Recapping the week

Time to catch up after a little holiday interruption.  I paddled for just 40 minutes Wednesday morning because it was darn cold, and windy.  I stayed in the harbor and avoided the wind as much as I could. I did four of my 12-stroke sprints and otherwise paddled a nice crisp pace.

I did 200 pushups both Tuesday and Thursday, and shortly I will do another couple hundred on this last day of November.  Doing 200 pushups is noticeably tougher than doing 150.

Right now I'm in Asheville, having a little breakfast before I head about thirty miles up the French Broad River to Brevard for Nath Thompson's memorial service.

Monday photo feature

As I prepare to go to North Carolina for Nath Thompson's memorial service this Saturday, I figure a shot of me playing around in Nantahala Falls is somehow appropriate, for this Nantahala River rapid (also known as "Lesser Wesser") represents a rite of passage for many a summer camp canoeist in western North Carolina.

1981 was the summer that I really got into canoeing at camp.  Campers who performed well on Class II streams like the Tuckasegee and the Green were invited to run the Nantahala, and the Falls, just above the takeout at the end of the run, was the first rapid all summer that we got out of our boats to scout.  You could hear a lot of pre-adolescent teeth chattering as the counselors pointed out the best line for a successful run.

My partner and I flipped our canoe in the Falls that first time, and suffered the indignity of being fished out of the river while counselors chased down our boat and gear.  The next summer I ran the Nantahala again with a different partner, and flipped in the Falls again.  Finally, in 1983, two long years after my first attempt, I "made it" though the Falls.  I could walk through camp with a swagger at last.

Winter has arrived early. Oh, the joy.

I paddled for 70 minutes yesterday under overcast skies with a temperature of about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and a north wind screaming all the way from the river's source in Minnesota, or so it felt.  I broke out the pogies for the first time this season.  Last night the temperature fell into the mid 20s Fahrenheit, and this morning I did my first sub-freezing paddle of the year.  It took about five minutes for my frozen rudder to work itself free.  I paddled for 60 minutes.

These first cold-weather sessions of the season are an annual ritual, and I enjoy them in sort of a masochistic way ("Bring it on baby!  I can handle anything you got!").  But by February I will be very weary of it all.  Make that January, given this early date for my first frozen rudder.

As I mentioned in a recent post, I'm going for shorter, faster sessions this year, and both yesterday and today I tried to keep my pace as high as I could while still being comfortably in the aerobic zone. Today it was a bit of a chore, probably because I was tired from yesterday--it had been a while since I'd paddled on consecutive days.

I've gotten pretty comfortable doing 150 pushups in a day, and I might push that up to 200 in this last week of November.

Train to go fast

Both Sunday and this morning, I did ten sets of fifteen pushups.  I could definitely feel the increased effort it took to do 150, compared with the 100 I had been doing.

After this morning's pushups I went down to the river for 60 minutes in the boat.  Another brisk north wind was blowing.  I hate wearing pogies, but I'm afraid the pogies season is descending upon us rapidly.  The good news is that my heat is now on at home.

I wouldn't say I'm back into full training mode yet, but I've been giving it a lot of thought.  One thing I think I will do this coming season is keep my sessions in to 60-to-90-minute range, rather than the 90-to-120 minutes that's been typical of past winter training seasons.  I'm still reading Ron Lugbill's blog regularly, and one of his recurring themes is the avoidance of long, slow endurance sessions because all they do is train your body to paddle slow.  Granted, Lugbill's focus is on slalom racing, but I think much of his advice carries over to the racing I do as well.  He cites research that supports the idea that even for athletes in endurance sports like triathlon, year-round work on speed and motor skills is more effective than many ultra-long endurance sessions.

Today's session was in keeping with these thoughts.  After warming up I did four of my twelve-stroke sprints at maximum intensity, and then I paddled fairly close to anaerobic threshold for the next 30 or 40 minutes before cooling down in my return to the marina.

Early winter

Yesterday I did a hundred pushups at home and then paddled downtown for 60 minutes.  Mississippi River level: half a foot below zero on the Memphis gauge.

Chilly weather has arrived early this year, and we've just had a run of several below-freezing overnight lows.  And that's especially bad for me because due to a combination of factors my new home does not yet have any heat.  I've spent the better part of this week hanging around the house in a winter coat and fleece cap.

At least it was beautiful and sunny outside for much of the week, but yesterday morning I woke up and heard rain beating on the roof.  Just getting out of bed seemed like the ultimate challenge.

I have found that the best way to get through not-so-pleasant stretches of weather in both winter and summer is just to immerse myself in it.  I could have stayed hunkered down indoors yesterday, but all that would've done is remind me what a miserable day it was, and then I would have felt like a worthless sloth at the end of the day for not getting out and doing something.

As long as I'm properly dressed, I'm usually plenty warm in the boat on a cold day, and so that was the case yesterday.  After my paddling session I felt ready to take on the rest of the day.

Welcome to my Arctic paradise.  The Celsius equivalent is about 12 degrees.

Monday photo feature

It takes all kinds of little things to make a house a home.  Over the weekend I made a huge step in the right direction when I put up a clothesline for my paddling clothes.

Nath Thompson 1930-2013

Charles Nathan Thompson ("Nath," with a long "a"), pictured here with son Alfred to his right and wife Mary to his left, was the director of Camp Carolina for Boys in Brevard, North Carolina, from 1959 until his retirement in the mid 1990s.  I attended Carolina from 1978 until 1992, and Nath deserves about as much credit (blame?) as anybody for me being the person that I have become.  (Photo lifted from the Camp Carolina website.)

School was not a happy place for me when I was a kid.  I attended boys' schools with roughly the same group of other kids from kindergarten through twelfth grade, and the entire experience felt like this game that I was losing before I ever even knew the rules.  In the elementary grades, one's place in the pecking order was determined by his athletic gifts--throwing a football, shooting a basketball, and so on.  I was weak in those departments.  By high school I had found a sport (running) that I was good at, but by that time the "cool club" had moved on to the prerequisites for frat-boydom and a head start up the corporate ladder.

It was from that world that I first went to camp in the summer of '78, between the fourth and fifth grades.  Under Nath, the philosophy of Camp Carolina centered around simplicity of life, self reliance, and human relations, and I had finally found a place where I felt at home.

Simplicity of life: a camper's existence was stripped down to the things that mattered: friendships; fun, healthy, outdoor activities; a few basic responsibilities (making the bed, helping clean up the cabin); three meals a day; a bit of downtime ("Rest Hour," each day after lunch); and a good night's sleep.

Self reliance: activities that encouraged participation rather than spectating; the freedom to choose one's activities for each week rather than follow a schedule handed down from above; doing for yourself those things that your parents or a housekeeper might do for you at home.

Human relations: Nath's signature advice was always to greet another with a firm handshake and a look in the eye, and as trite as that might sound, I believe it has gone a long way toward offsetting the weaker parts of my social skill set.

Among my favorite activities at camp were riflery, horseback riding, backpacking, and, of course, canoeing.  But it was clear that these activities were primarily about challenging oneself rather than competing with others.  For Nath, a most important aspect of the summer camp experience was to give boys a break from a world that all too often pressured them to make the best grades, be the most accomplished athletes, get into the best schools, and land the best jobs.  At Carolina, there were no medals, ribbons, trophies, or any other awards given out, with one exception: the Old Man of the Mountains award for good citizenship.  Campers were rewarded for being good guys who put the wishes of others ahead of their own and pulled their weight within the camp community.  The award was, fittingly enough, a canoe paddle ("a useful instrument in a boy's hand," Nath said).  A boy who earned his paddle in his first summer would then have brands burned onto the paddle as he demonstrated good citizenship in subsequent summers.

My Old Man of the Mountains award for good citizenship.  I got the paddle in my first summer in 1978, and then earned brands over the next few summers.








As the 80s wore on I aged out of camperhood and began to take on more responsibility as an assistant counselor and then a counselor.  And so Nath became the first boss I ever had.  Sadly, it wouldn't be until much later that I realized just how special a boss he was.  These days I am self-employed, and suffice it to say that my difficulties cooperating with a boss have a lot to do with that.

As a seasonal employee of Camp Carolina from age seventeen until age twenty-four, I was a much less mature version of my present-day self, and I had my share of disagreements with Nath during those summers.

Sometimes it was a philosophical difference of opinion, a common occurrence in my last several summers when I headed the canoeing program.  Though the Carolina program had a tradition of teaching good solid river-running skills, I was envious of the more racing-oriented programs at nearby camps like Mondamin and Merrie-Woode, camps whose alumni went on to make Olympic teams or achieve other high-profile feats in the paddling world.  I often found myself exasperated with Nath's unwavering commitment to his noncompetitive camp model in which paddling a canoe was merely one of many facets of a camper's overall experience, and I not so tactfully let him know it on more than one occasion.

Other times I was simply a snarky little snot.  Complaining about the meager salaries or grousing about having to pull an extra duty rather than enjoy some time off was a favorite pastime among the counselors, most of whom came from comfortable backgrounds and were working at camp more for fun than for money.  It was not beneath me to join in, even when Nath was within earshot.

I probably would have fired myself for a few of the things I said, but Nath always handled it with a gentle touch.  He never lost faith in me as an asset to the camp community, and more importantly, he understood that most of my life would be spent outside the camp community.  Maybe he hoped to help me learn from the stupid things I said or did at camp, that I might be better equipped to survive in the real world; or maybe he just figured I would get my comeuppance eventually, but was humble enough to realize it was not his to mete out.

Mind you, Nath was nobody's fool: there were certain lines you did not cross with him, and I saw him dismiss several counselors with long, otherwise spotless relationships with Carolina because they had transgressed in a way that Nath considered inexcusable.  But even then, he made it clear that he cared about them and would continue to be there for them if needed.

Since my last summer at Carolina I have continued to pursue my lifelong love affair with paddling, and, yes, that has included quite a bit of training and competing.  But just like at camp, the real joy comes from things that have nothing to do with the post-race results sheet.  I have made many fine friends in the sport, and I greet them with a firm handshake and a look in the eye.  My time out on the water is an important break from the attendant concerns of making a living and owning a home.

Nath passed away this past month.  As of this writing I do not know many of the details, but I believe that the end came a couple of weeks after he was hospitalized with an illness.  Since his retirement from running Carolina, Nath had continued a rich life with his wife Mary and his friends and plenty of activity.  His legendary sense of humor never dimmed, I understand.

There will be a memorial service on the camp property on November 30 that I plan to attend.  Perhaps we'll sing a few of the spirituals we used to sing at vespers every Sunday evening: "Hey Sinner Man," "Wade In The Water," "Swing Low Sweet Chariot."  Maybe we'll even work in some of the not-so-reverent ones like "Mountain Dew" and "Greenback Dollar."  Whatever happens, I expect there will be many others like me, returning to this special place to remember the kind man who made some of their most cherished childhood moments possible.

Pretty weather

I spent part of this beautiful sunny day down at the river, paddling my surf ski for 60 minutes.  As I paddled alongside the Greenbelt Park, the annual Outdoors, Inc., Cyclocross Race was in progress.  The water level was just a hair below zero on the Memphis gauge.

I also got in another hundred pushups: I did fifty on the dock before paddling and fifty on the dock after paddling.

Pushups

As I inch down the long list of stuff to do in my new home, paddling and exercise continue to be minimal these days.  But I did get out in the surf ski for 60 minutes yesterday.  The Memphis gauge reading for the Mississippi was a tenth of a foot above zero.

I'm also trying to get back into a strength routine as a new racing season looms out there on the horizon.  This month I'm keeping it simple: pushups.

This past Monday, I did 100 pushups in sets of ten.  I repeated that Wednesday and yesterday, and hope to do it every other day for the rest of November.  I'm trying to work in a variety of hand and foot positions, Hindu pushups, and so on.  As the month goes on I'll increase the number of reps per set, depending on how I'm feeling.

This idea was inspired by a murderer.  In college I had a friend in the law school who worked in a legal clinic for indigent clients, and much of his time was spent helping an inmate on death row navigate the appeals process.  This inmate was unbelievably strong and spent the long hours in his cell working out.  Having lost his weight room privileges because he had killed another inmate there, his routine included doing a thousand pushups a day.

If I could manage a thousand pushups a day--and I have serious doubts about that--it would require a significant portion of my day to complete.  Maybe I would do fifty sets of 20 reps, or forty sets of 25... however I did it, each set would require an adequate recovery interval, and I've just got too much to do as long as I'm not incarcerated.  So for now, ten sets of ten is it.  We'll see how this little experiment develops.

Back in the boat, finally

For almost three weeks, I was completely focused on a long list of finishing chores at my building, and did not paddle at all.  Then on Friday afternoon, after I had spent the entire day building shelves inside my closets, I realized that I had missed out on a gorgeous fall day.  So I resolved to make time to get back on the river yesterday.  I paddled the surf ski for 70 minutes, in the middle of which I took a short hike on a large sandbar at the mouth of the Loosahatchie Chute.

Unfortunately, yesterday was somewhat less lovely than Friday had been.  A front had come through overnight, and a stiff, chilly wind was blowing from the north, and clouds made up a large percentage of a partly-cloudy sky.  Making matters worse is that a lot of my cool-weather paddling clothing is still packed in boxes I know not where.  So while it didn't stop me from paddling, I didn't linger and enjoy the sights on my little hike as much as I'd have liked.

But I did at least snap several photos.  With the Mississippi River at a typically low autumn level (-4.1 feet on the Memphis gauge), a lot of terrain that is underwater for much of the year is exposed right now.  All the sand you see in these photos will probably be submerged for the first six or seven months of next year.