Monday photo feature

A manatee noses up to the surface of the Silver River for a breath of air.  I shot this photo during our visit to Silver Springs State Park last Wednesday.  I actually got a good hour or so of video footage, and when I find time I'll edit that into something I can share on this blog and on social media and stuff.  When will I find time?  I have no idea.  Right now I'm feeling pretty swamped with real-world matters here at home after ten days away.

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Gutting out several more days

For most of the past week I've had an itchy rash from my ankles halfway up to my knees.  That's because the access we use on the Rainbow River is a ramp, meaning that we have to wade at least shin-deep into the water every time we put in and take out.  As a result, that part of all my paddling pants has stayed wet all week.  I didn't bring enough paddling clothes with me, and getting the clothes I have dry in between workouts has been more or less impossible.

That's just one of the reasons that by Friday morning I was thoroughly weary of camp.  The novelty of getting up in the morning and putting on damp clothes to paddle in sub-40-degree-Fahrenheit weather had worn off at least a day or two before.

Another reason is that the volume of training had been taxing and had left me feeling beat up and worn out.  That's how this camp always is, for in fact it is intended to be such.  I can only imagine how done-in the people are who attended the full two weeks.

In the aches and pains department, I'm having some pain in my outer lower right lat muscle.  It's not so bad that I can't paddle, but by Friday morning it had gotten so that I was wincing a little every time I inhaled.  I may have aggravated it a bit during our workout on Thursday.

That workout we did Thursday afternoon was a bear, but I was pleased with how I had performed.  Friday morning's workout was just the sort of thing to bring me back to reality.  It was two sets of six four-minute pieces done at 60 to 64 strokes per minute with a minute rest after each one; the first set was done with resistance on the boat, the second set without.  The purpose is to promote good paddling technique: the resistance dampens the boat's glide and prompts the paddler to focus on a good solid catch at the start of each stroke, and the low stroke rate allows him to contemplate all the other technical aspects.  It's important work and I understand why we do it, but that doesn't make it feel any less of a grind.  Chris Hipgrave and I did it together and we agreed that we were glad to have it behind us.

Friday afternoon's session was much shorter and sweeter.  We warmed up with some short pieces at various stroke rates, and then we did a bunch of short all-out sprints with short rest: six times 15 seconds on, 45 seconds off; and then eight times ten seconds on, 50 seconds off.  Each set of sprints got tough about midway through, more because I was struggling to maintain control of my strokes than because I was genuinely tired.

The camp finally came to a close yesterday morning.  Mercifully, the weather relented and gave us a temperature in the high 50s.  There were some gusty winds blowing, though.  Chris Hipgrave, Terry Smith, and I did a pair of time trials, each just shy of 600 meters long.  The first was downstream on the Rainbow River starting at the highway 484 bridge, and the second was down on the Withlacoochee River, starting next to a dock and finishing at the bike trail bridge.  My times were 3 minutes, 11 seconds for the first one, and 2:59 for the second.  The second one was done on the same course we'd timed ourselves on the previous Saturday; I was about 10 seconds slower yesterday than I'd been a week before, and I chalk that up mainly to the swirling winds.

And now I'm back home, with a mountain of ancillary chores to catch up on.  I'm not sure what's next for me in terms of canoe and kayak training, but that'll become clear over the next few days as I recover from camp.

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Florida is letting us down

The weather has turned nippy down here in Florida.  To full-time Floridians, I reckon it's downright frigid.  To me, these daytime Fahrenheit highs in the 50s fit into the "nuisance" category: such days are at the mild end of the winter weather spectrum back home, but are not what I come to Florida for.

The worst part has been the morning sessions, during which the temperature has been in the 30s.  As the week has gone on it's gotten harder and harder to get myself going in the morning.  But so far I've done it each time.

And what, exactly, have we been doing?  Well, Monday morning we did some technique work at stroke rates ranging from 60 to 72 spm, and that afternoon we did some longer pieces with short recovery at low-70s stroke rates.  Tuesday morning (the first cold morning) we did a "calm" 75-minute paddle, and in the afternoon we did some pieces with resistance on the boat.  Yesterday we traveled to the Silver River near Ocala for a relaxed 2-hour paddle with a lot of wildlife around, including birds, alligators, turtles, and manatees.  And this morning we did some more technique work at mostly-low stroke rates, while this afternoon we did three 9-minute pieces at a stroke rate in the mid 80s with 6 minutes recovery in between.

That last workout was definitely our most intense of the camp.  There were four of us--Chris Hipgrave, Royal McDonnell, Terry Smith, and me--and we started at 30-second intervals, with me going first, then Terry, then Chris, then Royal.  That meant that I did each piece with Terry in hot pursuit.  I think he gained some ten seconds on me in the first piece, but our times were close to dead even in the second and third.  I was pleased with my stamina: early in the third piece I thought maybe I had nothing left after the first two, but then I settled into a good rhythm and finished strong.

All good work, but again, I'm having a hard time savoring it because of the cold weather.  Yes, I know it's not as cold here as it is up north (in Memphis a winter storm is expected to move in tonight and continue through tomorrow), but it's as cold as I ever care to paddle in.

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Monday photo feature

I swiped a shot from Steph Schell's social media for this week's photo feature.  She and my other housemates arrived in Florida a week before I did, and she took this picture of the lovely Rainbow River from her boat on New Year's Day.

It does indeed look pretty idyllic.  But this coming week we won't be spared entirely from the national cold snap here in Florida.  This week the temperatures here will be warmer than the rest of the nation, but still quite brisk by Florida standards.

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Greetings from Florida

I arrived in the town of Dunellon, Florida, on Friday.  Since then I've been making the adjustment to an increased volume of in-the-boat workouts.

My fellow paddlers include Chris Norbury of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Royal McDonnell of Lake Placid, New York; Steph Schell of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Peter Wottowa of Crystal River, Florida.

So far we've done some distance at low to medium stroke rates, some power drills, some short sprints, and a time trial of just under 600 meters down slow-moving current.  The weather has been cool for Florida--Fahrenheit highs in the low to mid 60s.  Today is supposed to be our last balmy day; then the Arctic blast that's been moving across the rest of the nation will arrive here and lower the daily highs to un-Florida-like 50s.  That's still a lot warmer than the 20s and 30s back home in Memphis, but it'll most likely be in the 30s for our morning sessions, so we'll be sharing in the misery at least a little bit.

Anyway... that's about all to report for now.  At least it's been nice to have a break from the routine at home and catch up with a few friends.

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It's almost time to go to camp

Well, it's been more than a month since my last post here.  Sorry for the radio silence, for those of you who have been checking in.

I said in my last post that my plan for the remainder of the year was to mix paddling with a couple of dry-land routines, one indoor and one outdoor, that I would do depending on the weather conditions.  And that's what I did.  I got in the boat a couple of times a week, and I also did some running and some body-weight exercises and some work on a stability ball and some work with a medicine ball.

My goal was to get myself to a decent level of fitness for the next phase of winter training: I plan to leave tomorrow for the state of Florida, where I will participate in an informal training camp with a few other racers.  Long-time readers of this blog know that we've been having this camp for the last few years.

I took a few days off last week while traveling to North Carolina to spend the Christmas holiday with my sister's family.  Once back home I wanted to spend my time in the boat getting ready for the increased work load I can expect down in Florida.  For the first time in months, I did a couple of workouts with resistance on the boat.  On Saturday I did two sets of two (5 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/3 minutes at 65 spm/2 minutes at 70 spm).  For the rest of the day I felt tired and sore in my legs, and I guess at least that's a sign that I'm doing an okay job with my leg drive and pelvic rotation.

The fatigue was severe enough that I spent Sunday just doing a recovery paddle.  Then yesterday I did another workout with resistance on the boat: three times (5 minutes on, 3 minutes off) at 70 spm, and three times (3 minutes on, 3 minutes off) at 80 spm.  The session was pretty taxing, but in the aftermath I haven't felt nearly as beat-up as I felt after Saturday.

I've had a cold since Sunday.  It's not the worst I've ever had--it's mostly just a stuffed-up nose.  My energy level seems to be holding up pretty well.  All the same, I sure hope to be on the downhill side of it as I depart for Florida.

I plan to leave home tomorrow and arrive in the town of Dunnellon, Florida, on Friday.  The weather forecast is saying that my first several days down there will be quite pleasant for this time of year, with daily highs above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  But most of next week looks not so Florida-like: the highs will be in the 50s, and we'll likely be dealing with temperatures in the 30s during our morning sessions.  But it'll still be better than up here in Memphis, where the temperature isn't expected to rise above the 30s during the same period.

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Monday photo feature

Winter is fast approaching here where I live, but the opposite is true in the southern hemisphere.

As the people on the planet's underside savor the warming temperatures of late spring, there are a number of places down there from which I could have drawn today's photo.  One is the province of Western Australia, where the annual WA Race Week is currently underway at Perth.  This event culminates in a race known as The Doctor, one of the most coveted titles for elite-level ocean racers.  ("The Doctor" is the name of the wind that blows off the Indian Ocean onto the west coast of Australia.)

But for this week's photo feature I think I'll pick a photo from another southern hemisphere nation: Chile.  Native Memphian Boyd Ruppelt is down there right now, enjoying all the Andean whitewater he can stand.  He posted the photo above on his Facebook page: it shows Boyd and friends cruising over one waterfall after another on the Rio Claro.

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Working up a plan for winter

It's been the better part of a month since my last post, but I haven't been in hibernation.

The unseasonably warm weather we had in October bled into the first week or so of November.  But the temperature has surely enough been trending downward.  I'm pretty certain we've seen our last day above 80 degrees Fahrenheit for this year.  This month has treated us to a lot of days in the 60s and 70s, but the last several days have stayed below 60 degrees, and the forecast is showing some highs in the 40s in the next couple of weeks.

In the last couple of years I've come to the decision that I've paid my dues when it comes to paddling in cold weather.  And so at this time of year I transition into some dry-land fitness activities.  Because of the above-normal temperatures this fall, I've continued to paddle quite a bit; but with the water temperature dropping on the Mississippi River, I think I've done my last barge-wake surfing until next spring.  I've been staying in the harbor or at least close to it, and working hard on my rotation from the hips.

Meanwhile, I've worked up a couple of dry-land routines for those days when the weather isn't something I want to paddle in.  My main focus in these is to work on my legs and core.  One is an indoor routine, for when it's pouring down rain outside: I do a couple of core exercises on the stability ball, some Hindu squats, and some abdominal crunches while hanging from the pullup bar.

When it's dry outside, but too cold and windy for paddling to be desirable, I go out and do some running and some medicine ball drills.

So, to borrow a phrase I heard Greg Barton use several years ago, I'm "letting the weather be my coach."  This past week has been a perfect example of that.  The early part of the week was warm, and I paddled both Sunday and Tuesday.  By Wednesday morning colder air had moved in and I stayed out of the boat for several days, doing the indoor routine Wednesday and Saturday and the outdoor routine in the Greenbelt Park on the riverfront on Thursday.

The weather warmed up a bit yesterday: by mid-morning the temperature was in the 50s on its way to a high in the mid 60s.  So I returned to the riverfront and got in the boat.  I did a lot more work on rotation, did a couple of surges, and in general tried to maintain a cruising pace a touch above my comfort zone.

I don't normally paddle on Monday, but with the forecast showing another warm day today followed by much cooler weather the rest of the week, I went on back down to the river this morning.  In a 60-minute session I did some stroke-power drills.

That's how it'll be for at least the next few weeks: a mix of in-the-boat and out-of-the-boat stuff, with the weather dictating how much of each I do.  Our winters aren't too terrible in this part of the country, and I hope that once I come out on the other end of the cold-weather season I'll have a strong platform of general fitness to build on.

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Monday photo feature

The father-daughter team of Mike Herbert and Savanna Wright finish up a race on the Tennessee River at Hales Bar Marina near Haletown, Tennessee, on Saturday.  Mike and Savanna, long-time friends of My Training Blog by Elmore, usually look a lot crisper and in-sync than this, but seeing as how they've just paddled almost 32 miles with very little help from any current, they can be forgiven if their form looks a bit frayed here.  They paddled well enough to claim first place in the mixed tandem surfski class.  Photo by Deb Boyles Glover.

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