New England waters making me blue

I was up bright and early yesterday morning for my big trip around Cape Ann in the annual Blackburn Challenge.  After some breakfast in my hotel room I headed over to Gloucester High School, which is situated on a cove off the Annisquam River.  I went to the school's cafeteria and got myself checked in, scouted out a good access to the water, and soon enough I was in my boat awaiting the 8:35 AM EDT start.

As I've said in the past, I like a good hour-or-less race.  But this one was likely to take me around three hours, and so I had no illusions of being a hero.  My plan was to go out relaxed and controlled and let the race develop at an intensity level I could withstand for a long time.  I wasn't familiar with many of my fellow surfski racers, but I did know that two of them, Rob Jehn of New Jersey and Boston area resident Greg Lesher, were among the top athletes in the Northeast.  So when the gun went off and they moved right out front, I let them.  There were plenty of other people to settle in with, and as we moved up the Annisquam River I found myself sitting on the stern wake of a tall tattooed chap whose stroke rate was nearly double mine in this early stage of the race.

I'd set my G.P.S. device to show me only the elapsed time and the distance covered.  I figured knowing my speed would only be a distraction, seeing as how nature would be throwing all kinds of conditions at us that would slow us down.  On the Annisquam River we were working against some current, for instance.  So if I was moving significantly slower than I'm used to going on flatwater, I didn't want to know.

One reason I've done poorly in long races in the past is that I wasn't disciplined about having a good plan for in-race hydration and nutrition.  This time I was ready, with two camelback pouches (one on my back deck, one in the back pocket of my PFD) full of a carbohydrate-rich drink that I'd researched back home.  I made sure to take a drink every ten minutes as the race went along, and as we emerged from the river into Annisquam Harbor and Ipswich Bay, I was still feeling really, really good.  Keeping my stroke rate nice and low, I was having no trouble staying on the guy's wake.  After a while I moved up onto his side wake and occasionally took the lead so he could ride my wake for a bit.  That's what a gentleman does in our sport, after all.

We rounded the northernmost tip of Cape Ann at Halibut Point State Park, and here the conditions began to change.  Up to this point we'd been paddling in very manageable waves and chop, but now the ground swell was presenting us with bigger cross-beam waves, and even though it wasn't particularly windy, there was a bunch of wind chop coming in at weird angles and I was starting to get tossed around.  I'd been hanging very comfortably with the tattooed guy and one or two other paddlers, but suddenly they'd opened several boatlengths on me as they handled the conditions slightly better than I did.  As we moved through Sandy Bay toward Straitsmouth Island I told myself to stay in striking distance so that once we were in Gloucester Harbor I'd have a chance to run them down.

Straitsmouth Island gave us a brief bit of shelter from the conditions, but then we were out in the open Atlantic, and it felt like paddling in a washing machine, especially in the areas close to shore where the waves were reverberating off the rocky coastlines.  Paddling my least-stable surfski, the one I use for mostly-flatwater races closer to home, I realized that I had underestimated the conditions I would be seeing in this race.  I have a friend at home who has done this race a few times, and his description of the conditions led me to believe that the swells would be glassy-smooth and just like paddling on flatwater except for the bobbing up and down.  I'm not blaming him for my troubles; I very well may have mis-interpreted what he said.  And I do have my own cockiness to blame: I'd been thinking, "Hey, I've paddled the Miller's Run in South Africa, the Columbia Gorge in the Pacific Northwest... I shouldn't have any problem with anything New England can throw at me!"

Oh, how wrong I was.  As the Atlantic tossed me right and left and every which way, I began to doubt whether I even belonged out there.  My paddling rhythm had been wrecked, and I was glad my G.P.S. display didn't show me my speed because to know would have been more than I could bear.  The conditions just got worse and worse in the later stages of the race, and I flipped three times.  As my elapsed time approached and then exceeded three hours, the only thing on my mind was "Where is the harbor???"

As a first-timer in this race I didn't know all the landmarks, but at last I saw racers ahead of me making a turn to the right after what turned out to be the Dog Bar lighthouse.  We were at Gloucester Harbor at last, and maybe I could salvage a shred of respectability.  But after all that wasted energy on the ocean I had practically nothing left.  There were actually some nice clean surfable waves moving past the lighthouse, but I couldn't really manage the sprints to get on them, and I got minimal help.  Then in the harbor I realized I didn't know the landmarks as well as I should have, and it was a long time before I was sure where the finish line was.

I crossed the line with a time of 3 hours, 23 minutes, 32 seconds.  My G.P.S. device measured the course at 31.67 kilometers (19.68 miles).  My average speed for the race was 9.3 kilometers per hour.  That's not even 6 miles per hour... ouch.  Frankly, I'm surprised I was even that fast.

Rob Jehn took the win for men's single surfski in 2 hours, 54 minutes, 3 seconds.  Greg Lesher was second in 2:58:42, and Jakob Van Dorp finished third in 3:03:35.  The fastest time of the day was turned in by a 6-person outrigger canoe: 2:42:15.  The complete results are available here.

I actually felt slightly less crummy once I'd heard those guys' times.  They'd been already out of my sight when I reached the rough part of the course, and as my pace slowed to a crawl I was sure they were pulling ever farther away and would beat me by close to an hour.  To learn that I'd finished "only" 29 minutes and 31 seconds behind Rob, and a mere 19:57 out of the medals, softened my disappointment at least a little.

Now, a day later, I'm still processing my feelings about it all.  I knew coming in that I wasn't likely to win the thing, but I really was hoping to make a good showing.  For the first hour of the race it seemed that I was doing that beautifully, that my planning and preparation were paying off.  But then my lack of preparedness for the ocean conditions was brutally exposed.  And that's the main thing that makes me think I failed: out on the Atlantic I wasn't really even racing, but just surviving.

My fellow racers were very kind and supportive.  Greg Lesher remarked that my time was in fact perfectly respectable.  Rhode Island resident Tim Dwyer, who had won the men's double surfski class in 3:00:40 with partner Wesley Echols, told me "Give it a few days.  You're gonna feel like such a badass for getting through this thing!"

An important thing I need to remember--I actually have to remind myself of this fairly often--is that how well or how poorly Elmore Holmes is doing has no bearing on the vitality of the sport.  None at all.

As I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, South African surfski legend Oscar Chalupsky was in town to conduct a clinic and promote his book No Retreat, No Surrender.  I was happy to buy a copy and get Oscar to sign it.  Oscar didn't know how I'd done in the race, but the inscription he wrote contains exactly the advice I need right now:

This morning I am sore and achy and tired, not surprisingly.  Some kind of recovery paddle is in order, and I reckon I'll go back down to Gloucester High School and paddle in the protected water there in a little while.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Picking up two Mid-Atlantic states

I mentioned in my last post that I was feeling sore in my upper back Wednesday morning.  Well, by the time I was departing my sister's house my lower back was hurting too, and my legs felt incredibly tight as well.  It made a long day of driving that much tougher.  All I know is I'm very glad I took the time to do those drills on flatwater in my whitewater boat for the last few weeks.  While they didn't prepare me for all the stresses that whitewater puts on my body, I hate to think how bad I would have been hurting if I hadn't done them.

I spent some nine or ten hours in the car on Wednesday, driving across North Carolina and up into Virginia, over to Norfolk and through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, up the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland.  Finally I made camp in a state park near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  The park was near the mouth of the Delaware River, and that's a very important detail.  You see, the Delaware River runs along the state line between Delaware and New Jersey, and I had never paddled a boat in either of those states before.  My goal yesterday morning was to remedy that situation.

An obvious course of action would have been to paddle right there at the mouth of the Delaware, from Cape Henlopen in Delaware to Cape May in New Jersey.  The problem was that those capes are are some 15 or 20 miles apart, and being still sore from Tuesday's whitewater paddling and having a big race in just two days, I didn't need an epic endurance trek on my hands.  So after studying the Google map on my cellular telephone device, I decided to drive upriver to the town of Delaware City, where the distance across the river appeared more manageable.

Here's a look at where I paddled:

I put in on the Delaware City waterfront and started paddling across the river, which was maybe 2500 meters across.  Because the state line runs right along the New Jersey bank, I had to paddle up into one of those tributary creeks over there to make sure I did in fact paddle within the boundaries of New Jersey.  I did a few 12-stroke sprints while I was out there, but because I was still feeling the effects of Tuesday's paddle I kept the intensity very low otherwise.  Though I was hoping to paddle for 60 minutes, it ended up taking me more like 75.  But I accomplished my mission, and I have now paddled in all but four states in the United States.  One of those four is Maine, and with any luck at all I'll be crossing it off the list later in this trip.

It was not an easy paddling session: on top of my soreness and fatigue, it was hot outside and the sun was beating down, and I had to deal with a pretty strong headwind as I paddled back toward Delaware City.  I had to make myself relax and not fight it.  But by the time I was back in the car continuing the journey north, I could tell that I was feeling better than I'd felt before paddling.  Getting some blood flowing through my muscles had done some good.  I worked my way up through New Jersey on both the Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway, and the traffic was heavy in this most densely-populated region of the country.  I stayed west of New York City and crossed the Hudson River at Newburgh, New York.

I spent last night at my buddy Rob's house in a little village called Holmes (yes, really).  We had fun catching up last night and this morning, and now that he's gone to work I'm preparing to make the three-hour drive to the greater Boston area, where I've got a hotel room reserved in Gloucester.  By the next time I post here I should have completed the Blackburn Challenge race around Cape Ann.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Going where the water is WHITE!

The big summer trip of 2023 is underway.  I spent Monday night in Nashville, and yesterday I continued east to the Tennessee-North Carolina state line, across which the Pigeon River flows.

My friend Amelia is a guide for one of the rafting companies there, and right as I arrived she had a trip preparing to leave for the putin.  I threw my whitewater boat in the bus and tagged along.

I'm pretty sure the last whitewater paddling I'd done was back in 2016, when I ran a section of the Deerfield River in western Massachusetts.  Seven years... would I even remember how to paddle whitewater here on the Pigeon?  Well, I basically did, it turned out, but I felt rusty.  My timing was off, more than anything else.  I was blowing straightforward front-surfs and other little things I once did in my sleep.

The section of river I ran is pretty short, and I was at the takeout not much more than an hour after putting in.  I rested for a while, and then in the late afternoon, after Amelia's last raft trip of the day, she and I and several of her friends got together and did another run in our own boats.  I felt maybe a little bit smoother on the second run, but still way out of practice.  On whitewater I don't know how to paddle any way except hard, so I was good and tired by the end of it.

I said goodbye to my fellow paddlers and continued farther east for some two and a half hours.  After dark I arrived in Lincolnton, North Carolina, where my sister and her family live.  They very kindly fed me some supper and put me to bed on their living room sofa.

This morning I'm pretty sore, mainly in my upper back area.  A day of aggressive whitewater paddling might not have been the smartest thing to do four days before a long open-water race.  But there's no point quibbling about that now.  Hopefully a couple of days of sitting in the car will give my body a chance to rest.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

When I was working at camp in the early 1990s, one of the rivers we took trips on was the Pigeon River near Hartford, Tennessee.  I shot this photo of Wyly Brown of Brookline, Massachusetts, and Pierre Villere of New Orleans, Louisiana, as they navigated Lost Guide rapid in the summer of 1992.

I plan to revisit the Pigeon tomorrow.  It's one of several stops on my way to Gloucester, Massachusetts, for the Blackburn Challenge race this Saturday.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Last weekend before the big road trip

Friday morning I went for my last run and did my last gym session before I leave for New England.  I can't recall anything that's made me sweat more than those gym sessions have the last few weeks.

I was out of the boat for the second Saturday in a row.  My 90-year-old aunt up in Jackson, Tennessee, has been in poor health, and I accompanied my mom up there to pay her a visit.  Once again I feel a bit anxious about not being laser-focused on training with a substantial race just a week away, but you know how it is... certain things are more important.  And at this point there's really nothing I can do to be in any better form by the 15th of July anyway.

The weather has continued to be not especially hot but extremely humid.  There have been showers and thunderstorms scattered about the area for several days as well.  When I went down to the river this morning there was rain in the forecast but it wasn't expected to arrive until after I'd finished paddling.

I did a pretty good 90-minute paddle, covering a bit over 15 kilometers in that time.  I did a big loop out on the Mississippi, paddling down below the old bridges and then back up along the Arkansas bank above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I used the session to test out my in-race hydration system to make sure it's working the way it should.

And... that's pretty much it for paddling before the Blackburn Challenge race next weekend, not counting a little bit of whitewater paddling and a few short sprints in the surfski.  Tomorrow I hit the road at last.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Some angst during my last week at home

The day before yesterday I had my final "Super Tuesday" effort of this training cycle.  As usual, it started with a run and a gym session at home.  Then I went to the river, got in the boat, warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and commenced the workout.  It was four 500-meter pieces, starting every 7th minute, paddling at 90 strokes per minute.  I was tired from the gym work and I could tell I wasn't feeling sharp, but some days that's just how you feel, and there's nothing you can do but push through it.  In the end I was reasonably satisfied with my efforts.  They were certainly consistent: my times were 2:22, 2:22, 2:22, and 2:25.  It would have been "deuces wild" if I hadn't faded a little on that last one!

I've enjoyed a nice endorphin rush after most of my workouts lately, but this time I was just flat-out tired as I put my boat away back on the dock.  At least the last hard day of the training block is under my belt.  I'm not sure the work I've done the last couple of months is ideal for a race of more than two and a half hours, but I've stuck with it and given it all I've had.

The weather this week hasn't been as hot as last week, but the heat index value has remained high.  In other words, it's humid and not much fun to be outside.  I think that's at least one of the factors making me feel a little sluggish and out of sorts right now.  Another is my rapidly approaching departure.  While I have had some truly wonderful experiences traveling the nation and the world, the truth is that I'm a homebody deep down, and I feel a lot of anxiety as I try to make sure arrangements are in place for everything that could crop up here in my absence.  I have pets that need food and love, a rental property that requires some attention, chores here in my own household... I worry about all that.

This morning I paddled the whitewater boat for the last time before I leave.  I'd been keeping it down at the marina, but now I've brought it home and I'm making sure all my gear is ready for my first whitewater paddling in some seven years.  The plan is to paddle the Pigeon River in east Tennessee next Tuesday.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

This is a picture of a picture that my long-time racing friend Scott Cummins has in his collection.  It was taken at the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race here in Memphis back in 2004, and it shows Herman Chalupsky, Greg Barton, Oscar Chalupsky, and Scott hanging out in the park near the race's finish line.

Every athlete in the photo has a compelling story, but for now I want to focus on Oscar's.  A native of Durban, South Africa, Oscar was the first true legend of ocean surfski racing, winning the prestigious Molokai-to-Oahu race a record twelve times between 1983 and 2012.  But in more recent years life has dealt him a tough blow: since 2019 he has suffered from a form of cancer known as Multiple Myeloma.  He achieved remission once but has relapsed and will undergo more radiation treatment soon.

But this daunting state of affairs has not stopped Oscar from traveling the globe, teaching clinics and sharing his love of the sport, and, of course, paddling his boat.  Before he begins his latest round of radiation therapy he'll be up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the weekend of July 14-16 to conduct a clinic in conjunction with the Blackburn Challenge.

I'm not particularly well acquainted with Oscar, but I did get to chat with him a bit when he was in Memphis nineteen years ago and again during my visit to South Africa in 2020.  Hopefully I'll have a chance to visit with him a little in Gloucester.  Indeed, his is a story I would do well to remember whenever my skeletal/muscular ailments have me feeling discouraged.

Last year Oscar published a book about his experiences as both a paddler and a cancer patient: No Retreat, No Surrender.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Lots of heat, some medical attention, and a look ahead at what's to come

Friday was the hottest day of the year here so far.  I'm not sure whether the actual temperature quite made it up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the heat index value was up around 110.

That morning I went out for my usual around-the-block run, and then did a gym session.  Just after noon I reported to the orthopedic/spinal surgery clinic for my nerve block injection.  Such a procedure is fairly simple, and from what I understand it's supposed to make impinged nerves contract so they're not getting pinched so bad anymore.  The injection hurt some, but not too bad, largely because I was sedated.  They didn't put me completely under, but the anesthesia they gave me did mess with my mind a bit.  I have only a cloudy recollection of what happened between the procedure and my release from the clinic.  I was required to have a driver (my good old mom) to take me home.

The doctor told me I should be able to resume normal activities by the next day.  But instead of paddling yesterday, I had something else to do.  My first cousin is retiring from service in the U.S. Army, and his family and friends were throwing him a party yesterday on a rural property up near Columbia, Tennessee, and so my mom and I drove up there to join in the celebration.

And so by this morning I hadn't paddled in several days, and hadn't paddled my surfski since Tuesday.  And there was a part of me thinking "GAAH!!!!  I've got this big long open-water race coming up in just two weeks!  My training should be reaching its crescendo right now, and instead I'm just lallygagging around!!"

But the measured part of me knows that this is not the most ordinary chapter of my athletic career.  I've been on an Odyssey in search of a way to get my body right again, and while I've been able to keep doing some paddling and some racing, right now I should just be glad to participate, bring some competitive spirit, and enjoy the camaraderie.  If I end up having a really good race too, that's just gravy.

Adding to the challenge this morning is that I didn't have the best night of sleep and I was feeling sort of sluggish and cloudy-headed as I readied my boat and gear on the dock.  But my muscles were fresh, and once I was in the boat it didn't take long for my mood and energy level to come around.  My plan was a calm 90-minute paddle, and I tried to make it as high-quality as possible by searching for good precise strokes and grasping for that playfully elusive feeling of utter efficiency in the transfer of energy from my paddle blades through my arms and my torso and my legs all the way to my feet that actually push the boat forward.  Out on the Mississippi there was a pretty strong southwest wind blowing that kept me cool in the hot weather.  My body felt good and my mood was upbeat as I worked to keep the boat gliding over the choppy water, and I thought that if I can feel the same way paddling around Cape Ann in a couple of weeks, I'll be happy with that.

I think it'll be some time before I'll know for sure if the nerve block has done me any good.  The good news right now is that I've experienced no pain in the two days since I got it.  Apparently some people do have pain--sometimes even enough that the doctor has to prescribe some narcotic pain medication.  (I had to sign a form promising not to misuse such substances if they are prescribed to me.)  But I've been feeling perfectly fine.

My departure date is a week from tomorrow, so the coming week is my last for training at home.  Hopefully I can get some good work done and leave town feeling some confidence.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Climbing the ladder to success, I hope

I had another full morning on Tuesday.  After a short run and a gym session at home, I went down to the river for a workout in the boat.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did three 1500-meter pieces starting every 15th minute.  I paddled at 75-80 strokes per minute and recorded times of 8:02, 7:47, and 7:53.  I was a little off the pace of last week's 1000-meter pieces, but that day I had more of a tailwind than I did this week.  The wind on Tuesday was blowing from the west and was as light as it had been in several weeks, and that portended tough days ahead as the temperature was forecast to hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit by today.

But I didn't let that bother me Tuesday.  With just one more killer Tuesday morning left before I leave town, I was feeling pretty good as I put my boat away back on the dock.

Over the weekend, as I paddled up the Mississippi along the Tennessee bank, I noticed a six-foot ladder revealed by the receding water.  The aluminum and fiberglass thing had clearly been there a while.  Here it is in situ:

As the owner of two properties, I find myself using ladders quite often.  So I decided to go down to the river and retrieve this one yesterday morning.  It was no small amount of work pulling it up out of the silt and carrying it up the steep, rocky bank, and I found it was in need of some repair, too.  But it always feels good to remove a piece of garbage from one of our local waterways.  The one thing I can't help wondering is, How on Earth did a ladder end up in this spot?  At normal water levels this place is some 40 or 50 yards from the bank.  Did it fall off a boat?  If so, what use did it have on that boat?  Or did somebody purposely dump it in the river to get rid of it?  If so, why?  There are plenty of places where it's easier to dispose of a ladder you don't want, even if you are the kind of so-and-so who dumps things out in the wilderness.

So many questions, and so few answers.  Oh well... the ladder is at home now, and when I find time I'll fix it up, and then I'll use it.  Or if it turns out I don't really need it, I'll give it to somebody who can use it.

Today it is indeed hot, hot, hot.  It was well into the 90s this morning when I got in the whitewater boat for some more drills.  At least it was perfect for doing some Eskimo rolls.  I've actually really enjoyed having a different kind of paddling to do one day each week.  My work in the whitewater boat is very technical, so a session doesn't last more than 50 minutes or so.  Highly technical paddling quickly tires you out both physically and mentally, and once your technique starts breaking down, you're just practicing bad technique if you stay out there too long.  I remember reading in one of the books by U.S. whitewater team coach Bill Endicott that he rarely worked his slalom athletes for much more than an hour at a time for that reason.

Once I'd put in my 50 minutes today, I enjoyed a nice bath under the hose on the dock, and came on home to beat the heat anyway I could.

Tomorrow I get my nerve block injection!  I've been hearing that such a treatment works for some people and doesn't work for others, but I hope it'll work for me, at least for the duration of my travels.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

In the summer of 2005 I paddled the Colorado River from Moab to Potash in the state of Utah.  It's not one of the more remote sections of the Colorado, and no permit is required, but I thought it was quite a pretty place.  I understand that the river has its biggest flow in a number of years this summer, and part of me wishes I were out there paddling in that rugged environment again.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

I believe summer is here for real now

Friday morning I put in a run and a gym session.  The Hindu squats took a lot out of my legs again, but I think my body is starting to adapt.

Yesterday I went down to the river and paddled for 80 minutes.  The session was a mixture of "work" work and "play" work.  I did four 5-minute surges at 70 strokes per minute--that was the "work" part--but I also did some surfing behind a barge rig that was moving upriver.  The waves weren't great, and they didn't last long, and they were wandering back and forth, but I still got a couple of good rides in.

Hotter weather is moving in, and the temperature was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday.  The big national weather news right now is the "heat dome" that's centered over Texas, and I understand that in the coming days it'll be moving and/or expanding so that the Mid South will be within its eastern boundary.  The current forecast shows temperatures moving into the high 90s and low 100s this coming week.  The past week has been pretty warm and fairly humid, but there have been breezes offering some relief.  I hope we'll continue to have some air movement as the heat gets more and more oppressive.

Today was shaping up early to be the hottest of the year so far: when I got down to the river just after 9 AM, it was already well up into the 80s.  A strong south wind helped keep me cool, but only when I was paddling something other than away from it.  As I paddled for 100 minutes, I did a lot of zig-zagging so I wouldn't have the wind at my back for any extended length of time, but even so the sweat stung my eyes badly whenever I did have a tailwind.  I had to stop and mop my face pretty often.  The intensity level wasn't high, but I tried to concentrate on good precise strokes as much as I could.  I sure hope New England comes through with some mild weather when I'm racing up there in several weeks.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

The pile of days is shrinking

Monday marked just three weeks to go until I get in the car and start driving up toward the northeastern United States for some racing, some recreational paddling, and a one-week woodworking class.

Tuesday morning I did my little around-the-block run.  That half-mile or so still feels like a half-marathon.  I don't know if I'll ever run effortlessly again, and I probably shouldn't get obsessed with reclaiming that bit of my youth.  After the run I started a new gym routine: some Hindu squats, some front- and lat-raises, a lower abdominal exercise, and some bicep curls.  I didn't do but one set of 60 Hindu squats, but for a few hours afterward my legs felt like rubber.  Even though my previous gym routine included some lunges with dumbbells, it felt like it was the first time my legs had been worked in ages.

After that I headed down to the river.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did four 1000-meter pieces, starting every 11th minute.  I aimed for 80 strokes per minute, fairly high but not crazy-high.  There was a north breeze blowing and I did the first piece into that breeze, so I knew my time wouldn't be fast.  The fastest I could go was around 11.5 kilometers per hour and I ended up with a time of 5 minutes, 26 seconds.  By then I'd reached the north end of the harbor and I turned back south, with the wind at my back.  I knew my remaining three pieces should be much faster, and they were: 4:57, 4:54, and 4:58.  The workout was taxing but overall it didn't seem as tough as the two 2000-meter pieces I'd done a week earlier.  I left the marina feeling satisfied and glad there are just two hefty Tuesday mornings left before I leave town.

Yesterday the North Pole moved as close to the sun as it will be all year.  Dawn arrived extra-early and darkness fell extra-late.  While I generally like the long daylight hours of summer, I don't think I need any more daylight than we got yesterday.  In other words, I live at a latitude that suits me just fine.

Today was another Whitewater Boat Thursday.  I worked those different muscle groups and dreamed of getting back on some swift-moving water.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

The Slovenian town of Tacen hosted a whitewater slalom World Cup event over the weekend, and the U.S. team netted a rare medal.  Zach Lokken of Durango, Colorado, finished second in the men's C1 class.

The picture above is a screen shot of the television coverage.  At the beginning of each run, a motion image of the athlete in street clothes is superimposed on the real-time footage of the athlete sitting at the starting line.  If you'd like to watch the actual video of this tableau, along with the runs of all ten C1 finalists, you can do so here.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Trying to keep my edge sharp

I did a run and a gym session on a not-so-hot but extremely humid Friday morning.  That humidity has continued through the weekend, accompanied sometimes by rain and sometimes by bright sunshine.

I've been feeling a bit low on energy, and the humid conditions haven't helped with that.  Yesterday I paddled for 70 minutes and tried to do some varied-pace work that wouldn't grind me down to nothing.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then, starting at the 20-minute mark, I upped the stroke rate for three of every ten minutes.  I paddled at 70 strokes per minute for two minutes and 80 spm for one minute; for the rest of the 10-minute period I kept the rate below 65 spm while trying to apply good power at the beginning of each stroke.  It was nowhere near the toughest workout ever, but I think it's mentally tiring when I focus hard on details like that.

The Blackburn Challenge is just four weeks off now, I'm backing off the volume a bit while trying to keep the quality of each session high.  Sure, the Blackburn course will take me the better part of three hours to finish, but I think lasting that long is more a matter of managing hydration and blood sugar and stuff like that.  Overdistance training has its place, but I think it offers diminishing returns.  Even when I do what I call a "long" paddle I rarely go for more than two hours: in an ultra-long session your stroke form is bound to break down eventually, and then you're just reinforcing poor mechanics.

With all that in mind, I went out for a mere 80 minutes this morning.  I was expecting to be tired again today, but once I got going I felt surprisingly good in the boat.  I think the humidity was down at least a little: a very heavy thunderstorm had passed through early in the morning, and maybe that blew out some of the moisture in the air.  It definitely lowered the temperature.  I didn't pay much attention to stroke rate today, but I did concentrate on good crisp strokes again.

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Time on and time off

It was another burly Tuesday morning, and once again I found myself wondering if I was up for it as I got out of bed.  Would it be so terrible, I asked myself, just to take it easy today, and maybe push the tough stuff back to tomorrow?  But once I'd had some breakfast and woken up completely, my body and brain came around, just like they usually do.  That's largely what being an athlete is about: when it's time to go, you go; but then it's important to give yourself the down time you need so you'll be ready for the next hard effort.

I went for a short run and did a gym session, and then went down to the river.  In the boat I warmed up for 15 minutes, and commenced my workout: two 2000-meter pieces at 80 strokes per minute.  I told myself to focus on the stroke rate, a crisp catch, and good power in the early phase of each stroke, and not worry about my speed or the elapsed time.  But of course it's hard not to peek.  For most of the first piece I moved around 11.5 kilometers per hour, and clocked 10 minutes 27 seconds.  I took a 10-minute break and  began the second piece, and this time my speed was up over 12.0 for much of the time.  The stroke rate crept up into the mid 80s several times, and I had to make myself lower it.  I was definitely feeling fatigue by the halfway mark, and in the last several hundred meters my legs were screaming.  I finished with a time of 10:11, and was pleased with that.

The weather continues to be very nice just a week before the summer solstice.  The daily highs have been not much above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the extended forecast says they'll be mostly below 90 for quite a few days to come.  It's definitely getting more humid, but I'll accept whatever reprieve from the worst of a Mid South summer I can get.

I was back in the whitewater boat this morning, doing some more drills and getting my muscles used to the idea of doing some river paddling this summer.

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Monday photo feature

Here's a map of the precipitation that was falling in the lower Mississippi River watershed yesterday afternoon.  The heaviest storms in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana are all in the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio River drainages.  Over in Missouri there's some not-so-heavy rain falling in the Merrimack and Missouri River basins.  All that water will, at least in theory, flow by Memphis eventually. (The precipitation in Arkansas and southern Missouri will reach the Mississippi downstream of Memphis.)

And yet, though it looks like a lot of rain, it's created only a small bump in the river stage forecast at Memphis.  Right now the river is about a foot below zero on the Memphis gauge, and that bump is still below zero.  To produce a significant rise in the Mississippi here, we need to have quite a few days when the weather map looks like the one above.  That certainly could happen, but if it doesn't, we could be seeing never-before-recorded low water levels by the late summer and fall.

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Sort of a grinding weekend

On Friday I did my usual short run and did a gym session.

The weather has been somewhat unseasonably cool, with Fahrenheit highs in the low to mid 80s.  The wind has shifted to the south, and that's bringing in more humidity.  The haze in the air has lessened some, but is still around.  I now understand that it is indeed caused by the Canadian wildfires.  We've also had some scattered showers in the area, but in recent weeks it has been dry in the watersheds upstream of here, and the Mississippi River is quite low as a result.  By Friday the river had dipped below zero on the Memphis gauge, and that's notable because May and June are typically the high-water season around here, with gauge readings of 30 feet or higher.  I hope we're not in for another record-low period like we had last fall, but that's what will happen if the dry conditions persist in the Missouri and Ohio and upper Mississippi drainages.

Yesterday I paddled for 70 minutes.  During the 50-minute period from 0:10 to 1:00, I maintained a stroke rate of 70 strokes per minute, and that made it a taxing long tempo session.  I think the fatigue was more mental than anything--it's hard to push the pace when you're all by yourself.  It's sort of the in-the-boat version of training on an erg, the way you're constantly looking down at the digital readout making sure you're on the stroke rate.

That's why I was happy to leave the G.P.S. device turned off today, and paddle without worrying about stroke rate or speed or any of that stuff.  I was tired and lethargic in the boat, and it amounted to a long recovery session, though I did pay attention to good stroke mechanics and rotation.  I paddled up the river along the Tennessee bank about as far as the DeWitt Spain Airport, and then came back.  It took me not quite two hours.

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Working out! Fixing my boat! Going to the doctor!

For this current phase of training, Tuesday mornings have been pretty loaded, with some running, a gym session, and a workout in the boat.  I've been waking up each Tuesday wondering if I've got it in me to do it all once again.  The physical intensity is one reason for this anxiety, and another is the time aspect: I do have other things going on in my life, after all, and I feel some pressure to pack all the training activities into the morning so I'll have the afternoon to tackle the non-athletic stuff.

So far, every Tuesday I've managed to get the work done, and it's given me a nice satisfied feeling by lunchtime.  And this week I managed to do it once more.  I started with my usual around-the-block, half-mile-ish run, followed by a gym session, followed by some work in the boat.  I paddled for 60 minutes, and I broke the 40-minute period from 0:10 to 0:50 into 3-minute intervals.  For the first two minutes of each interval I paddled at 60 strokes per minute, and for the third minute I alternated between 70 spm and 80 spm.  With a pretty long race coming up in less than six weeks, I think it's useful to move around among some different cadences and intensities, because while I might not need much top speed in a long grind of a race, I will nevertheless need more than one gear.

The weather continues to be hot here, but not oppressive.  As I paddled on Tuesday I had a nice northwest breeze keeping me cool.  Sooner or later I expect the wind will shift to the south and bring moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, and then it'll be that sweltering summer we know so well around here.  It's also been very hazy the last several days; whether it has anything to do with the Canadian wildfires, I'm not sure.  Right now on the news I'm hearing about dangerously poor air quality in the Northeast and upper Midwest.  I hope things get better up there before I travel to Massachusetts and Maine.

I spent Tuesday afternoon doing some repair work on the damage I'd done to my boat and rudder in last Saturday's race.  Of course that included using some epoxy resin that I had to let cure overnight.

Yesterday morning I went to see the surgeon to discuss my options for fixing my nerve woes.  I told the doctor that any surgical procedure I might undergo would have to wait until after my trip to New England next month; the doctor, meanwhile, thought it would be sensible to try medication and nerve-block approaches before making the leap into surgery.  So it was an easy decision to start with those things and see how I'm feeling after I return in August.

I came home from the doctor's office and took a look at my boat-repair work.  I had applied a Kevlar and fiberglass patch to the hull over the hole where the rudder comes out, and then turned the boat over and poured resin into the rudder-shaft housing with the hope that it would seep into the cracks that had allowed water into the boat.  Now that the resin had cured, I had to drill out the blockage in the rudder shaft housing.  I did this with an old-fashioned hand-operated brace and bit to put as little stress as possible on the waterproof seal.  I reopened the tunnel, then used a rasp to gently enlarge it so that the rudder shaft would fit again.  Then I filled the boat with water again to see how successful my repair was, and... not a drop leaked from that area!  Forgive me for my blatant self-congratulation, but I think the repair method I devised was quite clever and elegant, and I am extremely pleased that it seems to have worked.

I also did some cleanup work on the rudder.  Like I said in my previous post, I've ordered a new one, and I'll keep the repaired one for emergency backup purposes.

This morning I went down to the dock and hopped in the whitewater boat.  More drills ensued.  I'm encouraged by how my body has responded and I'm looking forward to getting on a river or two soon.

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Race schedule update

 I'm signed up for the Blackburn race, and I might attend the other two as well.

July

15    The Blackburn Challenge.  Gloucester, Massachusetts.  A 20-mile (32.2-kilometer) open-water circumnavigation of Cape Ann.  Register

August

5    Three Rivers Regatta.  French broad, Holston, and Tennessee Rivers, Knoxville, Tennessee.  Races of 6 miles (9.66 kilometers) and 24 miles (38.6 kilometers) on flatwater.  Register

September

16    The Firecracker Race.  Mississippi River, Alton, Illinois.  15 miles (24.1 kilometers) downriver from Grafton to Alton. Register

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Monday photo feature

A photographer for The Daily Memphian shot this photo from an airplane some time ago.  It shows a nice broad swath of where I paddle on the Memphis riverfront.  The main channel of the Mississippi River is on the right, flowing southward (away from us).  That's the harbor on the left.  If you squint really hard, you might be able to see my boat sitting on its rack at the marina.

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Racing on an abrasive river

I went to the race on the Saline River at Benton, Arkansas, yesterday.  There were two noteworthy items about my experience there.  One, I had no competition whatsoever: nobody else showed up with anything remotely resembling a race boat.  The next-fastest boat in the field was probably one of the many ABS plastic tandem canoes people had entered.  I learned a long time ago not to be cocky as an athlete, but as we lined up yesterday, I was some ninety-nine-and-a-half-percent sure I was going to win (and in fact I did).  And two, my boat was all wrong for that river.  The section of the Saline we raced on features long deep pools alternating with shallow, gravelly shoals, and with its understern rudder, my boat was unfit to handle the shoals.  I ended up hopping out and portaging every time I came to one (with no competition, I had plenty of time to do that).  I even started the race on my feet because there was a shoals in the first 30 meters of the course.  But those efforts weren't enough to save the rudder from some damage.

In the early part of the race I tried to maintain a stroke rate in the mid 70s, but the frequent disruptions to portage quickly made that seem pointless.  I did the first couple of portages at a run; the footing wasn't too bad over the pebbly bars next to the shoals.  But as my lead grew I sort of lost my motivation to do that.  On the water I had to work hard to move at even 11 kilometers per hour.  There wasn't much current helping me, and the pools were often shallow enough to create bottom drag.  And by the late stages of the race my rudder was damaged enough that it was creating some drag, too.  It felt like I had one golf whiffle ball of resistance on the boat.

When I reached the finish line, my G.P.S. device told me the course was about 6.2 kilometers (3.85 miles) long.  My time was 46 minutes, 34 seconds, and that means little to me given all the portages and stuff.

The river did indeed do a number on my rudder:

I'll accept the blame, seeing as how I didn't do my due diligence regarding the sort of river I'd be racing on.  I can fix it, but I think I may go ahead and order a new one and relegate this one to emergency-spare duty.

More troubling to me is that as I carried the boat up to the car, I realized there was a lot of water sloshing around inside.  I let it all flow into the bow, opened the drain plug, and tipped the boat so it would drain, and at least a half-gallon of water came gushing out.  How had it gotten in there?  I couldn't remember the hull taking any bad impacts, and when I looked it over carefully, I could see no damage.

Further investigation would have to wait until later.  I enjoyed the catfish lunch that the organizers fed us, socialized a bit with fellow participants, and received my award.  Trophies and medals aren't the reason I do my sport, but I have to say these race organizers went all-out with their hardware:

If they want to say I'm a champion, who am I to argue?  Well, anyway... all told, I don't regret going over there yesterday; it's always nice to get out of town and paddle in a different place.  But if I'd known a little more about the venue I probably would have skipped it.  What I really should have done once I was there yesterday was leave my boat on the car and offer myself up for anybody looking for a canoe partner.

Yesterday also happened to be my mom's birthday.  I'm not sure I should say how old she is, so I'll just say that she's age-appropriate to be my mother.  I came back home and took her to supper at our favorite Indian restaurant.  With some Indian cuisine on top of that catfish lunch, I got all the calories I needed yesterday.

This morning I went down to the riverfront for a 100-minute paddle.  The heat is rising here in the Mid South: as I drove home on Interstate 40 yesterday afternoon, the temperature display on my dashboard rose as high as 96 degrees Fahrenheit.  And yet, it's really not so oppressive.  The humidity has been low and a nice north breeze has been blowing.  I felt quite good out on the river this morning as I paddled a strong but not murderous pace.

This afternoon I took a closer look at the boat I raced in yesterday (I keep a different boat down at the dock for training here at home, in case you're wondering).  I filled the shell with water and looked for leaks.  It turns out that during the beating the rudder took yesterday, the seal got broken where the tube that holds the rudder's shaft meets the bottom of the hull.  I'll have to think about the best way to try to fix that, but I'll get it done one way or another.

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Time for some racing again

That race that was originally scheduled for April 29 is tomorrow.  I'm talking about the four-mile (6.4-kilometer) race down the Saline River at Benton, Arkansas.  I'm basically winging it: other than skipping the gym routine this morning, I'm just training through it.  We'll see how it goes.  I have no idea who else will attend.  I plan to get up early in the morning to drive over there; I expect the trip to be a little under three hours.

Yesterday morning I was back in the whitewater boat doing some more drills: forward paddling, backpaddling, spins, Eskimo rolls, side-slips, stuff like that.  My left side has always been my better paddling side in a canoe, but I did the drills on both sides in the interest of muscle balance.  I need to tweak the boat's outfitting a bit; I'd forgotten how quickly a paddler's ankles can fall asleep in a C1.

I've spent today getting all my race gear ready while otherwise doing non-athletic stuff.  We'll see how things go tomorrow.  I know a lot more now about what's going on in my body than I did the last time I raced, but if I can I'm just going to pretend like everything is normal.

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Answers! ANSWERS!!!!

I had another fairly intense Tuesday morning.  Following a run and a gym session at home, I went down to the river and did a threshold workout: two sets of three (3 minutes on, 3 minutes off) with small resistance (one golf whiffle ball) on the boat.  Each "on" piece was done at 80 strokes per minute.  It was a tough one, but my stamina held up for the duration of the workout.  The worst part was that my left biceps and forearm were hurting a lot.

Tuesday afternoon I went to the orthopedist's office to get the news from my M.R.I., and at last I got some answers regarding all the aches and pains and struggles of the last couple of years.  It seems that in several vertebrae, I have "severe neural foraminal narrowing" on my left side and the beginnings of the same problem on my right side.  What that means, as far as I can understand it, is this: as nerves branch off from the spinal column and extend out into my shoulders and arms, they pass through holes in the bony material of the vertebrae, and these holes have shrunk and are putting pressure on ("impinging") those nerves.  That's what's been causing so much pain and discomfort in the muscles of my left arm, and if left untreated I'll have the same issues in my right arm soon enough.

The doctor asked me if I also have felt weak in those muscles, and as a matter of fact, I have.  I've noticed it just in the past week while moving those logs around in my shop, especially when I had to lift something over my head.  I also have noticed in the last year or so that it's harder to do certain exercises than it used to be: for instance, I used to be able to do 30 pushups without a second thought, but lately I've found it hard to do even 20.  Pullups seem harder, too.

As the doctor put it, with a condition like mine the muscles can stop responding to what the nerves are telling them to do.  It had never occurred to me that muscular weakness could be related to all this impinged-nerve business.  It's hard to know for sure, but maybe my condition is even responsible for the decline in some of my race performances in the last several years.

Whatever the finer points may or may not be, I'm elated to know that all my woes are not just my imagination.  And while I'm sure I'm no more immune to the impacts of aging than anyone else, I'm pleased to know that maybe I'm not all done yet as an athlete.

As for what happens next, I'll be seeing a surgeon to determine my options.  Basically, there are two: I could have surgery to enlarge those holes that the nerves pass through; or I could have a "nerve block," in which I'd be injected with some stuff that would make the nerves shrink so they wouldn't be getting pinched where they pass through the holes.

I didn't do any specific training today, but I was back in the shop dealing with those logs some more, and the arm pain was a nuisance.  My appointment with the surgeon is next Wednesday, and I hope to move a step closer toward some kind of relief.

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Monday photo feature

Here she is: the new (to me) whitewater boat I acquired last week.  Thanks again to William Ashton of Whittier, North Carolina, for helping me make this big step toward being a whitewater paddler again.

It's the same make and model as the boat that was stolen from behind my building in 2016.  The design originated in 1996 or '97, so that makes it an antique, and I suppose if I did a more serious search I could find a more modern design and look like a 21st-century paddler out on the river.  But I always liked that old boat I had--to me it felt like the perfect all-purpose river-running craft, doing well on everything from small creeks to big water.  And I found this one in very good condition at a reasonable price.  And, I really don't have lofty ambitions for my whitewater boating at this time.  I'm still quite invested in open-water paddling in surfskis, and for now I think I'll be happy if I can just hop on a Class III stream now and then.

I was worried that my paddling had become too one-dimensional.  I've been paddling a surfski almost exclusively for the last seven years or so.  I think it's good to have some variety and give different muscle groups some work once in a while.  My whitewater boat is a C1 (one-person decked canoe--note the single-bladed paddle in the photo), so that will definitely hit my shoulders, lats, abs, and legs in a different way.

This post contains some of the best photos I have of me paddling my last whitewater boat.  Will I be able to re-create some of that magic in this new one?  Keep on tuning in to this blog, and maybe we'll find out together.

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Sore but still in motion

I woke up sore Friday morning, definitely from the logging work I'd done Thursday afternoon, and probably also from the unfamiliar movements I'd done in my new whitewater boat Thursday morning.  But as the morning went on I loosened up a bit, and before lunch I did a run and a gym session that felt good.

I did some more logging work Friday afternoon, and as a result I was very sore again yesterday morning.  My lower back was killing me.  When I got down to the river I spent a long time stretching on the dock and did a long, relaxed warmup in the boat, and that helped a lot.  I paddled for 70 minutes, and for the 40 minutes from 0:15 to 0:55 I aimed for a stroke rate of 70 strokes per minute and tried to put good power into each stroke.  I'm wondering whether 75 spm might be on the high side for my more-than-two-hour race coming up in July, but I figure adjusting downward will be easier than adjusting upward.  In any case, it was a pretty good session and my back felt a lot better afterward than it had felt before.

This morning I paddled for 120 minutes.  I didn't go for a particular stroke rate or intensity level, but I did try to take good precise strokes the whole time.  In the first half hour I surfed some waves behind an upstream-moving barge rig; the rig was going pretty fast and the waves were hard to catch, but I did get a couple of decent rides.  So there were a few hard sprints included in my otherwise steady paddle.  I was definitely feeling some fatigue in the second hour and was tired the rest of the day.

The weather has been quite nice the last few days: partly to mostly sunny and not too warm or humid.  I'm trying to savor it as we move ever closer to another Mid South summer.

As I mentioned in my last post, I got my M.R.I. done on Tuesday.  I have an appointment with the doctor this coming Tuesday to find out what it tells us.

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The devil finds work for idle hands, I suppose

The first half of this week has been crazy, with all kinds of things to deal with in both my athletic and non-athletic lives.

I spent most of Monday putting out a (figurative) fire that a tenant of one of my rental properties was experiencing.  At the same time, I found myself with a couple of new woodworking projects to do for clients.  And, the opportunity opened up for me to have that M.R.I. done on Tuesday afternoon.  Remember that?  I haven't talked much about it lately.  If you were thinking that all my ailments had magically disappeared, don't worry.  They haven't.

With all these things suddenly heaped on my plate, I could have been forgiven for putting the canoe & kayak training on the back burner for a while.  But Tuesday morning I knew I needed some time to myself amid all the other stuff going on.  I remember my high school cross country coach urging my teammates and me to put the schoolwork and other teenage worries aside for the 90 minutes or so we spent in practice, and now, decades later, athletic pursuits continue to be my time to do that.

I started with a short run and a gym session at home.  Then I went down to the river and got in the boat.  With all the other stuff going on I hadn't really planned what I would do, and I had to make it up on the fly.  I ended up doing ten 30-second sprints starting every 3rd minute.  This is a good aerobic workout while also providing some practice at a higher stroke rate.  It was fairly taxing, and I thought of another thing my high school coach used to say.  Whenever we did an interval workout he urged us to focus hard on the next-to-last interval because mentally it was the toughest; the last interval was always easier to push hard on, he said, because of the knowledge that the workout would be over when it was finished.

I left the river feeling good about what I had done.  Just doing some hard physical work relieved a lot of the stress I'd built up in the previous day.  In the afternoon I went and had my M.R.I. done, and while I didn't enjoy the mild claustrophobia in that tube, I was glad to be making this step toward what I hope will be some relief.

Yesterday was a day off from training but was plenty busy nevertheless.  I spent the day tying up the last loose end of the rental property emergency and picking up some logs for one of those woodworking projects.

There's one other thing that happened on Monday that I haven't mentioned yet.  As I announced in this post seven years ago, my good old go-to whitewater boat got stolen from behind my building, and for a long time I lacked the motivation to replace it and simply didn't do much whitewater in the years since.  But just several months ago I came across a Mr. William Ashton on social media who was selling that same model of boat at a reasonable price.  I'd always liked that boat of mine that was stolen, so I got in touch with William and we worked out a deal.  William lives in western North Carolina and I didn't know when I could make it over there, but he told me that if I could wait until late May he would be passing through Memphis on his way out to the Rockies, and he would bring it to me.  And it turned out Monday was that day.  He came through in the early afternoon, and I now have a whitewater boat again!

That brings me to this morning's session on the water, in which I took the new whitewater boat out in the harbor and did some stroke drills to see how my body would respond.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well my arm muscles handled the open-blade draws and compound reverse strokes and stuff like that.  My plan for the coming weeks is to paddle this boat once a week, and I hope that by the time I head out on my trip up the East Coast I'll be ready to paddle some easy whitewater along the way.

I'll just add that I spent the afternoon splitting those logs I picked up yesterday.  If you're looking for back-breaking labor, you can't go wrong with some logging.

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Monday photo feature

It was January of last year when I made my second trip to South Africa to attend a downwind paddling camp hosted by surfski legends Dawid and Jasper Mocke.  One afternoon I partnered up with Jasper to paddle a double ski on the Miller's Run.  In this photo it appears that Jasper is absolutely thrilled to get to paddle with the likes of me while for me it's just another day at the office.  Photo by either John or Tamsin of Cape Town Sport Photography.

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Thinking about stroke power while doing some surfing and stuff

On Friday morning I took a run around the block and then did a gym session.  I was still fairly sore from my first iteration of the new gym routine, but I got through the exercises okay.  Being sore just means your muscles are responding to the new stress and fortifying themselves accordingly.

At the training camp in Florida that I attended in January, one of the things we worked on a lot was concentrating our power into the early phase of each stroke.  That's one of the main purposes of the workouts with resistance on the boat.  Since then I've tried to practice that a lot, even during otherwise relaxed steady paddles.  Sometimes during such paddles I tend to let the paddle just move through the stroke without much power on it, and I've noticed that my speed goes up several tenths of a kilometer per hour whenever I make a point of applying that early power.

So yesterday I went out to paddle for 90 minutes and put good power on each stroke while keeping the stroke rate under 70 per minute.  I stuck to the plan except for a couple of brief bouts of barge-wake surfing.  There was a rig moving upriver as I paddled out of the harbor and onto the Mississippi; it was moving fast, and the waves weren't very tall, so I really had to sprint hard to get on a wave and the ride was short-lived.  But it was fun to do for a few minutes anyway.  After that I paddled up into the lower reaches of the Loosahatchie Chute, and as I paddled back into the main channel there was a barge rig coming downstream.  It was making some decent waves, but they were wandering all over the place because the pilot was making a large-radius turn to maneuver under the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and get pointed toward the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas Bridges downriver.  The water was like a washing machine at times and several times my footwell and seat bucket got swamped entirely.  Fortunately the water out there is starting to get warmer and I didn't feel like I was sitting in ice like I would have a few weeks ago.

All told, I had a very enjoyable paddle yesterday.  It was a nice mixture of "work" workout (working on stroke power and mechanics) and "play" workout (surfing the waves).  I got back to the dock feeling pleased about the whole state of affairs.

Today was a day off.  That's because the handbell group I play with had its final performance of the season this morning.  With the Blackburn Challenge looming in less than two months I still need to get in some volume, but there's no reason to be obsessed with that.  I'll log the mileage I need soon enough.

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Hard labor on and off the water

Tuesday was a pretty beefy training day.  It started with a run around the block, followed by a new gym routine I'd drawn up.  This one includes lunges with dumbbells and several core exercises.

Then I went down to the river and did some more work on stroke power.  I did 8 x (2 minutes on, 1 min. off) at 60 strokes per minute with small resistance (one golf whiffle ball) on the boat.  Then I took an 8-minute break, during which I removed the resistance from the boat, and then I did 6 x (2 min. on, 1 min. off) at 70 spm.  In the first set the resistance damped the boat's glide, making me put more power into the early phase of each stroke; the idea for the second set was to continue that concentration of power with no resistance.

I didn't do any training stuff yesterday, but it wasn't a rest day.  I spent the morning getting a few logs from a big white oak tree that had been taken down a couple of neighborhoods over, and then back at my place in the afternoon I did some splitting and cutting on them.  My legs were already sore from the lunges I'd done Tuesday, and wrangling those logs made the rest of my body sore as well.

I woke up this morning feeling beat up and sore all over.  I went to the river hoping that some easy paddling would loosen me up a bit.  I think it did me some good.  Once I was warmed up I felt good enough to surf some nice-looking waves behind a downstream-moving barge rig.  I didn't have to work that hard to get on them, so I didn't wear myself out and I returned to the dock in an upbeat mood.

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Monday photo feature

Native Memphian Boyd Ruppelt has been spending some time paddling Canadian big water this spring.  Here he runs a gauntlet of semi-truck-sized holes on the Mistassibi River near Dolbeau, Quebec.  Photo by Heidi Walsh.

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Work continues as we move into late spring

On Friday morning I took another run around the block and then did a gym session.  I backed way off from the bent-over rows I'd been doing for the last few weeks: I mentioned last week that I'd felt a little pop in my left biceps while doing those, and though the muscle had been feeling better this past week, I could feel it threatening to pop again Friday.  So I cut the first set short and skipped the second set.  It's about time for me to come up with a new gym routine anyway.  For the last few weeks I've been doing dips, situps, bent-over rows, and stability ball backups.

Muggy is the word for what the weather has been for most of the past week.  It hasn't been terribly hot--mid 80s Fahrenheit, mostly--but the humidity has been up and there's been a lot of rain in the area.

Sunday is usually when I do a long paddle, but I decided to do it yesterday because of the obligation to take my mother to brunch today.  With the Mississippi flowing around 16.5 feet on the Memphis gauge there was enough water to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar, though I knew I wouldn't be doing it in record time because there would be a sizable sandbar exposed up at the north end.  I decided to make the circuit in a clockwise direction, the opposite of what I usually do.  It turned out to be a slog, partly because the water was lower than I'm used to, and partly because it was warm and humid out there and I think I was getting a bit dehydrated in the second hour.  I got back to the dock about 126 minutes after I'd started, and I felt completely whipped the rest of the day.

I kept today's paddle much shorter because of the aforementioned brunch appointment.  I also needed some recovery, although once I was paddling I felt surprisingly good in the boat.  When I got out to the river there was an upstream-going barge rig well upriver, and I tried to surf the residual waves.  By now the waves were subtle, but I still got a few tenuous rides.  They carried me only as long as I kept sprinting, but the boost felt good.

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Some mid-week variety

I started Tuesday with an around-the-block run and a gym session, and then I headed down to the riverfront to paddle for 60 minutes.  It was a lovely morning to be out there: it was sunny and the temperature was between 80 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and there was just enough of a breeze blowing to keep me cool.  I did a series of power drills: very short efforts with high resistance (all three golf whiffle balls!) on the boat.  I did a rep every five minutes starting at 0:15 and ending at 0:45; for each rep I paddled as hard as I could for six or eight strokes, and then I brought the golf balls up above the waterline and paddled easy until the next rep.

Yesterday I did some relaxed bike riding in the afternoon.  This morning I returned to the river for some unstructured paddling.  There was a fairly strong south wind blowing, and with the help of an upstream-moving barge rig that had passed through a while before I got out to the river, it was generating some small but rideable downwind conditions.  I spent a half hour or so working the waves before I headed back to the dock, and that was fun.  I expect I'll do something a bit more substantial in the boat this weekend, so it was nice to have something not so serious to do today.

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Monday photo feature

It was four years ago today that I delivered a lecture to a small audience at Outdoors, Inc., in Memphis.  And a stern lecture it was!  There's no topic more serious, after all, than the paddling of canoes and kayaks.

The content of the lecture ended up being a big chunk of the material for my film, "A Paddler's Journey," that came out early last year.  I think the film is better than the lecture was, seeing as how I was able to edit out all the "ums" and "uhs" and throat-clearings and digressions.

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Nudging the volume up a bit

I did another run around my block Friday morning.  My body might be getting a bit more used to it.  I don't have any particular running goals other than just a desire to be able to run again, so there's no reason to push it.

The run does make a good warmup for a gym session, and I knocked out a mostly good one after running on Friday.  However, I did irritate my left biceps while doing bent-over rows.  The muscle had been feeling pretty good for quite a while.

Yesterday I went down to the river and paddled for 70 minutes.  After a 10-minute warmup I did some backpaddling-then-forward-paddling drills, and then paddled a strong tempo for the next 50 minutes.  I aimed for a stroke rate of 70 strokes per minute; that's in the neighborhood of what I hope to maintain during the Blackburn Challenge in just over two months.  The left biceps muscle gave me some nuisance pain as I went along.

It was time for a longer paddle today, and I went out this morning intending to go for 120 minutes.  The plan was to paddle at 70 spm from the time I left the harbor to the time I re-entered it.  I paddled down the Mississippi not quite as far as the Harahan Bridge and then did a long upstream paddle along the Arkansas bank.  I felt good for most of the first hour, but by the end of it I knew the second hour would be tough.  I paddled all the way up to the north end of the Loosahatchie Bar before turning back downstream.  I tried my best to take good effective strokes as I paddled into a rather stiff south wind.

Blackberry winter is over and the forecast for the coming week is showing highs up near 90 degrees Fahrenheit.  I wouldn't say the heat was oppressive this morning as I paddled the last two kilometers up the harbor back to the dock, but it might have been high enough to contribute to my fatigue.  It'll probably take me 30 minutes to an hour longer than I paddled today to finish the Blackburn, so I need to put some thought into my in-race hydration and nourishment in addition to the usual endurance training.

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A goal to shoot for

I signed up for the Blackburn Challenge on Monday, so I guess that made Tuesday the official start of training for it.  I started Tuesday morning with another run around the block: I mentioned last week that the distance is somewhere around 800 meters, but right now it feels like 8 kilometers to me.  Baby steps.  Baby steps.

After that I did a gym session, and then headed down to the river for a power session in the boat.  I did 8 x (2 min. on, 1 min. off) at 60 strokes per minute with a light resistance (one golf whiffle ball) on the boat.  Then I took an 8-minute break, during which I stopped by the dock and removed the resistance.  Then I did 6 x (2 min. on, 1 min. off) at 70 spm.

After all that I was thoroughly worn out for the rest of the day.  Maybe a few more such days will have me ready for the big race around Cape Ann.

I've been out of the boat since then.  I might have paddled yesterday if I hadn't been stuck waiting on a contractor who never showed up at my rental property.  I did do some relaxed bike riding Wednesday and yesterday.  With any luck I'll be back in the boat this weekend.

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Monday photo feature

I'm looking forward to summertime, when it's actually fun to get wet.  That's what I'm doing in this photo, shot by my friend Clay Barbee while I tried to pop some enders at Frank Bell's Rapid on the French Broad River near Hot Springs, North Carolina.  It's August of 1994.

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