The excitement is heating up

Well, here we are one day before the big race.  The Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race is scheduled to start at 10:15 AM tomorrow.  The field in the race boat class is looking less strong than usual this year: Greg Barton won't be making it, leaving fellow Olympian Mike Herbert as the heavy favorite for the overall win.  Whereas last year there were five or six entrants around my level of ability,  only maybe two or three are currently registered for tomorrow.  The canoe classes will be a little thin tomorrow as well, as the race this year conflicts with the Aluminum Canoe National Championships upriver in Dubuque, Iowa.

But as always, I try not to pay too close attention to who else is coming or what others are doing.  I can control nothing but my own performance, and I'm trying to make sure I am prepared to do the best I can.

Yesterday I paddled for 60 minutes and did six 12-stroke sprints with full recovery.  This evening, when I meet my friend Katie to load our boats and formulate our shuttle plan for tomorrow, I'll paddle for maybe 40 minutes and do about four such sprints.  Other than that my plan for today is to do a little work in my workshop and rest and relax as much as I can.

We're having our first real hot spell here for 2013, with temperatures reaching the low to mid 90s.  I'd been resisting the urge to turn the air conditioning on in my apartment, but when the thermostat's temperature display said it was 93 degrees Fahrenheit inside a couple of evenings ago, I decided it was time.  I've got it on now, with the thermostat set on 80.  If I can get some relief from the humidity, I'm perfectly happy not to have my place feeling like a meat locker.

And, not knowing what scientific studies have been done on the topic, I believe intuitively that shutting yourself up in the climate-controlled indoors at all times is not really congruent with a healthy, fit life.  The human body has evolved to withstand some heat and humidity in the summer and some cold, grey clamminess in the winter.  I'd be lying if I said I love the typical Memphis summer weather, but I'm not afraid to get out and immerse myself.

More speed, more rest

Today I paddled for 60 minutes, doing a set of eight 12-stroke sprints with full recovery.  I'm getting more and more comfortable with the changes to my stroke, though I'm not yet to the point where my body automatically does it the new way.  We'll see how it goes this Saturday.

For Saturday's Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, we're expecting warm temperatures--low 90s Fahrenheit--and a river level somewhere around 26.5 feet.  The times should be fast as long as the wind stays moderate.

Monday photo feature

Here's a vintage photo from the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  This is up at the starting line around 1996 or 1997.  I'm near the middle of the picture in the kayak with the green deck--that's an old John Jaycox-designed Colorado River Machine.  Photo by my mom, I think.

The 32nd Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race will take place this Saturday at 10:00 AM.  I'll be there doing my best just like always.

Rest time

I paddled for 60 minutes this morning, doing ten 12-stroke sprints.  I hope to get in several more such sessions this week to polish my speed and leave me feeling sharp next Saturday morning.  At the moment I am not feeling particularly rested, and I guess that's mainly because of the strenuous week I just had.  I'm getting pretty full nights of sleep, but I've been waking up tired each morning lately.  Hmm...

Riverfront litter pickup

I paddled in the harbor today for 80 minutes.  I participated in a litter pickup put on by Memphis River Warriors, the Tennessee Sierra Club, Memphis City Beautiful, the University of Memphis, Outdoors, Inc., and others who value a clean environment on our riverfront.  The effort was focused on the cobblestones and the finish area for next Saturday's Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, so I wanted to be sure the paddling community was represented.

So it wasn't really a training session, but I can find training value in almost any in-the-boat activity.  This morning I would stop at one patch of floating litter and pick it up, then paddle over to another patch, and so on, and I concentrated on my stroke with its recent alterations during those bursts of paddling.  In this way, I worked toward internalizing the new movements without obsessing over them, because most of my attention was on the very important business of removing some pollutants from the water that we paddle on.

Under pressure

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes.  It was my first time in the boat since Tuesday, but the days since then haven't exactly been restful.  The ground floor of my building had all kinds of broken plaster and peeling paint on the walls and ceiling, and I decided to use a pressure washer to knock down as much of that stuff as I could.  I discovered that pressure washing is very hard work.  The washer I used shoots water around 3000 psi, and my hands and arms feel like jelly after hours of handling that thing.  I doubt any of the top coaches or sports physiologists would recommend my way of spending the two weeks before the season's big competition.

Oh well, I still have a week to try to get in some rest.  My paddling sessions will be short in duration, but I'll paddle as fast as I can in that time.  Today I did ten 30-second sprints with full recovery.  I'm slowly starting to feel better with the change to my stroke.  One thing I've noticed is that I'm capable of a higher stroke rate than I had been before, because I'm not wasting as much motion between strokes.  I also need to re-figure my balance--I don't feel as stable as I did when I was paddling with my elbows farther from my body and the blade farther from the boat.  I very nearly flipped this morning as I paddled across the squirrelly slackwater at the southern tip of Mud Island.

I'll be paddling again tomorrow, but at lower intensity as I participate in a litter pickup down at the riverfront.

Soreness persists

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes, doing the same workout as last Monday (45 seconds on, 30 seconds off), except today I did just eight intervals rather than twelve.

I'm still feeling awfully sore in my upper arms, especially the right one, and I wonder whether I haven't strained them a little.  This change to my stroke could be the reason, but it's just as likely that strength work or paddling that big tandem boat last week is the culprit.  I skipped the strength work this morning.

Little Rock results

The results of Saturday's race are now posted here.  I guessed right: I was the tenth overall finisher, about three and a half minutes behind winner Dylan Puckett.

Monday photo feature

Racer David Christopher took this photo before the start of Saturday's Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race at Little Rock.  Facing upriver, the paddlers watch a mass of ominous black clouds roll toward them.  The downpour began shortly after the starting gun went off.

Something new, late in the season

This morning I did two sets of the May strength routine--yes, I know it's June now, but since I'll be doing only a couple more strength sessions between now and the OICKR, there's no reason to start up anything new.  Then I went downtown and paddled for 60 minutes.  It felt good to be back on my home water.

In the boat I worked on the stroke modifications that Shaun Caven recommended yesterday.  He mentioned several things he thought I should do: keep my elbows closer to my body, insert the blade farther forward, lift my wrist before my elbow in the recovery phase.  Today I decided to focus mainly on keeping my elbows close to my body.  As Carl Swensson emphasized in the cooperage class I took last summer, when learning a skill it's best to break it up into as many components as possible and take them one at a time.

Paddling this way felt a little strange, but not as awkward as it sometimes feels when I make a change to my stroke.  And when I reverted back to the way I had been paddling, I realized that there was indeed some wasted motion like Shaun said.  Having somebody to point out things like that can be very handy, because once you get used to doing something a certain way it's difficult to detect that anything is wrong.

Now, a few hours later, I'm feeling very sore in my upper arms and deltoids.  It's probably partly the result of the strength work, but I expect it also was caused by the unfamiliar motions in the boat.

A wet, wild morning at Little Rock

I'm pretty sure I've never raced in a rain as heavy as what we had today.  As we warmed up this morning, the sky to the west (upriver) was black.  Less than a minute after the gun went off, we slammed head-on into the deluge, and it felt like smacking into a liquid wall.  The rain came down in buckets for the entire race, and continued to do so through the awards ceremony, which was held under the nearby Interstate 430 bridge because it was the only shelter of any size available.

At this point, I really don't know what my place was; counting the boats ahead of me was impossible in all the chaos, and the race organizers didn't have the results posted promptly like they usually do because of the inclement weather.  And it was very hard to hear them announce the award winners because of the traffic roaring overhead on I-430.  My guess is that I was something like tenth place overall.  I'll link to the results once they are posted online.

I do know that we had a very high-quality turnout from the Oklahoma City training center, with a number of racers signing up since I wrote my post yesterday.  Dylan Puckett, a junior (under 18) racer whom I've watched improve steadily over the last four editions of this race, edged everybody's favorite world-class-country-boy-athlete, Mike Herbert, for the win.  Maggie Hogan was the fastest lady, finishing not so very far behind the top men.  For much of the race I actually thought I might run down Kaitlyn McElroy, who spent the race paddling alongside Arezou Motamedi a tantalizingly short distance ahead, but once we got into the last 1500 meters or so I knew it wasn't happening.

What did happen for me is that I targeted the tandem surf ski paddled by Bill Cains and Phil Capel, because I knew they would be a little faster than I but also would offer a better wake ride than the skinny little K1s.  I paddled hard to stay on their stern for the first half of the race, with Shaun Caven, the Oklahoma City coach and a former British national team member, hanging out on their right-side wake in his K1.

Then I got a break at the buoy turn: Phil and Bill had trouble getting their ultra-long boat around the buoy and nearly rammed the bank, and in doing so they trapped Shaun, who had been on the outside.  I swept my boat around on their inside and put the hammer down to try to drop them.

I didn't get to savor my opportunity seizure for long: somehow, Shaun had gotten himself back on track and within a couple of minutes was sitting on my right-side wake.  I knew I had to push the pace, because there was no way I would beat him in a final-50-meter sprint.  With some 400 meters left I tried to throw in a surge, but it didn't shake Shaun, and a few seconds later he was sprinting away from me.

I knew he had me beat, but then Phil and Bill came charging into my peripheral vision on the left--those tough old guys had made it back from their awful buoy turn.  With the last bit of energy I had, I managed to hold them off by a foot or two.

Shaun, who had gotten a good look at my stroke while sitting on my wake, told me I can improve it by keeping my elbows closer to my body and the blade closer to the boat.  He also noted that at the end of a stroke I should lift my wrist ahead of my elbow.  This seemed to contradict the injury-preventive "chicken wing" recovery that Brent Reitz talks about in his forward stroke video, but after trying out the changes that Shaun suggested I think the two concepts can coexist.  Two weeks before the big race of the season is not the best time to make major changes to my stroke, but I'll be thinking about what Shaun told me as I paddle this coming week.

Race tomorrow

I did a 40-minute paddle in Mississippi Sound this morning, during which I did six 12-stroke sprints.  Then I got in the car and made the long drive to Little Rock, the host city for tomorrow's Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race.

Because of abnormally high river levels, the race tomorrow will actually take place on the Little Maumelle River, upstream of the usual race course.  Race director Phil Capel says it will be a 5-mile out-and-back course.

In recent years Olympic hopefuls based at the Chesapeake Boathouse training center in Oklahoma City have been coming to this race.  Among them has been Kaitlyn McElroy, one of the best female paddlers in the U.S. (she has spanked me each of the last three years).  McElroy won all three of her events at the U.S. Team Trials about a month ago, making her the woman to watch in this early stage of the new Olympic quadrennium.  Other registrants whose names I recognize are Austin Schwinn and Maggie Hogan, whom there's a fair chance we'll see on our tee vees in 2016.

I'm just sitting here in my motel room hoping I can get a good night's rest and be ready to go in the morning.  I'm feeling a bit tired and sore even though I don't think I overdid it during my vacation trip.  That tandem boat is big and heavy, and I guess muscling it around in that wind was enough to leave me feeling a bit achy.  Whatever the case, I'll just get out there tomorrow and try to paddle as hard as I can.

Windswept

My nephew Joel and I paddled the tandem boat for an hour this afternoon in Mississippi Sound.  A stiff wind from the southeast continues to blow, and we got bounced around plenty.  By the time we returned to the dock, I felt as though I'd paddled a whole lot more than just an hour.  It probably was not the best thing for me to do two days before a big competition, but niece-and-nephew time trumps training concerns.

The surf was up

This afternoon the kids went off with their father for adventures elsewhere on Dauphin Island, and the wind was strong enough that I'm not sure I really would have wanted to take them paddling anyway, so I went out myself for 70 minutes.

The southeast wind was certainly howling, and as I got farther offshore the waves started getting pretty hefty.  But hey, that's what surf skis like mine were designed for.  Once I got used to the conditions I started having a lot of fun.

In the middle of the session I managed to get in eight of my 12-stroke sprints to work the ATP-CP system.  I do have a race this Saturday, after all, though I expect the water to be much flatter than what I was on today.

Vacation

I'm relaxing with my mother, sister, brother-in-law, a niece, and two nephews on Dauphin Island near the mouth of Mobile Bay.  I'm an awfully regimented guy at home, so a little unstructured time for a few days will probably do me some good.

I thought the day might get by without any paddling, but in the late afternoon the kids expressed some interest, so I took each of them out.  A thunderstorm had blown through earlier and the wind was rather fierce--not a great day for novice paddlers.  The worst place was where we put in, where the waves slammed against a little concrete wall lining the bank.  But the kids handled it all reasonably well.

Back to the coast

This morning I did two sets of the May strength routine and paddled for 50 minutes.  I did a shorter, faster lactic tolerance workout: 12 intervals of 45 seconds on, 30 seconds off.

Then I put the boat on the car and headed south.  I took Interstate 55 to Jackson and U.S. 49 and Mississippi 67 down to Ocean Springs.  There I met Nick and Dana, subjects of today's photo feature, for supper.  It was nice to visit with them and hear the latest on their wedding plans.

The last leg of my trip took place on Interstate 10 and a bunch of secondary roads that eventually got me to Dauphin Island on the Alabama Gulf Coast.  I'll be spending the rest of this week with my mother and my sister's family in a rented beach house.  I have the tandem boat with me, for what kind of uncle doesn't take his nieces and nephews paddling?

Monday photo feature

After the Vicksburg race last month, Joe Royer snapped this photo of me with Nick Kinderman and Dana Robertson.  They're getting married this coming weekend at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  I'm happy for the kids.

Boat designs

Yesterday morning I did two sets of the May strength routine and paddled for 60 minutes.

For the last several days we've had what my friend Joe likes to call "chamber of commerce" weather--sunshine, clear skies, low humidity, lots of people out running, riding bikes, just playing in the parks... the sort of scenes every chamber of commerce depicts in its promotional brochures.

The water was calm down at the harbor yesterday, so I got out the K1.  As usual, I had comfortable stretches and unstable stretches.  As I mentioned in Thursday's post, my fastest time in those pieces I did in my surf ski from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge was 2:14; out of curiosity, I decided to see what I could do in the K1.  In the much less stable boat, I didn't feel like I had the hammer down like I did in the ski, and every forward stroke felt like partly a brace.  My watch was on my wrist so I couldn't really look at it while I paddled, but as I neared the finish line I guessed that my time would be 2:25 or 2:30.  Then I crossed the line and looked at my watch: 2:15.  Hmm.

I've always had the attitude that "It's not the boat; it's the motor."  I hate it when people say things like "Oh, Billy beat Charley because he was in a faster boat," and I sneer at people who are always buying new boats because they weren't having the race results they wanted in their previous boats.

But boat design certainly is not irrelevant.  There's an obvious speed difference between a surf ski and a sixteen-foot touring boat, and I guess the speed difference between a K1 and a surf ski, while less obvious, is nevertheless genuine.  I do a couple of races each year--including next Saturday's race at Little Rock--that are attended by Olympic hopefuls in K1s.  I've always wondered if their fitness and their power and their technique are really that much better than mine.  I expect that if we all raced in surf skis they would still beat me, for they are younger and their training is more elite-level than mine, but maybe they wouldn't beat me by as much.

Long sprints

Today I did two sets of the May strength routine and paddled for 60 minutes.

I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and upriver to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, where I looped around and returned to the harbor.  Once back in the harbor, I commenced my workout for today: four sprints from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  This distance is somewhere around 500 meters--probably a little less, as I was doing these pieces as fast as 2:14 and I don't think I'm much better than a 2:20 guy in a true 500 meters.

In any case, it was some good mental preparation for my race at Little Rock next Saturday, where the last 1500 meters or so of the course, passing under four or five bridges, always seems to last forever.

Some novel cross training

I took a break from training today, but I hardly felt as though I was lying around.  Parts of the downstairs in my building were ankle-deep in water from yesterday's torrential rains, so I spent the day sweeping water out with a push broom.  As I worked, I was reminded of another Olympic sport: curling.

I admit I know little about the sport of curling, but I do know that it includes a couple of guys (or gals) armed with brooms, which they use to manipulate the ice ahead of the sliding stone, thereby influencing the stone's direction.

Who knew that there is a place in the Olympic movement for housework skills?  As I moved swiftly along, trying to steer the water flow toward the front door with my broom, I thought perhaps I should learn more about this obscure sport.  I wonder what sort of athletes excel at curling?  What body type and physique is typical of a curler?