Swimming weather

Overall, we've had a pretty mild summer here in the Mid South.  Quite a few days in July and August have seen highs in the mid 80s Fahrenheit and lower.  We're now moving into a hotter spell, with temperatures in the mid to high 90s, but it hasn't seemed stifling the way it typically gets at this time of year.

I thought it was very nice down on the riverfront this morning, where I paddled the K1 for 60 minutes.  The temperature was well on its way up into the 90s, but there was a nice breeze blowing from the south.  I would get pretty hot during my paddling session, but, well, it should be in the 90s in Memphis on the last day of August.

I mentioned in last Sunday's post the importance of incorporating some speed in your training throughout the year.  Ron Lugbill reinforces and expands on the idea in this post on his blog.  He's talking mainly about slalom racing, but I think there's some relevance to the straight-ahead racing I'm doing these days.

After about a 15-minute warmup, I did four of my 12-stroke sprints.  Then I proceeded to do two timed pieces from the monorail bridge to the Auction Avenue bridge, a distance I estimate around 1100 or 1200 meters, maybe.

I've mentioned in past posts that my PR from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge is just over two minutes, and from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to the Auction Avenue bridge it's just under three minutes.  So five minutes would have been an excellent time; considering my not-so-intense training this summer and my intermediate skill level in the K1, I was more realistically expecting 5:15 or 5:20.  And the faster end of that range is what I got: on the first piece, I hit the HDB in 2:05 and the Auction bridge in 5:15, and on the second it was 2:05 HDB/5:13 total.  The times were pleasantly surprising considering that my mechanics felt a little clumsy; my strokes on the right in particular were really ker-plunking.

After the second piece I felt quite fatigued and I think the heat was getting to me a little.  I paddled back to the monorail bridge to finish off with a piece from that bridge to the HDB, but my form was really flagging.  About a third of the way in I missed a stroke on my right, and over I went.  Was I discouraged?  Nope--the water felt wonderful.  I swam the boat over to the Yacht Club boat ramp and dumped out the water, and paddled a nice cooldown back to my dock.

Forward strokes, not braces

I paddled the K1 this afternoon for 60 minutes.  It was hot but not stiflingly so, and the harbor was calm.

I did some more of that paddle-over-the-head drill, along with some one-sided paddling, which some might call a "canoeing drill" or "canoe paddling drill."

Interestingly, French flat water C1 racer Mathieu Goubel, in the video that I posted last Thursday, does what he calls a "kayaking drill," where he takes a stroke with his blade on one side, then pretends to take a stroke on the other side with the grip end of his paddle, and so on.

Basically, the objective is the same for Goubel's kayaking drill and my canoeing drill: to lengthen the interval during which the paddle is out of the water.  At these moments, the paddler must balance the boat without any help from the paddle.  I think my balance is improving, but I still seem to be leaning on my strokes for stability too much; one telltale sign is soreness in my wrists and forearms.  Ideally, you should be doing nothing but pulling yourself forward with your paddle.

Not fattening up, but trying to pamper myself more

During this very busy summer I haven't been very good about doing some of the little things that keep an athlete healthy and feeling good.  My diet hasn't been bad, and I'm getting almost eight hours of sleep a night, but I haven't been getting in those recovery sessions I talked about during the spring race season.

But I was motivated to do one tonight.  I've spent the last few days stripping almost a century's worth of gunk off the wooden staircase in my building, and that has involved much bending over while operating a couple of different electric sanders along with some hand-planing and hand-sanding.  This evening I was really feeling it in my lower back and hamstrings, so I took a nice warm bath and followed that with some stretching.  I still feel stiff but not nearly as bad as I did before.

On another topic, I weighed myself on my mother's bathroom scale today and registered 148.5 pounds. I'm generally not very diligent about weighing myself, largely because I don't own a decent scale of my own.

I've always been a pretty slender guy who doesn't put on weight easily.  During the peak of my career as a collegiate distance runner I weighed in at a waifish 115 pounds.  Once a series of injuries had waylaid my running endeavors, I began to gain some weight, but not because I was getting fat.  Rather, I was spending more time in the weight room and putting on some muscle mass.  Eventually I started taking my paddling more seriously and I think that further development of my upper-body muscles made me carry more weight naturally.  By the end of my twenties I weighed in the mid-130s, and a decade later I was tipping the scale in the high 140s.

These days, about 150 pounds seems to be what my body wants to weigh.  Once thing I've found when I very occasionally step on the scale is that a drop in weight seems to correlate with feelings of low energy and lethargy.  This was the case a week or ten days ago when I was in the physical doldrums: my mom's scale told me I was down to 146.5 pounds.  Now, at a couple of pounds more, I'm feeling pretty good in spite of my sore back.

Monday photo feature

There's a truly nifty park-and-play spot on the Colorado River upstream of Grand Junction.  "Big Sur" forms when the river rises above 20,000 cfs and the dam just downstream at Cameo opens its gates, allowing what's usually an impounded section of river to flow.  The picture of me above was taken in the summer of 1997 or '98.  The photographer was a guy I used to know named Tim... arrgh, his last name escapes me.

I've been thinking a lot about the American West lately.  I haven't been out there since a trip to New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah in 2005.  I want to go back to the Rockies, and to canyon country, and to California, and to Idaho, and to British Columbia, and to Alaska... one day I'll have a little spare time and a little spare change, and I'll go to all those places.

Paddling fast

I paddled the K1 in the harbor for 60 minutes this morning.  I felt about as comfortable in the boat as I ever have.  I did some more of those paddle-over-the-head drills and was able to relax my whole body while doing so.

I also did six of those 12-stroke sprints at maximum intensity that I do to give the ATP-CP energy system some work.  I usually do a lot of those in the final days before a big race, but I think it's useful to do some now and then just to keep feeling sharp and not so sluggish.  Also, because the motor skills for paddling at a high stroke rate are slightly different from those for steady paddling, I think it's a good idea to incorporate some fast paddling as I try to build my skill level in the K1.

Much learning took place

I taught my last class of the summer this morning.  Thanks to Outdoors, Inc., for making these classes possible.

This was the most productive of the six classes I taught in terms of topics covered: in addition to all the stuff I listed in this post two weeks ago, we went much more in-depth on the forward stroke, and also covered sweep strokes and deep-water re-entry.

There are two reasons that we covered more ground today.  The first is that there were only two students, and so I spent less time with group management.  The second is that we finally had the sort of weather one expects in August in the Mid South, and the students (and I) were much more eager to get wet than in previous classes.

Scofflaws in the harbor

This blog passed ten thousand views today.  But I'm not really that excited about it because a huge number of those "views" came from spam-bot sites of one kind or another.  Thanks to all the sure-enough human beings who have visited here out of a genuine interest.

I went down to the harbor this morning and paddled the K1 for 60 minutes.  I did so having just seen this video of French flatwater canoeist Mathieu Goubel.  Flatwater canoe racers use the high-kneel, or "take-a-knee," position in their boats, and this high center of gravity in a boat that's just as tippy as a K1 makes for the most difficult balancing act in paddlesports.

In the video Goubel shares a few staples of his training routine, and I tried one of his balance drills, sitting in the boat with my paddle over my head, this morning.  While doing so I tried to keep my lower body as relaxed as I could, like I mentioned in my post about Sunday's session.

I felt good for the first 20 minutes or so of the session, but then got all distracted by outside events: a speedboat came screaming off the river into the harbor, with no regard for the "no-wake" zones; a short while later, a pair of officers with the Police Harbor Patrol came roaring out of their marina, looking to issue the driver of the speedboat the ticket he so richly deserved.  The result was a very choppy harbor that took a long time to calm down.  My concentration blown, I ambled around on a succession of braces for the next half-hour.  And so, today's session was not as satisfying as it should have been.

Monday photo feature

Teresa Faulk, who handles the social media presence for Outdoors, Inc., snapped this picture as I went over boat nomenclature with the kids on Saturday morning.  She posted it on the Outdoors, Inc., Face Book page.

Relax!!!

There's just one more Outdoors, Inc., kayaking class on the schedule for now.  It's this Saturday from eight to eleven o'clock.  Go here for registration information.

I continue to be sore from Friday's post-hole digging, especially in my wrists and forearms.

On an overcast but otherwise nice morning yesterday, I paddled the K1 for 60 minutes in the harbor.  I did some drills (hesitation drill, one-sided paddling, backpaddling) and a couple of short sprints.

One thing I was conscious of during the session was my need to relax the lower half of my body.  In a tippy boat like the K1 there's a desire to "grip" the boat with my buttocks and legs to keep it upright.  But all that really accomplishes is to make my stroke more herky-jerky than it should be.

Ah, youth

A late addition brought this morning's roster to six, and I couldn't have asked for a more enthusiastic and good-natured bunch of kids.  I think they were all in the ten-to-twelve age range.

It's hard not to marvel at the energy of human beings at this age.  Each of these classes this summer has included a "tour" around Patriot Lake, a distance I estimate at a mile and a half or so, and the typical adult student looks as though he's been thoroughly challenged physically when it's over.  But today we got in a full lap and then added another half-lap, and the intensity was high enough that I came away feeling that I'd gotten a reasonably good morning of work.  I always enter these classes into my training log as a 60-minute session, but most Saturdays I'm drifting along with the slowest students, trying to keep an eye on the whole class.  This was the first time I thought I got anywhere near the same level of exercise that I'd get paddling myself or with a paddling peer for an hour.

The kids all left this morning acting like they wanted to paddle some more soon.  I hope they all do.

I'm getting soft

I haven't been lifting weights or doing any kind of strength work since my last races in June.  So it was a shock to my system this morning when I did some post-hole digging for the deck that some guys are building on the rear side of my building.  After some twenty minutes of busting through rocky, rooty soil, my arms quivered like gelatin and didn't stop for several hours.  I also got several monster blisters on my hands.

I guess teaching my class pain-free tomorrow morning would have been too easy.  I've got five pupils signed up for the "kids' class," and I'm hoping for good weather and loads of fun.

Beating the heat

At the end of another busy day (they're all busy these days), I made it down to the river for a 40-minute session in the K1.  I paddled steady and felt pretty solid in the boat.  I timed myself from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge--the course I'd like to break two minutes on one day--and finished in 2:07.  I felt like I was flying for the first 30 or 40 meters, but then as I settled into a lower stroke rate I started thinking about my balance too much and my stroke quality suffered.

At least the weather was nice: we're having several days of idyllic weather, with low humidity and temperatures in the low 80s Fahrenheit.  It's not at all what we Mid Southerners are used to in August.

Good end to the day

In case you haven't seen yesterday's post since early yesterday, I have added a link to Heather McNie's website.

I spent most of today running around town gathering supplies for the crew that's working on my building.  I finally got down to the dock just before five o'clock, and spent 60 minutes in the K1.  As usual there were moments of confidence and moments of wobbliness, but I think the quality of the confident moments is improving.  I'm able to focus more on clean, crisp strokes and good rotation.

Monday photo feature

Heather McNie is a lady up in Ontario who makes high-performance clothing, boat covers, paddle bags, and similar gear for canoe and kayak racers.  I've been buying stuff from her for a number of years now.  It's a bit of a hassle figuring out the current exchange rate between U.S. and Canadian dollars and dealing with shipping across an international border, but her stuff is nice enough to make it worth the trouble every several years.

My most recent purchase from Ms. McNie is the boat cover pictured above; I got it for the K1 I bought last winter.  It's a nice cover but it came with one flaw: the pouch that the rudder fits into was positioned about a foot too far forward.

I could have sent the cover back to Ontario for alteration, but doing so would have been a hassle for the aforementioned reasons.  So instead I turned to my friend Mary Allison, the co-founder of a business here in town called Sew Memphis.  Sew Memphis offers classes for anybody interested in learning to, well... sew.

Mary Allison said the job was "a piece of cake": she moved the rudder pouch aft about a foot, and now the rudder fits into it very nicely.

If Mary Allison is still seeking her niche in this world, maybe she could become the Heather McNie of the U.S.A.!

Still trying

This morning I paddled the K1 in the harbor for 60 minutes.  It's a day of scattered storms in the Mid South and I heard a lot of thunder, but I didn't get rained on.

During today's session I timed myself from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to the Auction Avenue bridge, over which my best time in a surf ski is a little under three minutes (2:57, I think).  I didn't paddle all-out because I still haven't yet achieved a skill level in this boat where I can paddle all-out.  My time was 3:22... meh.  But I think paddling at speed, along with steady paddling, slow paddling, and stroke drills, is part of the mix of stuff that will help me get comfortable in the K1.

Class comes to order again

I went back out to Patriot Lake this morning to teach another class for Outdoors, Inc.  This was the fourth of six sessions I'm scheduled to teach.  There's one next Saturday for kids ages 10 to 15, and then the last one on the schedule for now is August 24.  You can find more information here.

Each class is a stand-alone kayaking "primer," with a different group of students each week.  Most of the students are newcomers to paddling, and we cover as many of those frequently-asked questions newcomers have as we can.  We talk about things like putting on and adjusting a sprayskirt and PFD; stretching the skirt onto the cockpit coaming and then doing a wet exit; putting together a break-apart paddle and understanding the various feather angles; adjusting the boat's footpegs and deploying the rudder; and the basics of a good forward stroke.  We finish each class with a "tour" around the perimeter of the lake, a distance of between one and two miles, I would guess.

I also try to help the students make some sense out of the huge variety of boats that are on the market, as I mentioned in last Monday's post.

At the very least, I hope each student comes away feeling as though he's made a productive use of a Saturday morning and learned a thing or two he didn't know before.  With any luck, maybe a few will appreciate what an incredible way this is to enjoy the outdoors.

More than just a midlife-crisis indulgence?

This afternoon I paddled the K1 in the harbor for 60 minutes.  I suffered from a bout of diarrhea, which kept coming and going, intensifying and easing (geez, I hate that), but somehow I gutted out the entire hour-long session.

I've got to say one thing about the K1: even if I never get comfortable enough to race in it, I think it's proving worth the expense because it's given me a purpose this summer.  Now that my biggest races are over, it would be very easy to skip paddling entirely while I deal with all the other crazy things in my life, but my desire to make use of the warm weather for practicing in this tippy boat has gotten me down to the river on a regular basis.

Monday photo feature

The boat I'm paddling in this photo is a Storm by Current Designs.  It's the boat I have been teaching class in this summer.

Students in class always ask what sort of kayak they should buy.  As in most other areas, you get what you pay for in this sport.  You can buy a kayak for a couple hundred bucks at places like Dick's Sporting Goods, but those boats are generally short and wide, and therefore slow and unwieldy and not much fun to paddle.  If a boat isn't fun to paddle, you're not going to paddle it very much.

The next step up is a polyethylene plastic touring boat, and there is a broad variety within this category. The boats can be anywhere from 13 to 17 feet or so; some have rudders and some don't; most have hatches for gear storage; and they can glide nicely or be slow as a barge.  The retail price of these boats ranges from maybe $800 to over $2000.

The nicest touring kayaks are made of composite materials like carbon fiber and Kevlar and are designed to glide effortlessly.  They are 18 feet long or longer, and retail for $2500 and up.

I have a fair bit of experience with these nicest boats: my ex-spouse owns one (a Looksha III that Necky used to make) and a number of my friends have them.  They are certainly a delight to paddle.  I have also logged many miles in the Storm pictured above.  It is heavier and slower than a composite boat, but one nice thing about it is I don't feel like I have to baby it.  Cramming it full of camping gear and dragging it over sandbars and gravel bars is no big deal.

I tell students and anybody else who asks to get the best boat they can comfortably afford.  At a minimum, get a decent polyethylene boat like my Storm.  It will reward you with many years of good times out on the water.  Remember that a longer boat is generally a faster boat, and a rudder is a nice feature, especially if you plan to paddle open bodies of water with a lot of wind exposure.

And I'll add this: please support independent dealers rather than big chains like Dick's and Bass Pro Shops.  You might--might--have to pay a little more, but you're more likely to have a salesperson who knows the bow of a kayak from the stern helping you choose the right boat.

Much better

This has been the most relaxing day I have had in forever.  This past week was full of "pinball" days where I felt like I was constantly on the go, but today I got to do things I care about, at my pace.

It started with a full night of sleep.  Thoroughly exhausted by the end of yesterday, I was in bed by 8:30, listening to the St. Louis Cardinals lose to the Cincinnati Reds on the radio.  I was asleep for real not long after nine o'clock.

After a leisurely breakfast this morning, I did some stretching.  Stretching is an activity that has slipped through the cracks during my insane summer, and it was nice to feel unhurried enough today to do a full stretch routine.

Then I went downtown and paddled my K1 for 60 minutes.  I felt comfortable in the boat for most of the session.  I did a few drills (one-sided paddling and backpaddling) and paddled the squirrelly water where the harbor meets the Mississippi River.  Besides that I just enjoyed another atypical August day for the Mid South: while it did get above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the humidity was down and there was a nice north breeze.

After lunch and a nap, I went to my workshop and worked on a cabinet project that I'm getting done little by little for an understanding client.  On the radio, the Cardinals paid back those dastardly Reds with an old-fashioned spanking.

I reckon I'll do some reading this evening, and maybe break out some good tunes on my hi-fi device.  My goal for the future is for all my days to be like today.  It's a goal I probably won't ever entirely achieve, of course, but I think I'm moving in the right direction with the impending relocation of my home and workshop.

Back to class

I got to Patriot Lake this morning around 7:40 AM, ahead of an eight o'clock start time.  Today I was armed with a broom, because in the last two classes our putin has been soiled by goose droppings.  A teacher's gotta adapt.

The weather again was unseasonably cool, with dark skies and a chance of showers.  We got the class in and everybody did just fine, but in August in Memphis you expect the sort of sizzling weather in which students can't wait to get on (and in) the lake.  Oh well... the bright side is that the rain held off just long enough: it started falling as I was driving out of the parking lot after class was over.

Two more classes for adults are scheduled on August 10 and August 24.  On August 17, there will be a class for kids ages 10 to 15.  Go here for more information.

Breathing a little easier

At the end of a pretty crazy week during which I moved out of the garage apartment behind what used to be my mother's house, I finally made it back down to the riverfront for a little time in the boat.  I paddled the K1 for 60 minutes: no time trials, no stroke drills... just some paddling.  I had a couple of wobbly moments but mostly felt good in the boat.

This afternoon I went by the Outdoors, Inc., location in Midtown to pick up the trailer for tomorrow's class.  Looks like I'll have five eager students for a three-hour lesson in introductory kayaking.