Monday, February 24, 2025

Monday photo feature

It's the "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in March of 2021.  Here we have the front pack led by Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas.  Currently in second place is a double surfski paddled by Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi, and Nick Kinderman of Ocean Springs.  Roy Roberts of Chattanooga, Tennessee, holds third place, and that's me hanging out in fourth.  It was one of the more heated battles I can remember in that race.


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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Jury duty was quick

When I got down to the riverfront Monday it was 31 degrees Fahrenheit, but sunny.  I paddled for 60 minutes in the northern half of the harbor, where I could find at least some protection from the north wind.  The breeze wasn't especially strong, but when the temperature is below freezing any wind at all is unwelcome.

One thing I didn't mention in my last post is that I had a very strenuous project in my woodworking shop that stretched through last weekend.  I had to weave a chair seat with over 400 feet of 5/16-inch cord, and pulling all that material through at the end of each pass was hard on my arms and shoulders and especially my hands.  I don't normally count such "non-athletic" activities as part of "training," but it's worth pointing out that I was feeling especially tired and beat-up by the time I was in the boat on Monday.

By the time I was driving home from the river Monday, it had warmed up to about 37 degrees on its way to a high in the low 40s.  And that was about the nicest weather we would have all week.  On Tuesday it was overcast and blustery with a high in the 30s.  And then the real Arctic blast descended.  There was a mixture of snow and freezing rain overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and then we had several days where the temperature didn't rise above freezing and dropped down to about 10 degrees at night.

Certainly, it was looking like a good week to sit indoors and discharge some civic duty.  At 8 AM sharp on Tuesday I finally reported to U.S. District Court in the Odell Horton Federal Building downtown.  I was whisked, along with everybody else in the jury pool, into an assembly room from which subsets of us would presumably be called into the courtroom to undergo the jury selection process.  We sat in there for an hour, then another hour, then another... at 12:30 they were so kind as to let us have an hour to go out for lunch.  Upon our return we sat there for another hour, then another... and finally, at 3:45, the presiding judge appeared.  He announced that as the trial was about to begin, some issues arose--a flurry of last-minute motions, stuff like that--that were more complicated than anybody had expected.  As a result, he had decided to delay the trial, and was dismissing us all.  We were now free from jury service until 2027 at the earliest.  (In federal court you can be summoned every two years, as opposed to every ten years in state courts.  Since the Western District of Tennessee includes pretty much all of the state's counties this side of the Tennessee River, the probability that I'll be called again anytime soon is pretty low.)

It was a pretty anticlimactic conclusion to this round of jury service, after I'd worked hard to finish a couple of workshop projects and fit in as many workouts as possible before I was called in.  After all my talk about it here, I'm sorry I can't share anything more consequential from my experience in our judicial system.

But... life goes on, one way or another.  Since I was already counting on a forced training break, and since the weather was so miserable, I stayed in and rested for the rest of the week.  At the same time, I took the opportunity to work on a project in the shop that I'd been wanting to do for the last year and a half or so, but never could get to because life kept getting in the way.  It was nice to attend to a part of my life that too often gets neglected, and in the overall scheme of things, I think that's just as important as getting my workouts in.  Sure, I felt a little antsy about the down time, but as I've noted here before, any race I'm likely to do is still months away.  I could take another week off, and it still wouldn't be hard for me to pick up where I'd left off.

The weather finally started warming a bit yesterday, and I went downtown and got in the boat once more.  I paddled for just 40 minutes because I was expecting an important phone call in the late morning and I wanted to be back home in time for that so I could give it my full attention.

I returned to the river today and did a higher-intensity session--four pieces of varying distances at anaerobic threshold.  Basically I just picked out some courses defined by objects in the harbor: from the end of the Beale Street Landing dock to one of the boats in the Memphis Queen Line flotilla (I clocked right at 2 minutes); from the monorail bridge to the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge (6:11); from the northeast corner of my marina to the southernmost mooring pylon at the old LaFarge facility (3:16); and from the southernmost mooring pylon at the Bunge plant to the northernmost pylon at the LaFarge facility (2:00).

Both yesterday and today were very nice days to paddle even though it wasn't exactly warm, mainly because there was practically no wind to speak of.  Yesterday the temperature was just above freezing with clouds giving way to sunshine, and today it was about 40 degrees with plenty of sunshine.  I've said it many times: I'd rather paddle when it's 30 degrees and sunny and calm than when it's 40 degrees and overcast and windy.



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Monday, February 17, 2025

Monday photo feature

The year is 2019, and I'm standing near the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio.  We have just raced nine miles down the lovely river.  I managed to take the win, with Michael Meredith (center) finishing second and Erik Snider (right) third.

One thing I remember about that event is that the race started at 7 AM Eastern Time--that would have been 6 AM in the Central Time zone from which I'd just come.  I got up around 4 o'clock Eastern so I would have time for some coffee and breakfast.  The nice thing about starting so early was that the temperature was very nice for racing.  It was the first Saturday in August, and by the time we were posing for this photo at the awards ceremony it was becoming about as hot as one expects at that time of year.


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Sunday, February 16, 2025

Making my last free week count

Another week went by with no call to duty at the federal courthouse.  So I was free for paddling and related activities.

The early-week forecast called for chilly temperatures with lots of rain Tuesday and Wednesday.  I went down to the river and paddled Monday, when the Fahrenheit temperature was in the high 30s.  It wouldn't have been such a bad day to paddle if it hadn't been for the wind.  I paddled into a headwind to the north end of the harbor, and once I was up there I worked my way back south with a lot of small loops and east-west zigzagging, just to keep my headwind exposure to a minimum.

When I went to bed Monday night my throat was suddenly very sore, and I woke up several times during the night to find that it was still sore.  For me, a sore throat is often a sign that I have a cold coming on.  Tuesday was shaping up to be a chilly rainy day, so I opted to stay in and give my body a chance to fight it off.  I did a lot of work done in the shop, but I didn't do any formal athletic stuff.  By Wednesday the throat soreness seemed to be fading and no cold symptoms were taking hold, and I did my indoor gym routine while some more rain fell outside.

The rain had moved out by Thursday, so I was back outdoors doing some running with some core exercises mixed in the Greenbelt Park that overlooks the majestic Mississippi River.  It was cold and windy and I was glad to have that session behind me.  Friday's weather was even colder, so I stayed in and did another indoor gym session.

Also on Friday, I learned that I finally must report to the federal courthouse downtown.  Because Monday is a federal holiday, my duty will begin on Tuesday.

In the early hours of yesterday morning some powerful thunderstorms moved into the area.  Storms were expected to continue all day yesterday, but the Internet radar showed a mid-morning break, so I went downtown and paddled.  Though the temperature was supposed to rise to near 70 degrees yesterday, it was only 50 or so while I was in the boat.  But the wind was light and the rain held off for most of the session, so in all I'd hit a pretty ideal window.  The heavens opened for about the last five minutes, so I was good and soaked when I got back to the dock, but soon I was in dry clothes, and the rain stopped so I could walk up to the parking lot without being doused again.

By afternoon it was freakishly warm outside, and by early evening another round of heavy storms was moving through with cold air behind it.  By the time I got up this morning, the temperature had plummeted.  I returned to the Greenbelt Park for some more outdoor dry-land work under overcast skies.  The temperature was a steady 35 degrees while I was down there, and if the wind had been bad on Thursday, this morning it was just plain awful.  At least it made me waste no time: I moved briskly from one exercise to the next, knowing that the sooner I got it done, the sooner I would be back home where it was warm.

It's supposed to drop into the mid 20s overnight, but tomorrow the sun is supposed to come out again and the high temperature is supposed to be a little over 40.  I'm hoping maybe I can get in the boat one more time before I'm forced to rest in a jury box.  It looks like the rest of the coming week will be miserably cold, so it's as good a week as any to serve my civic duty indoors.

I will say that while I'm not in any kind of high-level racing shape, I've been rocking the general fitness work this winter.  I'm feeling good about that, and I hope it'll stand me in good stead for whatever comes my way in the warmer months.


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Monday, February 10, 2025

Monday photo feature

The second Mocke Paddling/Paddle Africa downwind camp of 2025 is underway on the Western Cape of South Africa.  Kenny Howell, an Alabama native now living in Montara, California, is participating along with a few other North Americans.  That's Kenny on the left, speaking with Jasper Mocke as the group prepares to put in at Miller's Point.  Jasper's brother Dawid is standing behind Kenny.

I've known Kenny for some six or seven years.  As the West Coast rep for Epic Kayaks, Kenny handled my surfski rental the two times I flew out to the Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington.  Already a very solid downwind paddler, Kenny will likely come home with some tools for upping his game.

Seeing the photos and video on social media of Kenny and friends enjoying the Miller's Run in the summer sunshine is a reminder that I'd sure like to get back there sooner or later.  I think my Grand Canyon trip is as much as I can chew on this year, but... maybe next year.


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Sunday, February 9, 2025

Getting plenty of exercise while federal court makes me hurry up and wait

The first week of my jury duty has come and gone, and I have yet to set foot in the courthouse.  Each evening I called the telephone number, entered my juror number, and got a recorded message informing me that I was not required to report the next day.

And so it goes: for the month of February I am living quite literally one day at a time.  It's not really how I prefer to live, but in some ways it's kind of nice.  Each time I'm told I don't have to go to court, the next day feels like a day off.

And so far this month, my training activities have suffered no interruption.  This past week I paddled Monday, did my indoor exercise routine Tuesday, did my outdoor routine Wednesday, paddled Thursday, did my indoor routine again Friday, and did my outdoor routine again yesterday.

My activities continue to be geared toward general fitness more than maximum canoe & kayak racing performance.  As I've noted recently, I'm not likely to line up for a race any sooner than May.  And my biggest event of this year is a trip through the Grand Canyon in August and September, and that will require not so much peak racing form as just a solid level of fitness.

The temperature was well above freezing all last week, but there was a lot of variety: sunny skies, overcast skies, quite a bit of wind, some chilly days, some freakishly warm days.  Yesterday was mostly cloudy and breezy with a temperature over 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  This morning it's still cloudy and breezy, but now the temperature has plummeted some 30 degrees.

I called the federal court's telephone number again Friday evening and learned that I do not have to report in tomorrow.  This jury duty is hard work, let me tell you.  I'm taking a rest day today, and right now my plan for tomorrow is to paddle even though it's supposed to be cloudy again and colder than 50 degrees.  It looks like there'll be lots of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, so those will be good days to stay indoors whether I have to go to court or not.  I really wish the court would go ahead and call me in, as the forecast is looking not so pleasant for the whole week.


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Monday, February 3, 2025

Monday photo feature

In August of 2016 I spent some time in the Hudson Valley of New York.  Here I'm paddling the Hudson River where it runs between the towns of Newburgh and Beacon, and it must have been a breezy day judging by all the water droplets on the camera lens.  That would be the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge that carries Interstate 84 over the river.


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