What doesn't kill me makes me stronger

The balmy spell has passed, as I knew it would.  But the cold snaps are becoming less severe as we draw closer and closer to spring.  This latest one features highs in the 30s (Fahrenheit) rather than highs in the 20s.

I've paddled with Joe the last two days.  Joe is recovering from the shoulder surgery he had last summer and can't really do any hard paddling, but I got in a few sprints yesterday and today, just to keep my body used to it.  We paddled for 60 minutes yesterday and 80 minutes today.

The weather this morning was about 30 degrees Fahrenheit with bright sunshine.  It might have been a lovely day to paddle had an icy wind not been screaming out of the northwest.  That was enough to make it seem like an ordeal instead.  I got chilled to the core and remained so for the rest of the day.  But I'm still a believer that when the weather is bad--cold or hot--you just have to immerse yourself in it.  The beautiful days seem that much sweeter if you do.

Monday photo feature

These February days have me dreaming of summer.  And nothing says summer like a camp canoe trip.  Rion Smith snapped this photo of me leading some campers down a section of the French Broad River in 1992.  I appear to be clowning around for the camera.

Confused water and confused muscles

I went to the river this morning and paddled for 100 minutes in bright sunshine.  A stiff northwest wind kept the temperature below 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

After warming up I did six of those pieces where I follow a few back strokes with six hard forward strokes.  Then I spent the rest of the time doing a loosely-structured workout where I did sprints of varying lengths with long recovery periods.  Parts of the river were quite choppy because of the wind, and a lot of my attention was occupied by balance and control issues.  Once again, my muscles were firing in sync some of the time, but not all of the time.  I'd like to achieve more consistency with that.

Trying to nail the sprints

This morning I did the February strength routine and paddled for 60 minutes.  In the boat I did eight six-stroke sprints at one-minute intervals, and then spent the half hour from 0:25 to 0:55 doing 30-second sprints at four-minute intervals.

I had hit the strength work pretty hard, and as a result was tired in the boat.  The workout felt taxing, but I tried to maintain good technique throughout.  Making a canoe or kayak go fast demands good technique, and I feel like I nail it some of the time, but not all of the time.  Of the eight 30-second sprints I did today, it seemed there were maybe two or three where I felt I truly had all cylinders firing.

Spring tease

A break from the winter misery has arrived in a big way.  We're on our third day of temperatures in the neighborhood of 70 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.  Of course, at this time of year warm weather usually comes at a price.  It has been quite breezy, and the forecast calls for a chance of violent storms this afternoon.  After this front goes through we're supposed to return to more sealable temperatures.  Tempting though it is to believe winter is over, the reality is that it's still mid-February.

Oh well, one way or another I'll get my work in.  This week I've done the February strength routine on Monday and Wednesday and will do it again tomorrow.  Joe and I have logged some time on the water together--70 minutes on Tuesday and 80 minutes yesterday.

Race season is still a ways off.  The Battle On The Bayou race at Ocean Springs used to be the first Saturday in March, but this year it's been pushed back to the last Saturday in hopes of warmer weather down there.  So, I'll wait.  But I never seem to lack for things to do.

Monday photo feature

Andrew McEwan, the top U.S. wildwater racer in the late 1990s and early 2000s, competes in the 2001 FIBArk downriver race on the Arkansas River in Colorado.  This race, starting in Salida and finishing in Cotopaxi, is the oldest whitewater competition in the U.S.

Winter eases up a little

We're finally getting some nicer weather here in the Mid South.  Today it's sunny with a forecast high in the mid 50s Fahrenheit.  As I took my paddling gear out to the car this morning, I was tempted to think that spring was in the air.  But on the 16th of February, I know better.  Sure enough, I later found myself paddling up the Mississippi against a stiff north breeze.  But compared to the long frigid stretches we've had, today is an awfully nice day.

I continued my pattern of going longer on Sundays, and paddled for 120 minutes.  I paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf River, then couple of miles up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge that links North Memphis with Frayser.

For most of the session I tried to maintain a good solid aerobic pace.  When I reached the mouth of the Wolf, I embarked on a set of three long surges.  The first one went from the power lines that mark the start of the OICK Race to the Second Street bridge (elapsed time: about seven minutes).  I returned to my cruising pace from there up to Danny Thomas, and then did another surge back down to Second Street (elapsed time: about eight and a half minutes).  I recovered from there back down to where the Wolf enters the Mississippi, and did my last surge on the big river down to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge (elapsed time: about eleven minutes).  That left me about a 25-minute cool-down back to the dock.

I was plenty tired by the time I returned to the harbor, and my stroke form was really faltering as I approached the dock.  I'm glad I finished when I did--I sure don't need to be reinforcing bad strokes.

On the mend

My left ring finger has a long way to go, but there's visible improvement.

I'm always fascinated with the body's ability to mend itself, and the simple medical procedures that can help it along.  As I mentioned back when the accident occurred, I had no flap of skin that the ER doctor could fold over the wound and sew in place, so instead he ran the thread through the finger's deep interior, and cinched it tight like a drawstring bag:

All I can say is, thank goodness for the nerve-deadening shot he gave me first.  The stitches went right through what was left of my fingernail:

These stitches held the whole mess together for ten days.  Yesterday I returned to the plastic surgeon's office, and she removed them:

It hurt, but it was over in a minute, and I think my finger will feel a lot better as the perforations heal up.

In the meantime, I continue the business of getting myself into racing shape.  It started this morning with another iteration of the February strength routine.  Then I headed to the river, where I was greeted with partly-sunny skies and a Fahrenheit temperature in the mid 30s.  I paddled for 60 minutes, starting off with my little power-building drill where I follow a few backstrokes with six hard forward strokes.  I did six of these at two-minute intervals.  For the rest of the hour I did a loosely-structured workout in which I did a long sprint every few minutes.  I did five in all, which is not bad considering that I felt a bit tired in the boat for some reason.

No blizzard here

This morning I went through the February strength routine and then headed down to the river to paddle for 60 minutes.  Somehow the Memphis area has dodged the biggest winter storms this season: while the snow and ice currently hitting the southeastern U.S. is making national news, here we've seen just a dusting.  A very light precipitation fell during the hour that I was on the water, and I was never quite sure if it was snow or sleet or just plain rain.  But the temperature was apparently below freezing, as I came away with another ice trophy:

After doing the Kieffer warmup, I spent the next half hour building very gradually into a strong tempo piece.  Then I cooled down for the last fifteen minutes.  I felt tired in the boat today but not too much so to focus on good stroke mechanics.

A "frozen pogies" day

The latest snowstorm has bypassed the Memphis area, but cold temperatures haven't.  The display in my car's dashboard read 22 degrees Fahrenheit as I arrived at the river this morning.  The north wind probably pushed the wind chill value down close to single digits.  Oh, yeah.  I might have stayed in today except that my schedule gets busier later in the week.  Among other things, I'll be visiting the plastic surgeon again Friday and I hope she'll be taking my stitches out.

I paddled in the harbor for 60 minutes.  I tried to set a quick steady pace with several long surges.  The sun came out shortly after I put in, and I really wasn't that uncomfortable.  My finger felt a little better on the paddle shaft today, and I would guess that the flexing and relaxing of its muscles with each stroke is good therapy for it.

On days like today, I come off the river with an ice trophy:

Yesterday morning I went another round with the February strength routine.

Monday photo feature

Last Tuesday was a really, really rainy day.  Joe Royer and I paddled that morning, and then Joe took this "selfie" of us on the dock, letting our smiles be our umbrellas.  It's a little hard to see, but the rain is most definitely coming down behind us.

For this week there's all kinds of talk about snow coming our way.  If it does, I'll try to post more pictures to arouse the envy of readers in tropical climates.

Grinding back into motion

I spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday laying low in the house, doing a few minimal chores but mostly just lying around and taking long naps.  I felt crummy, almost sick--partly because of the medication I was on, I think, and partly because my body was having to devote much of its energy to dealing with my finger wound.  Friday morning I went and saw the plastic surgeon, who thought my injury was not so serious and wouldn't require any further operation.  She said as long as I kept the wound clean I should be able to go back to most of my normal activities.  She prescribed a different antibiotic that wouldn't make me feel so lousy, and by late Friday I felt on my way back to the world of the living.

Yesterday morning I got back to the February strength routine, which goes something like this: a couple of drills on the exercise ball, a set of bent-over rows with a dumbbell, a couple more exercise ball drills, a set of power cleans with a cinder block, one last drill on the ball, and a set of step-ups on the stairs.  I had a little bit of trouble gripping the dumbbell with my left hand, but otherwise it all went just fine.  My core is weak and I'm looking forward to un-weakening it.

I was out of the boat for four days, and they were a pretty good four days to be out of the boat: I think the temperature stayed below freezing for some 72 straight hours during that time.  This morning's weather was not exactly cheer-inducing--grey skies and 35 degrees Fahrenheit--but it's supposed to go back to sub-freezing with some frozen precipitation soon, so down to the river I went for a 90-minute session.

My bandaged finger felt a little awkward, but didn't really hinder my paddling at all.  Most of the time it's not necessary, and in fact not even desirable, to have a rigor-mortis-type grip on a kayak paddle.  By keeping your hands relaxed you conserve energy and avoid undue stress on your wrist and forearm muscles.

After a ten-minute warmup, I did eight six-stroke sprints at one-minute intervals.  Then I spent the forty minutes from 0:25 to 1:05 doing 30-second sprints at four-minute intervals.  The workout felt hard, and my finger was a mental distraction, but I think it went pretty well.  There were several pieces right in the middle where I felt I was moving the boat with authority.

I came home and cleaned the wound and changed the dressing, per doctor's orders.

First more rain, and now a forced layoff

I think I've worked up a good strength routine (from now on I'll call it the February strength routine) involving most of the static drills in the Jing Jing Li video, some bent-over rows with dumbbells, some power cleans with a cinder block, and some step-ups on the stairs.  I did this routine for the first time yesterday morning, and refreshed my memory of how hard these exercises are.

Then I went to the river and paddled with my friend Joe on another incredibly rainy day.  The temperature was 33 degrees Fahrenheit--just warm enough for the precipitation to be liquid.  The temperature had been below freezing all day Monday, and there was still plenty of ice on the dock and on the ramp leading down to the marina.  We did a full lap of the harbor in 70 minutes.  Once again, the paddling was reasonably comfortable, but getting my boat on and off the rack in the rain was a real endurance test.

It all added up to a satisfying morning of work.  Unfortunately, for me the afternoon was full of unwanted drama.  I was just starting to make a table and was running some boards for the top over the jointer machine, and when a splinter began to dig into my left palm, I jerked that hand away and my ring finger went into the cutterhead, chopping off maybe a centimeter of its tip.  I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the emergency room, and now the finger is stitched up and covered with a honking-big bandage:

(For those of you who are familiar with jointer machines: yes, mine is equipped with a guard that is supposed to cover the part of the cutterhead that is not contacting the workpiece, but the spring mechanism that pulls the guard against the fence has worn out and doesn't really work anymore.  I'll accept the blame for not having fixed that.)

How long this is going to keep me out of the boat is uncertain.  I'm counting on a few days, minimum.  Right now I can barely grip anything with my left hand, and I expect it would behoove me to keep the bandage clean and dry as much as possible.  Part of the problem is that I had no fold of skin left that the doctor could sew over the wound, so he sewed it up as much as he could and we're hoping the hole that's left is small enough to heal on its own, with no further surgical procedures (I have a followup visit scheduled for this Friday at this doctor's plastic surgery practice).

I should be able to continue with most of my strength routine--I'm not sure at the moment about the couple of exercises that use weights.  I've never felt compelled to get one of those kayak ergometer machines because winters are usually pretty mild where I live, but I sort of wish I had one now.  I'm not aware of one in my city.

The following photo will give you an idea of how much this thing was bleeding.  At one point the doctor placed a stack of gauze sponges in my lap and asked me to rest my unbandaged finger on top of it.  When we were done with that, we realized the blood had soaked all the way through the gauze and into my jeans.  I came home looking like I'd taken a gunshot to my right thigh:

Monday photo feature

I post another warm-weather photo to take our minds off the wintry precipitation descending upon the Mid South.  Oddly enough, this photo was taken right at this time of year--early February--but the setting is a few degrees latitude closer to the equator.  What we have here is a mangrove tunnel just inside Everglades National Park near Key Largo, Florida.

All wet

With a new month comes a new strength routine.  I've sort of been neglecting my core, so I'll be working it hard for the next couple of months.  In recent years I've learned some great core exercises involving an exercise ball, many of which are demonstrated in this video by Chinese whitewater slalom racer Jing Jing Li.  I actually only managed a cursory strength session today because I was pressed for time, but I hope to work up a good routine over the next couple of days.

Down at the river it was anything but unseasonably warm like yesterday was.  When I arrived at the marina it was 34 degrees Fahrenheit and raining.  But the rain eased up as I paddled out of the harbor and was no worse than a drizzle for most of my 90-minute session.

I started with a little warmup routine that I learned from one of Austin Kieffer's posts, here.  Then I paddled from the mouth of the harbor up to the mouth of the Wolf River at approximately the pace I'll likely race at down at Ocean Springs at the end of next month.  There was a cold north wind that wasn't too bad, but threw some occasional gusts at me.  The elapsed time was about 33 minutes.  I recovered from that with ten minutes of easy paddling on the flatwater of the lower Wolf.  Then I paddled at a faster pace back down the Mississippi to the mouth of the harbor.  My elapsed time was less than half of what it had been paddling up that same piece of river: fifteen and a half minutes.  Makes a big difference having the current and the wind in your favor.

As I paddled up the harbor back to the marina, the rain began to pick up again and it was coming down pretty hard by the time I reached the dock.  I guess you could say I hit the window of lighter precipitation perfectly, though it was kind of a drag putting my boat away in the pouring-down rain.

Up and at 'em

Today it's overcast and breezy, but unseasonably warm--up into the 60s on the Fahrenheit thermometer.

Having stayed out late seeing some live music, I slept in this morning, and as I dragged myself out of bed I just about decided to skip paddling.  But once I was more awake I realized that days as nice as today are rare this winter, so I went on down for a 60-minute session.  I was a bit tired in the boat and just paddled steady.

As I paddled past the Memphis Queen docking facility, I saw a big, fat, furry brown beaver on one of the floating docks.  I was almost on top of him before he saw me and slipped into the water.  He didn't slap his tail on the surface, so I guess he didn't consider me too much of a threat.