heller.

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Heating up the intensity in the late-winter chill

Friday morning I did my last gym session before next weekend's race.  As I've said here many times, gym work is my least favorite part of training, so it's nice to have a break from that this coming week.

This has been a chilly weekend, with Fahrenheit highs not much above 40 degrees.  I think tonight we're supposed to drop into the 20s, and I hope that will be the last time for this season.  Warmer days are supposed to arrive midweek.  My race Saturday is at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where I presume the temperature will be even a few degrees warmer.

It was only just barely above freezing when I got up yesterday morning, but by the time I got down to the river it had warmed up into the 40s.  The sun was out, and the breeze that was blowing wasn't too bad.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did my last tough workout before race day: three sets of 20-second sprints with a decreasing rest interval.  To wit: 20-second sprint/60-second rest/20-second sprint/50-second rest/20-second sprint/40-second rest/20-second sprint/30-second rest/20-second sprint/20-second rest/20-second sprint/10-second rest/20-second sprint.  I did the first set with light resistance (one golf whiffle ball) on the boat, and the second and third sets with no resistance.  I took a 5-minute break between sets.  I was struggling to maintain good form by the last sprint of each set, but in general I felt strong.

This morning it was frigid and stayed that way.  When I got to the river the temperature display in my car said it was a degree below freezing.  There was a north wind blowing that wasn't particularly fierce but managed to penetrate my bones just the same.  The sun was out again, but my marina has a roof on it and my dock is on the west side, meaning that in the morning it's completely in the shade.  That's nice in the summertime but not on days like today.  The worst part of paddling in cold weather is not the paddling itself but the chores on the dock before and after.

Once in the boat I paddled calmly for 50 minutes.  I kept the intensity fairly low but I tried to focus on good precise strokes.  When I returned to the dock it was apparently still below freezing: the water on my boat started to freeze as I hurried to get into dry clothes and store the boat back on its rack.  It's stayed cold the rest of the day, with a high temperature of maybe 39 or 40.  Let's get some warmer weather in here already!  According to the forecast, that's supposed to happen around Wednesday.

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A bit more hard work before I get to race

The cold spell continues, and it looks like it won't be until the middle of next week that the weather takes a turn for the warmer.  Now that Daylight Saving Time starts several weeks earlier than it used to, I tend to think spring should be arriving earlier as well, but the reality is that it's still just mid March.  One ritual I look forward to every spring is giving all my winter gear a good washing and putting it away for the year, but over the years I've learned it's not safe to do that until at least the beginning of May.  So for now I'm trying to put that out of my mind and bundle up for the conditions at hand.

After a gym session Tuesday morning, I headed down to the river.  The presence of some sunshine made it a somewhat nicer day than Sunday had been, but once again there was a north breeze blowing, and it was some ten degrees colder.  Fortunately I could stay in the harbor for my workout.  With a race coming up a week from Saturday, I've got some hard work on tap for this week.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on a workout I first did with Dawid Mocke in South Africa in February of 2020: 10 hard strokes/10 easy strokes/20 hard strokes/10 easy strokes/30 hard strokes/10 easy strokes... and so on and so on until I'd done 100 hard strokes.  This workout is a tough one and I was feeling it by the 40-hard-strokes piece.  But at 15 minutes or so, it's one of the more "short & sweet" workouts.  Once I'd finished the workout and paddled a 15-minute cool-down and returned to the dock, I'd spent just 50 minutes in the boat.  That's the theme of the week: the intensity is going up, but the volume is going down.

I chilled out yesterday, and this morning I paddled for another 50 minutes.  I wanted it to be not necessarily an easy paddle, but a relaxed one.  But at the same time I wanted to focus on a crisp catch and strong power, and add some speed into the mix.  Midway through my 50 minutes I did four 8-stroke sprints, except I stretched them out to 12 strokes so I could feel the sensation of paddling fast with the boat fully up to speed.

I got back to the dock feeling better than I'd felt when I started.  I've got a bit more hard work planned for the weekend before I prioritize rest.

The aches and pains story hasn't changed too much.  I've still got tight soreness in the right side of my neck and some occasional throbbing pain in my left forearm and biceps.  My chiropractor has suggested it might be time for me to get an MRI, which I'm happy to do except for the likely fight that I'll have to wage with my insurance company.  I shouldn't procrastinate too long, but I might let it wait until after I've got a race under my belt.

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Monday photo feature

In the fall of 2018 I found myself racing in the upper reaches of Lake Cumberland in southern Kentucky.  We're on the Big South Fork arm of the manmade reservoir, skirting the carcasses of some submerged trees.  That's me on the right, followed closely by Ryan Landis of Corwin, Ohio.  In hot pursuit is a tandem boat paddled by Scott Cummins and Elaine Harold of Louisville, Kentucky.  Photo by Greg Davis.

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Feeling roughed up by the elements, the clock, and a time trial

Clearly, winter is not quite done yet.  Between now and the start of spring on the 20th of March, the daily high temperatures are expected to be mostly below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  At least the sun came out Friday afternoon, but my training activity was indoors.  Just a gym session.

Yesterday morning started sunny, but it was quickly clouding over by the time I was in the boat.  I had a 5-kilometer time trial on tap, and I gauged the wind direction so I could avoid doing it into a headwind.  Looking at the flags at the Coast Guard station across the harbor, I thought it was a north wind, but once I was paddling up toward the harbor's north end, I realized that it was more east than north.

I did three 8-stroke sprints, turned to head back south, and was on my way.  The harbor is mostly straight, but it does have some gentle bends to it, and in the early going I found myself fighting a headwind.  Shooting for a stroke rate of 80 strokes per minute, I moved as close as I could to the harbor's east bank in search of some shelter, but it was a struggle just to maintain 11.5 kilometers per hour.  Once in a while I sank below 11.0, and it was clear that the 5-minutes-per-kilometer pace that I covet so much wasn't in the cards on this day.  I tried to relax and take the most precise and powerful strokes I could.  The last two kilometers were definitely tough, but I kept up the cadence and my speed actually nudged up a little because the wind was more in my favor.  I reached the 5-kilometer mark right in the swirly water at the mouth of the harbor, and recorded a time of 26 minutes, 41 seconds.  It was far from my best ever, but I think I gave a good honest effort from start to finish, so I can't really be too hard on myself.

Some rain moved through the area yesterday afternoon, but by this morning all the precipitation appeared to be south of here.  A look at the Internet radar revealed that Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were getting hammered with rain pretty good.  Around here it was just cloudy, and the mercury was struggling to reach 50 degrees.  Down on the riverfront I found a stiff north wind blowing that made it feel like a brutal winter day even though it wasn't really that cold.  I put the pogies on for the first time in a couple of weeks and set out on my Sunday long paddle.  With the Mississippi River flowing at 27.8 feet on the Memphis gauge I could have paddled around the Loosahatchie Bar again, but instead I opted to stay in the state of Tennessee and paddle up to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge on the Wolf River.

The trip up the Mississippi from the mouth of the harbor to the mouth of the Wolf was a real slog into the teeth of that wind.  Adding insult to injury was the presence of an obstacle in the form of a touring riverboat (the American Countess) moored at the boat ramp just below the mouth of the Wolf.  It looked like I had room to paddle between this vessel and the bank, but just like last week I found that passageway blocked by a floating tree trunk.  I ended up carrying my boat up the ramp and across the parking lot to a spot where I could get back on the water in the Wolf's mouth.

Now that I was in the protected environs of the Wolf I was able to relax and concentrate on taking good strokes.  The trip up to Danny Thomas and back gave me a good 6000 meters of flatwater distance paddling, and once I was back on the Mississippi I had the wind at my back.  Then it was one last leg into the wind from the mouth of the harbor back to the dock.  It was nowhere near my worst-ever winter day paddle, but I was glad to have it over just the same.

This morning was also the first of Daylight Saving Time, and so the dreaded circadian adjustment phase begins. I'm feeling dead-dog tired and am grateful to have a day off coming up tomorrow.

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Balancing hard efforts with rest

Tuesday morning I did a gym session and then went to the river for a 60-minute paddle.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I set about a pace workout: three 1500-meter pieces, starting every 15th minute.  My times were 8:19, 7:36, and 7:27.  The reason the first piece was so slow is that I did half of it into a stiff north wind, and then when I reached the north end of the harbor I had to turn to head back south.  So I didn't think much about my time for the first piece.  My goal for the next two was 7:30, and as you can see I failed once and succeeded once.

It takes an average speed of 12.0 kilometers per hour to produce a 7:30 1500.  I feel like I should be able to maintain 12 kph for at least 5 kilometers, although I've heard many wise people in our sport say that one shouldn't focus on a specific speed or specific times because of all the many variables that impact a paddler's speed, including the wind and even the temperature of the water.  I try not to get too bent out of shape if I don't achieve a certain numeric goal, but it'd be nice if I could get myself in 12-kph form at some point this year.  On Tuesday I managed it just one time, with the help of a tailwind.  Back in June of 2020 I clocked 25:12 for an out-and-back 5K on flatwater (an 11.9-kph average), and I sure would like to believe I haven't slowed down that much in the less-than-three years since then.

I was very tired, both physically and mentally, for the rest of the day Tuesday.  With a race coming up soon I've gone to doing two higher-intensity sessions each week, and I'm needing a bit more rest as a result.  I took a break from training activity yesterday, and this morning I did just an easy 60 minutes in the boat.

Tuesday was the last of a stretch of warm days, and now the forecast features temperatures that are much more March-like, maybe even a bit below normal for March, for the next couple of weeks.  There's a lot of rain in there as well.  When I got to the river this morning it was just barely 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and I got rained on some while I paddled.  All told the conditions weren't bad, and I felt good in the boat, but as I said here a few weeks ago, I'll be glad when the sub-60-degree days are gone for good.

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Monday photo feature

When it's a beautiful day following on the heels of heavy storms, it's a perfect day for some creeking.  On Saturday Memphis father-son duo Sonny and Jason Salomon crossed the Mississippi River and headed northwest up into the Ozark foothills, where Salado Creek flows through the region between Batesville and Bald Knob, Arkansas.  Sonny snapped this photo of a frolicking sluice of water on the Class II+ creek that's hard to catch at a runnable level.

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Hard short pieces and a lovely long paddle

Friday began with heavy rain in the Mid South, followed by strong winds and a falling temperature.  The only training activity I had planned for the day was an indoor gym session, and I was happy about that.

Once again, the storm system moved north and east into higher areas of the Mississippi River watershed, and soon enough all that water will be flowing past the city of Memphis.  The current forecast says that the river will rise above 30 feet on the Memphis gauge around the end of this coming week.  It's hard to believe that we saw our lowest level ever recorded (10.86 feet below zero) less than five months ago.

The weather had calmed down by yesterday morning.  It was cool--a little over 50 degrees Fahrenheit--but the sun was coming out and the afternoon high was expected to be in the low 60s.  I went downtown and got in the boat, and after warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did four bridge-to-bridge sprints starting every 8th minute.  My times were 2:14, 2:13, 2:16, and 2:16--quite a bit slower than my best, but I think the headwind had a lot to do with that.  It wasn't a strong headwind, but I've learned over the years that it doesn't take much of a headwind to slow you down quite a bit.  So I'm not too disappointed in my times.  I aimed for a stroke rate in the 90-95 strokes per minute range, though at times I had to make myself ease up a little just to keep it under 100.  All told, the workout was plenty tough, just as I'd expected.

I went out this morning for my Sunday long paddle, and I had a gorgeous day to do it.  The sun was shining, and the temperature when I got down to the dock was 60 degrees and rising fast.  With the river flowing at 20.2 feet, I had enough water to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar for the first time in close to a year.  I continued to suffer nagging pain in my left forearm and biceps muscles, but otherwise I felt good in the boat.  As I paddled down the chute on the west side of the Loosahatchie Bar, out of view of any vestiges of civilization, I could have been in the remotest wilderness on Earth for all I knew.

I paddled for just over 122 minutes.  Long-time readers know that I like to break two hours for this circuit, but today I had a reasonable excuse for not doing so: while paddling up the Mississippi along the Tennessee side I had to go between a parked barge and the bank, and found this passage blocked by a big floating tree branch.  I ended up having to portage over it, and that cost me several minutes.  Also, some of the sand bar at the north end of the Loosahatchie Bar was exposed at the 20.2-foot river level, making the course maybe a couple of hundred meters longer than it is at higher water.  As I rounded the north end of the exposed sand I hit the bottom with my paddle several times but didn't drag my rudder.

In any case, today's paddle completed a good substantial weekend of work, and that's a nice feeling with just under three weeks to go before my first race.

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All the many physical challenges

I was up and at 'em Tuesday morning, doing a gym session and then going to the river for a workout in the boat.  After warming up and doing a set of three 8-stroke sprints, I did three 1000-meter pieces, starting each new one 11 minutes after I'd started the last one.  I aimed for a stroke rate of 80 strokes per minute, about what I'd use in a 10-kilometer race.  My times were 5:19, 5:16, and 5:10.  I feel like 5 minutes per kilometer is a reasonable goal for me in a 5- or 10-kilometer race, but this was as good as I could do today.  I'm sure the gym session had taken something out of me.

My Tuesday morning giddy-up was quite a contrast to what I'd been feeling Monday evening.  As I wound down after supper Monday, I thought ahead to my training plans for the next morning with a vague sense of dread.  I was tired and sluggish and wondering if I would find the energy to make it happen.  But sure enough I did, and it was a reminder of how much of a mind-body connection being an athlete is.  You would think I would know it by heart at this stage of life, but I'm always having to remind myself that just because I don't feel up to a challenge right at this moment, that doesn't mean I won't be ready for it later.  In the case of Monday night, the best thing I could have done is exactly what I did: get a good night's sleep.  I woke up the next morning feeling rested and ready to go.  It didn't hurt that the weather was gorgeous on Tuesday: sunny, calm, and a high temperature around 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

Tuesday afternoon I tried something new in my ongoing struggle against aches and pains: massage.  I have a friend who's a massage therapist and she said she'd be happy to take a crack at my woes, so I took her up on it.  I didn't expect all my problems to be solved in one session, and they weren't, but the massage gave me about as much relief as anything I've tried, at least in the short term.  She targeted my areas of pain in ways my chiropractor never does.  I get it that pain in one area could have its roots in a different part of the body, and the chiropractor is looking to address those root causes, but I often wish the chiropractor would just put her hand on my pain and heal it like she's Jesus Christ or something.

Anyway, having worked hard on Tuesday, and hoping to do my next big workout this Saturday, I eased up a bit yesterday and today.  I didn't really do anything athletic yesterday, and this morning I did a calm 60-minute paddle.  I think I hit the best possible window this morning: the forecast says we're in for some strong windy storms later on today, but this morning the conditions were as calm as they could be.

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