Sticking to the plan over a cooler weekend

Friday was a pretty rainy day in the Mid South, and I was happy to stay in and do a gym session.

Some cooler temperatures came in behind the rain, and I paddled yesterday under overcast skies with a Fahrenheit temperature in the low 50s.  There was a chilly north breeze blowing, too--definitely not the kind of day that makes me want to sink my teeth into the business of paddling.  But I sank my teeth anyway, cranking out a decent 90-minute session.  I did it all in the harbor except for a brief loop out onto the Mississippi at the harbor's mouth.  The harbor is pretty much the same kind of water I'll be racing on at Ocean Springs just two weeks from now.  I spent the middle hour (0:15 to 1:15) pushing the pace fairly close to what my race pace should be down there.

The sun finally came out late yesterday, but the temperature remains cool today.  It wasn't 50 degrees yet when I got to the river this morning.  I've long considered 50 degrees my threshold for pogies: if it's colder than that I use them, and if it's warmer, I don't.  Today I decided to go without since it was sunny, not terribly windy, and presumably getting warmer.  It worked out fine.  I paddled a calm 60 minutes, encouraging my body to relax after yesterday's effort.

Daylight Saving Time has begun here in my part of the world.  I set all my clocks forward before going to bed last night, meaning I lost an hour of sleep and now have to adjust to an "earlier" wake-up time.  It never fails to throw me out of whack for a few days, but it'll be nice to have some daylight later in the day.

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

Not fit as a fiddle but striving for quality time in the boat anyway

Tuesday morning I did a gym session and then headed down to the riverfront, where I paddled for 60 minutes in a steady light rain.  Fortunately it was warm--almost 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did nine times (2 minutes on, 2 minutes off), in which each "on" interval consisted of 60 seconds at 70 strokes per minute, 30 seconds at 80 spm, and 30 seconds at 90 spm.  The workout went well enough, I guess, though I felt a bit sluggish and didn't feel like I was moving the boat all that crisply.  For a couple of days I'd been having more digestive woes--nothing too terrible, just some queasiness in the pit of my stomach.  So that wasn't helping.

My stomach continued to feel weird yesterday but seemed to have settled down by this morning.  I went down to the river and paddled for another 60 minutes, doing a big loop out on the Mississippi.  The weather was calm and I felt about as stable out on the river as in the harbor, so I was able to relax and practice good rotation for the whole hour.

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

Monday photo feature

I shot this photo of one of the purple martin houses at the marina on Saturday.  I'd noticed earlier in the week that there were several birds there, and I thought it seemed rather early: I think of purple martin season as more like April through July.  But I vaguely remember my friend Joe telling me something about "scouts" coming in advance to get the house ready before the rest of the family arrives.  Joe is not only a paddler but also the owner of a home on the Memphis riverfront, and over the years he's built up a strong hobbyist's knowledge of the bird life down there.

So... spring is on its way.  Warm temperatures over the weekend are evidence of that, and before long we'll have a bunch of noisy birds flying around the marina, too.

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

Keep showing up

Friday sure was a bleak day.  The high temperature was around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, but an overcast sky made it feel a whole lot chillier than that.  I was happy to stay in and just do a gym session.

Yesterday's forecast called for mostly sunny skies, but it was as cloudy as it could be for several hours after I woke up, and I wondered whether the meteorologists were telling us a big fat lie.  But the sun finally started peeking through as I headed down to the river, and by the end of my 90-minute paddle it was indeed mostly (if not completely) sunny.  The temperature was headed toward a high in the mid 60s.

The race down at Ocean Springs is just three weeks away now, and it looks like I'm not going to be anywhere near as "trained up" as I can be.  For the last month or so I've been doing one interval-type workout a week and one slightly longer-distance session a week, and otherwise just paddling at medium intensity while I try to bring about some improvement in my stroke mechanics.  But this past week I was encouraged by something British track and field athlete Josh Kerr said.  I can't remember the exact quote, but Kerr, who won the men's 1500-meter run at the outdoor world championships at Budapest last summer and the men's 3000-meter run at the indoor worlds at Glasgow this weekend, was making the point that consistency is his strongest asset.  His success isn't the result of a bunch of brutal workouts, he said; he simply misses very few training days.  I'm happy to be able to say the same thing: since getting home from Florida in January I've stuck to a nice steady routine, getting in the boat four times a week and doing a couple of gym sessions each week as well.  It hasn't been elite-level training, but it has been a consistent effort.  I've long believed there's value in that, and reading what Josh Kerr said was a nice boost to my confidence that I'm not just wasting my time.  Maybe I'll race well at Ocean Springs, and maybe I won't, but if I don't I shouldn't beat myself up over not having "done enough."

Yesterday's paddle was mostly a steady affair, about an hour of it done in the harbor and the other approximate half-hour done out on the Mississippi.  This morning the clouds were back in the sky, and I returned to the riverfront grasping for reasons to be upbeat.  At least it was warm: the temperature was rising toward an afternoon high in the 70s.  And once I was in the boat I had a good session, maybe the best so far in terms of transferring power from my legs to my torso by way of the hip rotation.

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

A good workout and some Grand news

Tuesday morning I did a gym session and then headed for the river.  Once again there was a screaming wind from the south and it looked like there might be some decent downwind action out on the Mississippi.  But I'll refer you to my comments last week on that topic.

Anyways, I had a workout to do.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the sheltered area on the west side of Mud Island Marina, I pointed my boat north and did three 1000-meter pieces in the harbor with the wind at my back.  I started a new one every 12th minute.  I aimed for 80 strokes per minute during each piece.  My times were 5:11, 4:57, and 4:58, and yes, those efforts were very wind-aided, but the fact that I was having to paddle up and over waves in some areas of the harbor offset the wind advantage somewhat.  I think the main reason that first piece was so much slower than the other two was that I did it in the section of the harbor between the Memphis Queen Line boats and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, where the waves tend to be at their biggest.

In any case, it was a good substantial workout.  I felt pretty good about my hip rotation; as I mentioned in my last post, the rotation isn't automatic for me yet--each time I paddle I'm still having to say "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be rotating my hips"--but it's encouraging to see that it's no longer so awkward for me that it's slowing me down to a crawl like it was a few weeks ago.

I didn't do any training activities yesterday, but I received a bit of big news: I am among the lucky winners of permits to run the Colorado River through Grand Canyon next year.  My launch date is August 27, 2025, the day before my 58th birthday.  Even though I'm in my fifth decade of paddling, this will be my first true multi-day wilderness river trip.  At this time I have absolutely no idea who will be in my group, what kind of raft support we'll need for carrying food and camping gear, what the daily schedule will be, or how many days total we'll be on the river.  It's a good thing I've got 18 months to make myself an expert in all these areas (well, actually 15 months--I have to complete the trip application and provide a participant list with the National Park Service by May 29, 2025).  I've always been terrible at rounding up groups of people to do anything, so I don't know where my up-to-15 companions are going to come from, especially since I'll need some people with expertise in remote wilderness paddling trips.  People I know who have taken Grand Canyon trips in the past assure me I'll have a hundred best friends as soon as the word gets out I've got a permit, so I guess I'll find out soon how true that is.  For now, I'm just excited to have this adventure waiting for me on a distant horizon.

The other thing that happened yesterday is a front came through with a mass of colder air behind it.  So I donned more layers and put the pogies back on my paddle down at the river this morning.  All told it wasn't too bad; if it hadn't been for a pesky east-northeast wind, it would have been a nice morning to paddle.  The sun was shining more than I'd expected and the temperature was rising toward 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  I paddled for 60 minuets and worked on--you guessed it--rotation from the hips.

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

Monday photo feature

It's the spring of 2017, and I'm charging up Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, with Jeb Berry breathing down my neck.  I think Doug Heller took the picture.

The "Battle On The Bayou" canoe and kayak race has taken place at Ocean Springs each March since 2010 (excepting the pandemic year of 2020).  The 2024 edition is slated for March 23, and that's just three weeks from this Saturday.  I plan to show up down there and do whatever I'm capable of doing.  Jeb, who hails from Gulfport, Mississippi, is signed up to race in a double surfski, and I expect his partner will be his teenage son Thaison.  Anybody who'd like to join us can register here.

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

Trying to get it right, and more

The weekend arrived with sunny skies but cool temperatures and chilly breezes from the north.  I did a gym session Friday morning.  Yesterday I got in the boat and did a longer steady paddle--100 minutes.  I went to the north end of the harbor first, then paddled all the way back to the harbor's mouth and up the Mississippi just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I'd been feeling good and paddling with good mechanics for the first 75 minutes or so, but barge traffic out on the river created bumpy conditions that messed with my balance and control, and I was probably just getting tired, too.  Back in the harbor I tried my best to pull myself back together for the last couple of kilometers back to the dock.

In general, I think I'm seeing some improvement in the hip-rotation component of my stroke, but I'm not at all sure whether somebody outside my body will see it.  It was Coach Chris Norbury who first informed me of my false rotation down in Florida last month, and I'm fearful that the next time he watches me paddle he'll tell me I'm doing all the same wrong stuff I'd been doing before.  In my lonely sessions here on the Memphis riverfront all I can do is strive for that magic connection between my legs and my torso the best I can.  And again, I think I'm doing it better, albeit not with every single stroke.  In other words, I'm getting it right more often than I used to, but in the spirit of this post several months ago, I need to keep practicing until I can't get it wrong.

By this morning the wind had shifted to the south-southeast.  The March winds have arrived a few days early.  I went out and paddled for 60 minutes, practicing my stroke mechanics at a variety of easy-to-medium intensity levels.  By the time I finished it was about 66 degrees Fahrenheit and rising toward a high in the 70s.  Another weather pattern we don't normally expect in February.

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

Paddling hard in a couple of different ways

I started up a new gym routine Tuesday morning: some oblique abdominal exercises and some lunges with dumbbells in addition to the rotation drills I'd already been doing.

After that I went down to the riverfront to paddle on a lovely calm sunny morning with the temperature above 50 degrees Fahrenheit and rising.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did a workout of nine times (2 minutes on, 2 minutes off).  During each "on" interval I aimed to paddle at 75-80 strokes per minute; I tried my best to synchronize my hip rotation with my leg drive and use my arms as little as possible to pull the paddle, instead letting my torso follow my hips.  The workout was a tough one.  I was feeling it in my quads, and the lunges I'd done earlier were probably part of the reason for that.  By the third or fourth interval I was wondering if I could really get through all nine.  But I focused on one piece at a time, and soon enough it was over.  Back on the dock I was exhausted but savoring the endorphin rush.

The warm temperatures continued yesterday, but the wind picked up, too.  By the time I got to the river this morning there was a rather ferocious south wind blowing.  I paddled right into the wind until I was at the mouth of the harbor, and gazing out over the Mississippi I saw some pretty legitimate downwind conditions--not Miller's Run caliber or Columbia Gorge caliber, but decent rideable stuff nevertheless.  Unfortunately, I just don't feel entirely safe going out there on days like today.  The water is cold this time of year, and a flip while paddling by myself could put me in a situation I really don't want to be in.  So I stayed in the harbor, and that's definitely one of the downsides of living in a place where paddling companions of any kind are hard to find, let alone ones with the interest in and aptitude for downwinding.  In the harbor the waves were about as big as I have ever see them there, but not full-fledged downwind conditions.  Still, I've heard the Mocke brothers say many times that a paddler can get help even from small bumps, so I looked for patterns and worked a variety of angles on them.

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

Monday photo feature

I've been paddling regularly on the Memphis riverfront for some 30 years, and in that time I've spotted all kinds of things floating in the water.  And it's not beneath me to occasionally pluck something out and bring it home, especially if I find it close to the marina.  I've got an old ice chest, a couple of trash cans, a few of those 5-gallon paint buckets (they come in handy around the house and the workshop), and even a Hoover vacuum cleaner that worked just fine once I got it dried out.  The Mississippi River giveth, I tell you.

Of course, most of what's floating out there is just plain old litter.  Once in a while I get motivated to pick up as much as I can fit in the space just fore of my surfski's footboard.  The litter problem is much too big for any one person to solve, so I concentrate primarily on stuff that's recyclable, like beer cans and soda bottles.  I know I'm not removing even a thousandth of a percent of what's out there, but at least I can say that in some small way I'm part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

The item pictured above is a first for me: an urn for somebody's ashes.  As I paddled up the Mississippi yesterday morning, just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge I spotted something among some pieces of driftwood that was definitely no ordinary flotsam.  I hoisted the hefty object into my boat and continued on my way.  Back at the dock I removed the lid and found it half-full of muddy water.  If there were any ashes in there, they were indistinguishable from the Mississippi River sediment.

Initially I thought it might be a valuable finely-crafted piece, possibly made of silver or at least silver-plated.  But once I got it home and took a closer look I realized it was just stainless steel and probably a mass-produced Pier 1 sort of thing.  Oh well, at least it's a sturdy container with plenty of heft to it.  I don't exactly need any more tchotchkes around my house, but I'm sure this item will settle into its niche.

I'll just add this: last night I had supper at a local Chinese joint, and the little slip of paper in my fortune cookie said "You discover treasures where others see nothing unusual."  Pretty timely, hey?

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

Brrr.

I did some full stretching and a gym session Friday morning.  That evening the balmy weather we'd been having gave way to some gusty storm showers followed by a mass of cold air.  The temperature dropped below freezing overnight, and when I got down to the river yesterday morning it was 33 degrees Fahrenheit.  The sun was trying to come out, but the sky remained what I would call mostly cloudy.  A frigid north wind was blowing.

A couple of friends of mine have told me I really ought to get an erg machine for winter training, and on days like this I really can't argue with them.  But I haven't taken that step yet, and so there I was shivering on the dock and murmuring to myself "Just get your session in.  Don't expect it to be fun.  Someday it'll be nicer outside and then you can enjoy it."  I paddled for 60 minutes in the northern half of the harbor, which is somewhat more sheltered from the wind than the southern half.

Last night it got even colder, and it was 23 degrees when I got up this morning.  It was just 33 again by the time I got down to the river.  But there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and there was just a light breeze coming from the west-southwest.  So it was a significantly nicer day to paddle than yesterday.  I was in the boat for 90 minutes, paddling out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf, and then back. Work continued on my stroke mechanics: I think I'm starting to get a better feel for the hip rotation I'm shooting for, but it's definitely still sometimes, not all the time.  It's easier on still water than out in the swirly currents of the big river, and I also seem to revert to "false" rotation whenever I get tired or distracted.

It was 41 degrees outside by the time I was driving home.  So it was still quite a chilly day.  It is still February, after all.

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

Sunshine

After a few dreary rainy days, the sun finally came out again Tuesday morning.  Having been idle and/or feeling crummy for a few days, I was keen to re-inject some positivity into my athletic life.  After some stretching and a gym session here at home, I headed down to the river.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did twelve 30-second sprints starting every 3rd minute.  I didn't have my cadence sensor with me, but I'm pretty sure I was doing between 90 and 100 strokes per minute during the sprints.  It had been a long time since I'd paddled at that intensity level, and I found myself struggling a bit with the breathing.  I tried to relax and keep my breath in rhythm with the effort, and of course I also focused on good hip rotation.  I'd been working on that a lot during slower paddling sessions, but it takes practice to do it well going fast, too.

It was a fairly hard workout, but I felt good when it was over.  It was chilly when I got down there, but I think it was over 50 degrees Fahrenheit by the time I finished, and paddling under a deep blue sky was just what the doctor ordered after the days of heavy rain.  And I almost always feel good after a more intense workout--endorphins are a real thing, folks.  I spent the rest of the day in an upbeat mood, and that should be motivation I need to keep a good training routine going with my first race of the year less than six weeks off.

The sunny skies and warmer temperatures continued yesterday and into today.  It's supposed to rain tomorrow and then get cold again, so I'm trying to enjoy the nice weather while it lasts.  This morning I paddled for 60 minutes, steady with a few surges.  The hip rotation still isn't feeling entirely second nature, but it seems maybe a bit less uncomfortable than it used to be.

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

Monday photo feature

This is a screen shot from an old VHS video I bought back in the early/mid 1990s.  At the time I was determined to practice whitewater slalom any way I could in my whitewater-poor part of the country, and the video showed a bunch of stroke drills that an athlete can do on flatwater.  In the photo above, Dana Chladek, a U.S. team member in the 1980s and 90s, demonstrates "SWEEPS Weaving a Line."

I did lots and lots of these drills in the harbor downtown and on Patriot Lake over on the east side of town.  Now, 30 years later, I'm still doing a lot of drills, although these days they're oriented more toward effective rotation at the hips for maximum stroke power.

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

Ups and downs in water levels and energy levels

On Tuesday morning I did a gym session and then headed down to the river.  I paddled in the harbor for 60 minutes, and during the 40-minute period from 0:10 to 0:50 I did a little workout of (1 minute on, 2 minutes off).  For each "on" period I kept the stroke rate in the 70s; I didn't have my cadence sensor with me, but when you're doing one-minute pieces it's easy enough to count your strokes.  The workout felt good and it was nice to have something besides the hip rotation to occupy my attention.  I came away feeling good about what I'd done, and it's seemed like that hasn't often been the case lately.

The Mississippi River had crested over the weekend around 22 feet on the Memphis gauge.  Over the 30 years or so that I've been paddling regularly on the Memphis riverfront, that's not a remarkable level, but it sure feels high compared to the levels we'd been having since last summer.  It's dropping now and the current forecast says the level will be back in the single digits in a few days.  Hopefully some more rain will fall in the Midwest soon and keep the river up.  There's something satisfying about paddling atop a mass of freshly-fallen rain.

It's been a while since I've provided an update on the aches-and-pains front, and I guess that's because I haven't been feeling too bad lately.  But there are definitely little things I'm dealing with.  That pain in my right clavicle that was so bad a couple of months ago isn't gone, but it's not as bad as it was.  Meanwhile I'm having soreness in my wrists and forearms, and I suspect that's being caused more by chores in the woodworking shop than by paddling my boat.  Some days I have some stiffness in my lower and upper back, and some days I don't.  Maybe the best news is that the pain I was having in my hip flexor in December seems to have run its course.  That means I've got the option of incorporating some running into the routine again, though I'll probably wait until the weather is consistently warmer.

I've also had a few days this week where my digestion felt out of whack-- sort of a low-grade unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach.  As of this writing I think it's doing better, but it's lasted long enough to make me start thinking of morbid scenarios like some terrible cancer of the stomach or colon or intestines.  I sure hope that's nothing more than my silly imagination.

I was back in the boat Thursday doing another 60 minutes in the harbor.  It was mostly a steady paddle this time in which I focused, as usual, on hip rotation.  On Friday I stayed in and did a gym session.

The weather was cool but sunny when I paddled on Tuesday and Thursday.  By Saturday it was just the opposite: a bunch of rain had moved into the Mid South, while the temperature was up in the 60s on the Fahrenheit thermometer.  I went down to the river Saturday morning and found it shrouded in fog, and the fog seemed to thicken as I paddled out of the harbor, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and back down.  Coming downriver I stayed within sight of the left bank just so I would know where I was, and so I wouldn't be surprised by any silent barge rigs.  It wasn't until I was maybe 400 meters from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge that I was able to see the bridge's steel trusses.  Once I was back in the harbor the fog was thick for several hundred meters, and then, suddenly, I came out of it.  By the time I was back in my car, maybe a half-hour later, departing the riverfront, the fog was all gone from the river.

As for how I felt in the boat Saturday, well... I felt lousy.  I was sluggish and slow, and the low visibility out on the river had almost a vertigo effect.  I guess I've always struggled to have some giddy-up during the gloom of January and February, but I think it might be worse than ever this year.

I was out of the boat yesterday because the handbell group I play with had a gig.  I'm also busy with a fairly complicated project in my woodworking shop.  I'm hoping that spending some time with those things for a bit will be a good way for me to hit the reset button.

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

Monday photo feature

Here's an issue that got my attention just this morning.

The photo above is a screen-grab from the Go Pro camera footage shot by a Mr. Ryan McAvoy as he paddled over Looking Glass Falls in western North Carolina.  The photo is featured in an opinion piece by John Boyle for the Asheville Watchdog news website.  I saw it when my friend Cathy shared it on Face Book this morning.  The site has also posted the full video of McAvoy's descent.  You can read it here.

Mr. Boyle's piece addresses an issue that I've thought about often in my 40-plus-year paddling career: is it irresponsible to paddle a boat over something like Looking Glass Falls?  Mr. McAvoy's feat has attracted quite a bit of attention on social media, much of it critical; the main thrust of the critics' arguments is that when such an adventure goes sideways it can require a response from publicly-funded emergency personnel, who then might find their own safety at risk.

The thing is, paddlers are regularly running drops that are even more dangerous than Looking Glass.  So why has this particular event drawn so much flak?

Certainly, a big part of the reason has to be that Looking Glass Falls is one of the best-known waterfalls in the eastern United States.  I think I saw it for the first time on a family vacation when I was younger than 10 years old, and I became very familiar with it once I started attending summer camp in the nearby town of Brevard.  The falls is located right alongside U.S. 276 near the heavily-used entrance to Pisgah National Forest just outside Brevard, and there's a parking area right there with a balcony from which to view the falls.  I would guess that hundreds of thousands of tourists lay eyes on Looking Glass Falls each year.

Many of these tourists probably don't see a lot of waterfalls more formidable than Looking Glass, because such falls are farther off the beaten path.  So in their minds, paddling a kayak off Looking Glass is right up there with the most reckless things a human being can do.  Here in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee, where there aren't any waterfalls, I'm occasionally accused of being certifiably insane for paddling my boat on the Mississippi River or even just in the harbor.  I expect the people who make such accusations are unfamiliar with rivers and with paddlesports, and they simply can't imagine a crazier thing for somebody to do.  It doesn't help that there are a number of silly myths swirling around our mighty river: even some of the smarter, more thoughtful people I know believe that there are randomly-occurring whirlpools all over the Mississippi that will suck a poor hapless guy like me down into a watery grave.  (There are not.)

The only way I know to respond to such criticism is to be as responsible as I can and set the best example I can.  Of course that includes having my PFD and other sound safety equipment when I'm out on the river, and more importantly, being as skilled as I can be.  I practice self rescues often, and I also work on skills that help me avoid the need for rescue in the first place.  And I try to educate family and friends and anybody else who will listen as to what our sport is about.  It's a big part of the motivation behind this blog, as well as the movie I made a couple of years ago.

It appears that Mr. McAvoy is of the same mind.  Not only did he study Looking Glass Falls at length before making his run, but also he waited for a day when the conditions were most favorable, and he had his own support team in place.  The worst thing you can call a dedicated paddler is a daredevil or a thrill-seeker or an adrenaline junkie, and McAvoy makes that point in his response to the online criticism.

I encourage everybody to read Mr. Boyle's piece in its entirety.  I don't have anything more profound to say than what I've already said, but this is an issue that you learn to live with when you take up paddling or any other sport that has a wilderness adventure aspect to it.

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

Fun in the future, uncertainty in the present

This past week I made a couple of Internet transactions relevant to this blog.  One of them was to sign up for the annual "Battle On The Bayou" canoe and kayak race on March 23.  It's a 13.7-kilometer (8.5-mile) mostly-flatwater race on Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  Anybody who'd like to join me down there can register here.

The other thing I did was submit an application for a permit to paddle the Colorado River through Grand Canyon in the summer of 2025.  Yes, that's a long way off, and as of now I have given absolutely no thought to equipment I'll need or food I'll need or who will accompany me on the trip (the permit specifies up to 16 people).  Right now I'm just hoping to get a permit.  If I'm successful, there will be plenty of time to get my whole plan in order.

The race in Ocean Springs is definitely the more immediate concern, being just seven weeks off.  I'm spending a bit more time in the boat now, and pretty soon I'll have to get some workouts going.  On Saturday I took advantage of a 21.6-foot Memphis gauge reading to visit some places I couldn't paddle to when the river was low.  I paddled over to the Arkansas side and went up the outflow channel from Dacus Lake until a mass of floating wood blocked my path.  Then I paddled a short distance up into the Loosahatchie Chute before heading back to the harbor.  It was a nice sunny morning, warmer than 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and I tried my best to enjoy it, but the truth was I was feeling tense in the boat.  There was a lot of barge traffic on the river that made things turbulent, and even though the weather was nice I really didn't want to go for a swim in that cold water.

Normally I would have gone back to the river yesterday, but with nearly constant rain falling all day long, I opted to stay in and focus on non-athletic obligations.  I did at least make time to do some full-body stretching and some rotation drills with a broom handle across my shoulders.

The sun was shining again this morning, so I went down to the river and did a calm session in the harbor, trying my best to stay relaxed and rotate at the hips.  This is something for which I really could use the help of an in-person coach.  While I know the general outline of what I'm supposed to be doing in my boat, I'm having a hard time knowing whether I'm really doing it the way I should.  I need somebody to slap my wrist when I get it wrong and offer reinforcement when I get it right.

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

Drills continue in nicer weather

Once we emerged from the deep freeze early last week, the rest of the week was overcast and rainy.  The Memphis area got some six inches of rain during the course of the week.  So I was pleased to have a sunny day for paddling at last on Tuesday.  I spent 60 minutes doing more work on hip rotation.

Before paddling Tuesday I did a gym session: more Hindu squats and core exercises on the stability ball, plus some rotation drills sitting on the floor with a broomstick across my shoulders.

One nice thing about all that rain that moved through this area is that it also fell higher up in the watershed, and the Mississippi River is rising fast.  It was about 16.5 feet on the Memphis gauge when I paddled on Tuesday, and the current forecast says it will crest close to 24 feet early next week.

Skies were clear at dawn this morning, but it was getting cloudy-ish by the time I made it down to the river.  The Fahrenheit temperature was climbing from the low 30s toward a high around 60 degrees.  The river was flowing at about 19.7 feet.  I did a loop out on the main river, and this time I threw in some surges and tried to keep up good hip rotation at a higher intensity level on less-stable water.

It's nice to have January in the rearview mirror, but some years the weather here in February has been awful, so I'm trying not to get too used to this warm spell we're having.  Around here one can count on plenty of chilly weather throughout February and March and sometimes even into April.

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

Monday photo feature

This is where I was exactly two years ago: lounging in the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club on the Western Cape of South Africa.  Seated at right are our two coaches for Downwind Camp, Jasper Mocke (red cap) and his brother Dawid.  That's me in the upper left corner, with fellow campers Moses (lower left), Ezra (foreground), and Donald (orange shirt).  I'm guessing we've just gotten back in from paddling out on False Bay.  It's the middle of summer there and the weather is deliciously warm.  Carefree times, indeed.

There's another Downwind Camp going on there this week, and several of my racing friends from the southeastern U.S. are participating.  They include Chris Hipgrave, whom I saw down in Florida several weeks ago, and Alessia Faverio and Cam Thacker, who have attended the Florida training camp in the past but didn't this year because they were saving money for the South Africa trip.  They're now posting about their trip on social media, and I'm feeling all jealous.  Don't you just love the way social media makes you feel?  Oh well... hopefully one day I'll return to Fish Hoek or some similarly awesome place, and people can get all jealous of me.  So there.

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

Toiling away in offseason obscurity

The never-ending frigid spell finally ended last Sunday when the temperature rose above freezing to stay.  By Monday it was up around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  50 degrees never felt so warm.

On Tuesday I got in the boat for the first time in ten days.  I stayed in the harbor and did another round of work on my hip rotation.  I paddled for 60 minutes, and was reminded of how hard it is to focus on one mechanical aspect for that long.  But I really would like to get more comfortable with this change.  Rotating down at my hips should take stress off my arms and shoulders, where, as regular readers know, I've had a lot of discomfort for the last several years.

Before going to the river Tuesday I did a couple of sets of the exercises I've been doing lately--Hindu squats and core exercises on the stability ball.  I was still feeling sore from having started these exercises the previous week, especially in my abs and quads.  It was as stubborn an episode of soreness as I can remember.

I paddled another 60 minutes Friday, and again yesterday.  The theme remained the same as I focused on just one thing, how my body was moving in the boat.  I didn't worry about how fast I was going or what energy system I was working or any of that stuff.

And that's pretty much it for where I am these days.  Not a whole lot of excitement.  My first race of the year will probably be March 23 at Ocean Springs, but my mind isn't really in competitive mode these days.  I just want to paddle the best I can, and be ready to perform well whether it's in a race or in some more recreational undertaking.

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

Monday photo feature

I don't have any particularly profound regrets in this life, but I am kind of sorry that I never had an opportunity to get into cross country skiing.  The snow that fell here in the Mid South a week ago was powdery and not too wet, and I'm pretty sure it was ideal for that activity.  Once the streets had been driven on just enough for the snow to get packed down a bit, as in the photo above, we had a whole network of groomed ski trails.

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

Shut down, to some extent

It's been a frigid week here in the Mid South.  Since last Sunday the temperature has risen above freezing for just a few hours, and it's spent quite a bit of time in the single digits on the Fahrenheit thermometer.  The snow that fell Sunday and Monday has had little chance to melt, and the melting that has occurred has re-frozen, making the streets even more treacherous than they were earlier in the week.

I've spent most of the week indoors being utterly unproductive.  While I have a project to work on in the woodworking shop, it's at a point where I need to go out and get some more material, and I just don't want to be out driving right now.  I'm trying (and mostly failing) to persuade myself to knock out some tax-filing and other paperwork chores.  Meanwhile, I've been binge-watching some television.  I normally watch very little TV, but my housemates down in Florida got me hooked on the "Ted Lasso" series, and now I'm using the seven-day free trial period offered by Apple Tee Vee Plus to watch all 34 episodes.  Just one of the little ways in which I stick it to The Man.

It's hard not to consider it a lost week in terms of canoe and kayak training.  Even if I were feeling plucky enough to go paddle in this weather, it's been cold enough that there's a fair chance the harbor has been iced over (I haven't been down there to check).  The same is true for bike riding: I'm even less inclined to do that in cold weather than paddle, and the whole landscape is covered in ice anyway.  I have managed to do a decent amount of stretching, including the new hip stretches I started doing last weekend; I've also started doing a couple of core exercises on the stability ball and some Hindu squats, along with some rotation drills in which I'm trying my best to twist my rear end against the floor, just like I need to be doing in my boat.

So I haven't completely wasted the week... I haven't made any cardiovascular gains to speak of, but I've made some effort in the tedious process of technical adjustment.  I admit that it would have been nice to have an erg machine for this work.  I've resisted getting one because most of the time we have liquid water to paddle on here, and even when it's cold I prefer that to the mind-numbing repetition of erg work.  But when intensive focus on mechanics is necessary, it's better to do it in a warm, comfortable environment, and it sure would be nice to have an erg for that.

The last blast of Arctic air was last night and this morning... for now, at least.  This coming week the temperature is supposed to rise as high as 60 degrees, albeit with some rain.  I hope to be back in the boat soon.

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

Monday photo feature

The first few times I ran Bull Sluice rapid on the Chattooga River, it was in a Blue Hole "OCA" canoe that could be paddled either tandem or solo.  The camp I went to had a rule against campers running the rapid, and so the counselors would paddle all six of the camp's canoes through the formidable whitewater maelstrom.  My first summer as a counselor was in 1985, and that's when I made my first run of the rapid.

This photo was shot by Todd Tyler in 1987.  The river is flowing somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 feet on the U.S. 76 bridge gauge.  Though I prefer to paddle on the left in a whitewater canoe, here I'm paddling on the right because at the time I thought I would need a brace on that side as I went over the main drop.  As my paddling skills improved in the years since then, I realized that paddling on the left works just fine.

The Chattooga River is born in the mountains near Highlands, North Carolina, and flows in a southeasterly direction.  It leaves North Carolina and forms the border between South Carolina and Georgia.  At its confluence with the Tallulah River, it becomes the Tugaloo River; farther downstream, below Hartwell Reservoir, it becomes the Savannah River for the rest of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean.

Bull Sluice is located just upstream of the U.S. 76 bridge that crosses the Georgia-South Carolina state line.

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

Letting the weather be my coach

After checking out of the rental house in Dunellon last Sunday, I drove a couple of hours south to Tampa, where I visited my friend Jonathan who moved there from Memphis last summer.  Jonathan has taken up sailing and we hoped to get out on his boat, but the weather didn't cooperate.  We had a good visit just the same.

I began the trip home Tuesday morning.  As I departed the Tampa Bay area, violent thunderstorms were moving across Alabama and into the Florida panhandle.  By the time I had turned west on Interstate 10, the wind was making driving difficult: I was afraid my boat would blow off the car and take the roof racks and bicycle with it.  So I got off at an exit and waited for the worst of the storm to pass through.  Having checked the radar that morning, I knew the squall line was narrow and wouldn't stick around for long, but I also knew it would be accompanied by heavy rain and stronger winds.  It didn't disappoint.  Once I was back on the road moving west toward Tallahassee, I saw two overturned semi trucks and quite a few billboards whose ads had been torn off.

I spent Tuesday night in central Alabama, and arrived home a little after noon on Wednesday.  I found myself dealing with a ceiling-high stack of chores that had accumulated while I was away.  On Thursday morning I was feeling swamped with work, not to mention tired from my travels, and going out paddling was the last thing I felt like doing.  But the weather outside was lovely, and a look at the forecast revealed that Thursday would be the last pleasant day for quite a while.  So I dragged myself down to the riverfront for a 60-minute paddle in the harbor.

I sprayed some protectant wax in my seat bucket to provide some lubrication for my hip rotation, and off I went.  I tried hard to use my legs to generate the rotation, and I felt about as awkward as I'd felt down in Florida.  I also felt slow.  It was somewhat breezy and hard to get an accurate idea of how fast I should be moving the boat, and I also had a feeling I shouldn't even worry about speed while making a technical adjustment.  But it was hard not to notice that my speed was down a bit.

By the time I finished I was glad I'd paddled just the same.  I think by encouraging my body to relax, I also relaxed my brain a bit and felt less stressed over all the things I have to do.

Heavy rain moved across the area Friday, and strong wind came behind that front bringing colder air with it.  It was definitely a day to stay inside.  I got online and looked at some yoga exercises that are supposed to "open up" one's hips; when I tried them myself I couldn't do them nearly as well as the people demonstrating them in the online videos, but there's no reason I can't incorporate them into my stretching routine and see if I can get more comfortable with them.  With miserably cold weather expected to settle into this area for most of next week, I'm hoping to come up with a gym routine that includes some kind of hip-rotation drills.

The temperature dropped to around 25 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, but by the time I got up yesterday morning the sun was out and the wind had died down.  Even though it was some 20 degrees colder than when I'd paddled on Thursday, I decided it was tolerable enough to get one more paddle in before the much worse weather that's expected to pay us a visit.

All the rain that's fallen here in the last week has also fallen higher up in the watershed, and the Mississippi River is on a big rise.  When I got down there yesterday morning the level was at 3.6 feet on the Memphis gauge--the first above-zero level I've seen since I can't remember when.  And it's coming up fast: it was a foot higher by yesterday afternoon, and the current forecast says it'll be up to almost 16 feet by next weekend.

I paddled for another 60 minutes yesterday, doing more hip-rotation work.  Waxing my seat bucket definitely makes it a bit easier than it felt down in Florida.  There were moments when I felt myself getting more comfortable with it, but much of the time it still felt awkward.

I'm glad I got it in, at least, because I doubt much paddling will take place for the next week.  As I write this on Sunday afternoon, it's snowing and 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius) in Memphis.  According to the current forecast, Thursday is the only day this week that will have a high temperature above freezing, and that'll be 36 degrees with rain and freezing rain.  I've paddled in worse conditions, but at this point in my life I kind of feel like I've paid my dues in that department.

Mostly, I'll be looking to do some indoor exercise.  Like I said, I hope to draw up a gym routine that includes some hip rotation.  Today I just did some full-body stretching, including those "hip-opening" yoga movements.

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

Monday photo feature

I suppose we could call this an updated version of the photo I posted last Monday.  It was shot by Vadim Lishchuk of Newtown, Pennsylvania, who joined us for some of our workouts last week.  This was a chilly Wednesday morning on the foggy Rainbow River.  Paddling the K2 on the left are Royal McDonnell of Lake Placid, New York, and Steph Schell of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.  That's me in the middle, and to my right is Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina.

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

Camp winds down with a time trial

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Steph and Chris N., who were anxious to get back to Pennsylvania as much ahead of the winter storm that's headed toward the eastern seaboard as they possibly could.

The rest of us took the morning off from paddling while a system of heavy wind and rain moved through the area.  By lunchtime the rain had moved out, and later in the afternoon Chris H., Royal, and I met a few other paddlers at the Blue Run access on the Rainbow River for our time trial, in which we would paddle up the Rainbow from the Route 484 bridge to the KP Hole public access.  Normally we would go downriver for a time trial, but the forecast indicated stiff headwinds for downstream paddlers yesterday.

Meanwhile, there was a Strava record for our 484-to-KP course: 29 minutes, 22 seconds by Robert Norman of the Tampa Bay area.  I don't do Strava myself, but Chris H. and Royal do, and they were keen on taking a shot at that record.

But that was their worry.  I was just hoping for a respectable effort after a taxing, sometimes demoralizing week of training.  After some warmup time I decided to get on with it.  I lined up at the downstream edge of the bridge, started my watch, and took off.

I knew the distance up to KP Hole was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 kilometers, and as I paddled upriver I saw that I was moving the boat around 10 kilometers per hour--sometimes above, sometimes below depending on how well I chose my lines to avoid the strongest downstream current.  Every now and then I would hit a patch of shallow water and my speed would plummet below 7 kph, but other times I would pick a good line and cruise along close to 11 kph.

I wouldn't say I was feeling "good," exactly; I was quite stiff and sore from the workouts we had done on Friday.  But I was comfortable with the intensity level and never doubted that I could sustain it all the way to the finish.  I aimed for 80 strokes per minute.  Eventually the KP Hole facility came into view and I bore down for a strong finish.  I paddled up to the upstream edge of the KP Hole property and stopped my watch at 33 minutes, 50 seconds.  My G.P.S. device measured my distance paddled at 5.66 kilometers.

Chris and Royal and I paddled together back down to the Blue Run access.  There Royal uploaded his effort to Strava, and we learned that he was the new record holder for this course.  His official time was 28:17.  Chris also finished under the old Strava record with a time of 29:01.  I, meanwhile, was satisfied with my result, so the mood was upbeat as we loaded our boats in the parking lot.

This morning I went back to the river for a recovery paddle.  I headed downstream toward the Withlacoochee River, which I'd never really checked out before.  I paddled down past where the U.S. 41 bridge crosses it, then back up to where the Withlacoochee State Trail crosses it.  It's definitely different from the Rainbow: the Rainbow is crystal clear, while the water is tannin-stained on the Withlacoochee; the Withlacoochee also has quite a few algae blooms on it.  But I thought the Withlacoochee was pretty enough, especially once I got away from the built-up banks right near the U.S. 41 bridge.

I tried to focus on my rotation, though I was tired and sore from yesterday and my thoughts were wandering about.  But it was a pleasant sunny morning, and I saw an otter right as I was getting back to the Blue Run access ramp, so all told it was a successful paddle.

Well, that concludes the Rainbow River camp for this year.  I have to check out of the rental house soon.

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

All bent out of shape over my mechanics

Yesterday morning's session was four 19-minute pieces with a one-minute break in between.  The prescribed stroke rate was 60 strokes per minute for the first, 66 spm for the second, 72 spm for the third, and 60 spm for the fourth.

It was my first time in the boat since my discussion with Chris N. about my "false rotation."  Basically, the problem is that I've been doing all my rotation in my upper torso rather than down in the hips where the connection with your leg power takes place.  Per Chris's instruction, I moved my footboard forward (away from me) one notch so I could get my legs a bit straighter on each leg drive.  I also talked to Royal, who had his own "false rotation" issue a year ago and spent the ensuing months working on it, and he told me he looks for the sensation of twisting his rear end against the seat.  The most helpful tip he gave me was to try to move my backside across the back of the seat bucket instead of straight into it.

So that was what I spent yesterday morning working on more than anything else.  And it felt terrible, as if I were completely re-learning how to paddle.  I definitely sacrificed some speed: when paddling downstream it was all I could do to maintain 12 kilometers per hour.  But I resolved to put all such worries out of my mind for the moment and focus exclusively on that twisting motion.  This will definitely take some time: Royal told me it was a couple of months before he really felt like he was getting the hang of it.

The afternoon workout yesterday was a pyramid of sprints with long recoveries, to make our bodies produce lactic acid and then flush it out before the next sprint.  The sprints were 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 15 seconds, and 10 seconds; the recovery times were 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes.

Chris N. told me not to worry about my new rotation challenge during the sprints, but I worked on it during the warmup and the cool-down.  And it felt just as terrible as it had in the morning, if not worse.  By the end of the session I was tired and frustrated, and the idea of spending the rest of this winter toiling through mechanical issues all alone in the harbor back home is just not getting my juices flowing right now.

This morning we did two sets of (4 minutes on, 1 minute off) at 60-64 spm.  We did the first set with light resistance on the boat and the second set without.  This actually was a good workout for working on hip rotation because of the resistance that killed glide and thus increased blade pressure, but I didn't feel any better that I did yesterday.  Part of the problem was that I'd left my shoes back at the house and had to paddle barefoot, which I hate doing in a surfski.  Chris N. suggested I do some yoga to open up my hips more; I'll look into that when I get home.

We wrapped up today with some varied-pace training, sort of like what happens when you're trading wake rides with other competitors in a race.  It was two sets of five times (3 min. at 60 spm and 2 min. at 75 spm).  I continued to struggle with rotation but got through the workout decently enough.  All that's left is a time trial tomorrow and another workout Sunday morning, and then I'll have some time to regroup and try to figure out how to recapture my paddling self-esteem.

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

Florida training camp continues

Monday was a rest day, and we "rested" by riding our bikes down the Withlacoochee State Trail for 21 miles to the town of Inverness, and then riding back.  42 miles is nearly twice as long as the longest ride I regularly do at home, but we kept the pace reasonable and it was actually a nice relaxing "active" recovery.  Also, in Inverness we took the time to enjoy a leisurely lunch at a good diner.

The weather hasn't exactly been what one expects down in sunny Florida.  The daily Fahrenheit highs have been just in the 60s, often with a chilly breeze.  The overnight lows have been down around 40, and it's typically still in the 40s during our morning paddling sessions.  I think the El Niño weather pattern is largely to blame.  But I'm pretty sure it's still nicer than what any of us would be dealing with back home right now.  Back in Memphis the highs are mostly in the 40s this week, with some overnight lows in the 20s; I expect it's about the same in western North Carolina, where Chris Hipgrave and his wife Trish live.  Chris Norbury and Steph Schell hail from Pennsylvania, where the forecast is calling for heavy snow later this week, and Royal McDonnell is from Lake Placid, New York... the Adirondacks, for crying out loud.  I think we're doing just fine down here in Florida.

Yesterday morning we went out and did a "calm" 75-minute paddle.  It was a wake-up session in advance of a much tougher afternoon workout: three 8-minute pieces at 80-88 strokes per minute, or, as Chris H. explained, race pace for a 10-kilometer race.  We had 8 minutes recovery time in between.  My stroke rate for a 10K race is not much more than 80, so that's where I tried to keep it during the three pieces.  The workout was definitely hard, but nowhere near the worst I'd ever hurt.

I actually thought this morning's workout was harder, or at least more of a grind.  We did four sets of (6 min. at 56 spm, 4 min. at 60 spm, 3 min. at 64 spm, and 2 min. at 68 spm).  The first two sets were upriver, and Chris H., Steph/Royal (paddling tandem), and special guest Vadim Lishchuk opened a big lead on me during that period.  We got back together on the trip back downriver, and I tried very hard to stay with them in the second pair of sets.  I didn't entirely succeed, but I did a better job than on the upstream leg.  I put all the power into each stroke that I possibly could, and my muscles were feeling it by the end of the workout.

Before the workout I'd issued a blanket request for feedback on my stroke form, and Chris N., who's done his share of coaching over the years, took me up on it.  He told me that I was "false rotating"--while my leg drive was good, all it was doing was pushing my pelvic region into the back of the seat bucket rather than generating genuine rotation of the hips.  I was disheartened to hear this because it's exactly what I was paying a lot of attention to during my paddling sessions at home all fall, and I thought I was doing a decent job.  But at home I don't have other pairs of eyes on me, and in a technical sport like ours what you think you're doing in your boat and what you're actually doing are not always the same thing.  Chris gave me a couple of suggestions for my next time in the boat, and I guess I'll just keep trying to get it right for the rest of our camp and beyond.

We had the afternoon off to do whatever we felt like.  I went out for an easy 40-minute bike ride.

Back at the house we're renting, the party simply never stops.  There's no telling what sort of trouble the people I'm staying with might get into when left to their own devices:

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

Monday photo feature

I'm attending winter training camp in Florida for the third time.  I came here last year, and two years before that.  The picture above is from my first camp: that's me in the blue shirt; to my left is Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina.  To my right are Alessia Faverio of Asheville, North Carolina, and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  We're about to start a workout on the lovely Rainbow River near the town of Dunellon.

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

Winter camp!

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 training mode at a camp in sunny Florida.

I left home Friday morning and arrived yesterday afternoon at the Rainbow River, a lovely spring-fed stream that flows through the town of Dunellon just above its confluence with the Withlacoochee River.  A few friends--Steph Schell, Royal McDonnell, Chris Norbury, Chris Hipgrave--had been here several days already and were doing a time trial from KP Hole to the Route 484 bridge.  Not ready for that kind of stress, I put in at the bridge and paddled upstream until I saw these athletes coming down, and I followed them back to the finish.

Yesterday was more substantial.  In the morning was a long (100-120 min.) session at a "conversational" pace, which is to say that it was supposed to be a good solid training paddle, but not at such high intensity that you couldn't chat with your companions.  I spent most of it alongside Chris H. and Royal, and I had to work pretty hard to keep pace with them.  I tried to take good strokes and keep the stroke rate in a reasonable range, and not exceed that "conversational" pace.  We paddled from the Route 484 bridge up to Rainbow Springs and back; in the last mile back to the bridge my form was sort of falling apart and I fell off the pace, so I concluded my paddle at an even 100 minutes.

Yesterday afternoon we did a power-building workout: six times (2 min. on/1 min. off at 50 strokes per minute and 3 min. on/1 min. off at 60 spm).  Both cadences are quite low, but 60 spm felt really fast after doing 50 spm.

After the two-week break from paddling my arms had felt as good as they'd felt in a long time.  But now they're sore again, especially my forearms.  I've got a couple of blisters on my left middle finger, too.  Tomorrow is a scheduled day off, and I'm as grateful for it as anybody even though I just got here.  There are some tough days coming up this week and I hope a day will be enough for me to regroup.

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

Monday photo feature

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 time I'd seen this particular cargo out there.

I think most of the barges I see on the river are carrying agricultural products--grains, primarily.  That's the biggest economic impact of extreme low-water periods like the one we're having this fall: it's more difficult for farmers to get their harvests to market.

Products of the sand and gravel industry--piles of rock, Portland cement, stuff like that--are a common sight on barges.  I also see a lot of coal being shipped by barge, though maybe not as much as I once did now that TVA's Allen Fossil Plant downstream of downtown Memphis has been converted to natural gas.  Sometimes I see barges that appear to contain some variety of fuel in liquid or gas form.

But that's about it for what I routinely see being shipped out on the river.  So it was interesting to see something new yesterday.

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

Staying in motion, if only just barely

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 collarbone that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago is still present; it just so happened that I had my annual physical scheduled for this past Wednesday, so I mentioned it to my doctor and she ordered an X-ray.  Fortunately the bone came out looking just fine.  The doctor said it could be just a bruise, or even a weird virus that she's heard is going around that causes such pains.  Or maybe it's just the latest manifestation of my impinged nerves.

Meanwhile, my left hip flexor has been bothering me as well.  I started noticing it during one of my runs the week before last, and after I ran last Wednesday it seemed to feel worse.  My original plan was to run again on Friday, but I decided to skip it and see if the extra rest made any difference.  As of this writing it's still hurting about the same.  It sure seems that whoever controls the universe simply doesn't want me to run.

So I'm feeling pretty beat up these days.  I guess the bright side is that right now I'm still just maintaining some general fitness and don't have anything on the horizon that I need to be in top competitive shape for.  And at least I can still paddle without any severe discomfort.  That's what I did yesterday and today.  Yesterday it was overcast with a chilly breeze, and I felt sort of sluggish in the boat.  I basically just got in my hour... punched the clock, as it were.  I felt better today, and I expect having some sunshine had something to do with that, though it was still breezy and chilly.

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

If you want it, attain it!

"Attainment" is a paddling term for moving one's boat upriver, against the current.  On a slow-moving Class I river, attaining is as simple as paddling upstream faster than the current is carrying you downstream.  As the degree of whitewater complexity rises, you might have to seek help from features in the river to get your boat upstream: hopping from one eddy to another, for instance, or surfing a wave that slants upstream.

I come from a whitewater background, and I've always enjoyed looking for clever ways to move upstream in a rapid.  Attainment is also a great exercise for developing fitness, technical efficiency, balance and control, and a deeper understanding of whitewater features and how they can help you get your boat from one spot in the river to another.

As I moved more into boats designed for flatwater and open-water paddling, I found that my attaining skills often came in handy when paddling those boats out on the Mississippi River.  Again, it's typically a matter of paddling upstream faster than the current is flowing downstream, but sometimes little things like stroke timing and angle of approach matter, too.

One old slalom racing friend of mine recently created a group on Face Book dedicated to attainment, and he invited group members to share their thoughts and their videos on the topic.  I knew right then I had to make a short film about attainment out on my home river.  You can now view it below.  I threw in a few cinematic tropes just for fun, but I hope the viewer ultimately will appreciate the important role attainment plays in the life of a paddler.

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

A few thoughts about running

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 decent runner, if not a great one.  In high school my times were around 2:02 for 800 meters, 4:34 for 1600 meters, 10:12 for 3200 meters--good enough to win a few races in my area, but nowhere near good enough to attract the attention of college coaches.  I went to college with academics in mind but decided I might as well participate in the crummy no-scholarships running program the school had.  There I managed to raise my performance a level or two--still far from stardom but good enough to hold my head high as a respectable collegiate runner.  I broke 27 minutes a couple of times on 8-kilometer cross country courses, and my greatest achievement was probably clocking 8:52 in an indoor 3000-meter race in Louisville's Broadbent Arena.  Not long after that, I went down with a severe iliotibial band injury and was never able to return to that kind of form.

I graduated from college in 1990, and in the ensuing years I ran sporadically as my involvement in canoe and kayak racing increased.  I did an occasional road race, and while working as a high school teacher I assisted with the school's cross country program and ran with the kids a good bit.  I stayed in pretty good shape, albeit nowhere close to the peak form of my college career.

But by the early 2000s my efforts to run sort of petered out.  I was spending a lot of time training in the boat, and seeing as how I enjoyed paddling more than running, I just didn't see much reason to keep doing the latter ("Runners don't paddle, so why should paddlers run?").

I'd hardly run a step for some 20 years when, at about this time last year, I decided to buy a new pair of running shoes and give it another try.  Why did I decide to do that?  Nostalgia, mostly.  I'd been watching some You Tube footage of Olympic and world championships races of the last decade, and decided that I sort of missed being able to go out and run a mile or more and have it feel good and smooth.  I also wanted another cross-training activity in the mix as my tolerance for cold-weather paddling diminishes.

For my first time out a year ago, I figured 20 minutes was a reasonable length of time to run.  Anybody can run for 20 minutes... right?  But it was no more than a couple of minutes in that I realized just how out of running shape I was.  All the cardiovascular infrastructure that I'd built up from high school into early adulthood was gone.  I tried to settle in for 20 tough minutes, but I ended up stopping well short of that because of pain in my Achilles tendons.

I attempted two or three more runs last December, with similar results.  Finally, after injuring one of those Achilles a bit more severely, I decided to give it up until the arrival of warmer weather.

At the end of April I gave it another try, and this time I radically lowered my expectations of the distance I could handle.  I did just a short lap around the block here in my neighborhood--a distance of maybe 800 meters or so.  For the next couple of months I used this around-the-block run as my warmup for gym sessions.  The main thing I remember about those runs is that they never seemed to get any easier; each one felt like just as much of a chore as the first one had felt.

In July I took my trip up to New England, and once I was back home in early August I didn't feel like doing much of anything beyond some unstructured weekend paddling.  By November I was starting to feel like a slug and decided it was time to get back in motion.  If you've been reading this blog lately, then you know that my current routine includes some paddling, some bike riding, several exercises with a medicine ball, and some running.

Twice a week, I've been going over to the park just west of my home and running the perimeter of a big grassy field (we call it the "Greensward").  A lap around the Greensward is probably somewhere around 1000 meters, and over time I've been nudging that distance up by cutting fewer and fewer corners.  Each time out I've run a lap, done a couple of sets of medicine ball exercises, done a couple of sets of runs up the front stairs of a nearby building, and finished with a run of maybe 500 meters.  While I haven't been setting any speed records, it finally seems like running is getting a bit easier for me--a tiny bit, at least.  For a while I was having doubts about whether I would finish each run, even with less than 50 meters to go; but in the last week or so I've noticed that I'm feeling less that way.

I have no lofty plans to resurrect my running career; as I noted above, I enjoy paddling more than running and I think I will continue to satisfy my competitive urges that way.  But maybe... just maybe... I can get back to thinking of running as "something that I do."

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

Monday photo feature

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 customers on a tour of the Mississippi River at Memphis on a blustery, overcast morning a couple of weeks ago.

I was in the Greenbelt Park at the time, doing my running and medicine ball routine.  When I noticed the canoes out there I zoomed in as close as my cellular telephonic device's camera would allow, and snapped the picture.

The canoes operate under the auspices of Mississippi River Expeditions, and I expect Mr. Matthew Burdine was out there leading the tour.

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

Not moving freely, but moving just the same

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 through my shoulders into my arms.  The pain seems to wander around.  For the last month or so it's been mostly in both forearms, and at times I've lain in bed at night and felt them throbbing.  Now, just in the last couple of days, I've been feeling a rather sharp pain in the area of my right collarbone; it's almost as if I've fractured the bone somehow, though I can't think of anything that's happened that would have caused such a thing.

Since my last post I've continued with my variety of training activities.  I'm riding my bike a couple of times a week and doing my little running/medicine ball routine twice a week.  I've saved paddling for the weekends, usually paddling for 60 minutes each time out.  I'm just doing whatever I feel like as opposed to any specific workouts.  If I'm feeling good I'll throw in some long surges.

This weekend I paddled on Friday, and it was yesterday that I woke up feeling that pain in my collarbone area along with a lot of stiffness and soreness.  I went out and did a pretty leisurely bike ride: the annual Memphis marathon was in progress, and I spent as much time coasting or standing along the course and watching the runners as pedaling in any sort of deliberate way.

When I returned to the river this morning I was worried that the collarbone pain would bother me in the boat, but it turned out not to be so bad.  It was all the more reason to paddle with my leg and lower abdominal muscles as much as possible.

Enquiring minds want to know: what has the Mississippi River been doing lately?  Well, it continues to be various degrees of low.  Last weekend, when the river was flowing around seven and a half feet below zero on the Memphis gauge, I was unable to paddle southward from my dock, as I usually do:

But there was just barely enough water for me to paddle out to the north.  I had to thread my way through those water and electrical lines beneath the ramp:

During the last week the river crested at about -4.5 feet.  By this morning it had dropped back down to -6.3 feet, but I still had a sliver of water allowing me to depart to the south:

My river is never the same thing two days in a row, and I'd say that's a good thing.

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