My Training Blog by Elmore

After a couple of weeks out of the boat due to holiday travel and various preoccupations, I'm shocking my body back into a more serious ...

As I was leaving the riverfront yesterday I saw this barge rig carrying a load of wind turbine blades up the Mississippi.  It was the first ...

I suppose my life wouldn't be complete without some aches and pains, and not to worry: I've got some.  That discomfort in my right c...

"Attainment" is a paddling term for moving one's boat upriver, against the current.  On a slow-moving Class I river, attaining...

As some readers might know, I was a runner when I was younger.  I ran track and cross country for my high school and college teams.  I was a...

Can you see them?   CAN YOU???  They're right there in front of that pile of rocks on the far bank: a pair of big canoes taking some cu...

As I said a few weeks ago, for now I'm just living with the discomfort brought on by the vertebrae that are impinging the nerves running...

Roy Roberts, a racing friend of mine from Chattanooga, Tennessee, has been canoeing the entire Mississippi River with his friend Rich.  They...

"Good performers practice until they get it right.  Great performers practice until they can't get it wrong." The director of ...

When the Mississippi River is very low, it's a long, steep hike up the ramp from my marina to the parking lot.  No matter how tough a se...

After a very warm September followed by some unseasonably chilly temperatures, we're finally having a few days of near-perfect fall weat...

I'm a sucker for wilderness adventure nonfiction.  The best-known titles I've read include Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and Int...

The quest for a pain-free existence goes on.  I finally got in a follow-up visit with the spine surgeon after my second transforaminal (nerv...

Low water continues to be the top story down at the Memphis riverfront.  As you can see here, my dock is pretty useless these days for the p...

Yesterday I went down to the paddle for the first time in two weeks.  Paddling was out of the question last weekend because of my involvemen...

For the first time in 2023, my dock has run aground.  This is the scene that greeted me Saturday morning.  The Mississippi River was flowing...

Since I last put up a post here I've done a little bit of paddling but spent a lot more time doing non-athletic stuff, including working...

In my country the sport of whitewater slalom had its heyday in the 1980s, when the U.S. team won a big pile of world championships medals in...

Paddling has been minimal since I got home from my trip two weeks ago.  I've had a big pile of nuisance chores to deal with, and I'v...

The big trip I just got home from brought me tantalizingly close to achieving my goal of paddling a boat in all 50 states. On July 13 I pick...