I shouldn't get upset over little things

I'd planned to paddle yesterday morning, but some unexpected things came up and before I knew it, the morning had gotten away.  Even though I should know better at this point in my athletic life, I let it bother me the rest of the day.  I reminded myself there wasn't much time left to get some meaningful work in before my first race on March 19.  I also hated not taking advantage of the lovely day yesterday was: it was in the mid 60s Fahrenheit and sunny, albeit quite windy.

I was determined to make it up today, and as it turned out today was an even better day: sunny again, a high temperature near 70 degrees, and much less windy.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did a workout of eight 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.

My cold symptoms seem to be running their course.  I'm still somewhat congested and my throat feels a bit raw, but it's not too bad.  I also paid a follow-up visit to the orthopedist today regarding my foot, which continues to feel much better even though I'm not sure it's a hundred percent cured.  The doctor said that was to be expected and my progress looked good to him.

Have I mentioned how glad I am to be home?  As enjoyable as my trip to Hawaii ended up being, there's just no place like home.  It's chillier here, even on a nice day like today, and it's supposed to get stormy tomorrow; and the water is colder and muddier.  But it's home, by golly.

Monday photo feature

Last week I borrowed my cousin's Go Pro camera to get some shots out on the water around Oahu.

I actually own a Go Pro camera myself, but I haven't used it in several years.  I think the reason is the incredible glut of Go Pro videos posted on You Tube and shared on social media: every now and then I find a video worth watching, because it was shot in a locale I'm fascinated with or was shot in a race I'm interested in; but most of them seem utterly mediocre and forgettable to me, and I just don't want to be That Guy.

But I used my cousin's camera to shoot still photos--you can set a Go Pro to take a picture every minute, or every 30 seconds, or every ten seconds, or even every two seconds--and I like some of the results.  It's making me consider breaking my own Go Pro out again soon.  Of course, the beauty of digital photography is that you can delete all the many lame photos you're certain to end up with, and hold onto a handful of gems.

The photo above shows me paddling on Kaneohe Bay on the east side of Oahu last Tuesday.  The Go Pro's wide-angle lens does a nice job of capturing the surrounding landscape.

Re-contiguating myself

I really had to drag myself down to the river this morning.

I'm having sort of a rough transition out of vacation and back into everyday life.  The trip home was an overnight ultra marathon during which I tried in vain to get a bit of sleep on the plane.  The round trip involved six flights, and on five of those I was in a middle seat on planes that were packed to the rafters.  I finally got a break on the last leg, from Atlanta to Memphis, when I found myself with two seats to myself.  That flight was less than 90 minutes; such a situation on a longer flight would have been nice.

On top of the grueling journey across four time zones, I arrived home with a cold that I must have caught from my cousin's kids.  So I've spent the last two days trying to get my body back on Central Time and medicating myself with over-the-counter cold remedies.  My brain continues to function in a dense fog.

That's the state I was in when I got in the boat today.  My body felt fine during an easy 40-minute session, but my mind was anything but sharp.  I tried to focus on all the components of a good stroke and keep all muscle groups moving in perfect synchronization.  Even though it didn't feel like much of a workout, I think it did me some good to go out and get some blood moving in those muscles.

Actually, my body feels quite good aside from the virus and the circadian wackiness.  My foot seems to have survived several arduous day hikes and a lot of street walking pretty well, and my back and shoulder and everything else are free of pain at the moment.  With my first race of the season now just three weeks away, that's encouraging.  Hopefully I can kick this bug soon and get in several good workouts in the next couple of weeks.

Swan song

Today was my last full day in Hawaii, and I headed up to a part of Oahu where I hadn't paddled yet: Kaneohe Bay, over on the east side.  Even though the surf was reportedly quite rough elsewhere on the island, Kaneohe Bay was quite calm.

I put in at a park near the junction of highways 83 and 803, and paddled toward Mokoli'i Island, the little bit of rock just right of my bow:

This island is nicknamed "Chinaman's Hat" for its resemblance of one of those ubiquitous straw hats worn in eastern Asia.

The water was starting to get rough with many breaking waves, so I turned toward shore and did some surfing.  Once I ran out of room I began the journey back to my putin.  Elapsed time in the boat was just over 80 minutes.  I believe Oahu has some of the most dramatic shoreline I have visited:

I took the boat back to Zsolt this afternoon.  I was sorry to have done my last paddling here, but it was a relief to return the boat undamaged.

Tomorrow I fly out of Honolulu International at about 1:30 local time.  I'm scheduled to arrive in Memphis Thursday morning.

Busy day

The first task this morning was to do the February strength routine.  I went back to Ke'ehi Lagoon, easy to get to from my cousin's house, and did it in my favorite exercise spot in the pavilion there.

Ke'ehi Lagoon, site of the Hawaii high school outrigger championships back on February 6.  The pavilion I like to work out in is at right.

Then I headed over to the east side of Oahu, where I hoped to paddle and maybe visit one of the little islands just offshore.  But the surf and the shore break were rougher than I really wanted to deal with. So I drove down along Oahu's southeastern corner until I found a decent place to put in: Maunalua Bay by the town of Hawaii Kai, known to surf ski racers as the finish for the annual Molokai world championships.

I borrowed my cousin's Go Pro camera today, hoping to rectify my lack of good photos from out on the water.  I thought I was setting it to take still photos at regular intervals, but later on when I looked at the disk's contents on a computer screen, I found that all I had was thirty-plus copies of this photo of me pushing the camera's "start" button:

Oh well... I'll try again tomorrow.

I paddled out toward the eastern side of the big bay, where the China Wall gets hammered by the surf.  This spot is also well known because the Molokai course runs right along this cliff, forcing racers exhausted from the Molokai-to-Oahu crossing to negotiate a maelstrom of rough water just a few thousand meters from the finish.  I didn't get very close to the wall today, but I found some awfully confused water in the general area just the same.  I tried to concentrate and keep my boat moving in the unstable conditions, but I had to stop and brace fairly often.

I turned my boat toward the other end of the bay, where the Diamond Head crater stands.  Pretty soon I found myself paddling into much more regular waves and had little trouble with balance from then on.  For the last leg of the session I paddled back toward my put-in spot with a following sea.  I got occasional little rides but nothing memorable.  All told I got a worthwhile 80 minutes of paddling in.

My last order of business today was to hike up Koko Head.  A long staircase--actually an old incline track--leads up the west side of the mountain:

The hike took me about 30 minutes, and it was tiring but not at all the hardest hike I've ever done.  Once on top I took a photo of Maunalua Bay, where I had just paddled:

That's Diamond Head over in the right side of the photo.  The town of Hawaii Kai lies in the foreground.  The actual finish line of the Molokai world championships is in the little protected harbor in the bottom right corner.

Monday photo feature

I apologize for not posting more photos of my time on Oahu.  I've actually snapped numerous photos as I've explored here and there, but not many that are relevant to a canoe and kayak racing blog.  The photo above is a not-quite-in-focus selfie I took while getting ready to paddle near Kaena Point on Friday.  Note the sparse vegetation on the hillside along Oahu's semi-arid leeward coast.

As a consolation for my lack of photo sharing, I give you this shot of my first cousin once-removed James demonstrating proper shaved-ice-eating form:

I'm out of the loop here

Yesterday I decided to head for Kailua Beach, a popular spot on the windward side of Oahu.  But first I wanted to do the February strength routine, and since the pavilion at Ke'ehi Lagoon Beach Park had been a good workout spot on Thursday, I went back there to exercise again.

After that I hopped on the Pali Highway bound for Kailua, and when I got to the beach there I found a canoe and kayak race in progress.  It was sort of a rinky-dink affair that might happen every Saturday morning here: a triangular course that went a short distance offshore and was no longer than maybe 2000 meters or so; multiple heats for a variety of age groups and boat classes; lots of kids in attendance for whom socializing on the beach was just as much fun as the racing.

I was kicking myself for not finding out about this or any other races ahead of time.  I came to Hawaii mostly just wanting a little vacation and a chance to do some training in warm weather, but a laid back 2000-meter sort of event would have been perfect for me at this early moment in the season.  Alas, the surf ski classes were finishing up right as I got there.

Oh well.  I paddled out onto the course and worked on my balance in the swells.  There were actually some decent waves coming back in toward the beach, and I got several sweet rides.  The rides weren't easy to get because the waves were far apart: I really had to throw in a sprint the moment I felt my stern lifting.  That made the rides I did get very satisfying.  It would have been fun to catch one while coming in to the finish line of a race.

Back on the beach it was nice to see a whole bunch of surf skis just like mine:

A change in landscape

I've mentioned before that my cousin here in Hawaii is a colonel in the United States Army.  He works at a facility on a ridge top in the Koolau foothills, but his family lives in a comfy little condo down on the Hickam Field portion of Joint Base Pearl Harbor Hickam.  It's been a nice base of operations for me during my vacation in the Aloha State.

For most of this past week, my routine was to go out and paddle in the morning and do some kind of sightseeing in the afternoon.  Besides a trip to Haleiwa on Tuesday, I didn't venture that far from JBPHH and the southern portions of Oahu.  I didn't have to leave the base to paddle in Hickam Harbor on Wednesday, and Ke'ehi Lagoon is a short distance to the east, on the other side of Honolulu International Airport.

Yesterday I decided to go a bit farther afield.  I drove up along the western coast of Oahu, commonly known as "Leeward Oahu" because it's in the lee of the prevailing northeast winds.  Because the Koolau and Waianae Ranges block the moisture that these winds carry, Leeward Oahu is much drier than Windward Oahu, and its slopes lack the lush forests common over on the eastern side of the island.

Leeward Oahu for some reason does not attract tourists the way the rest of the island does, and the coast has much more of a local small-town feel.  In places it's even a bit seedy, and as I drove through the town of Waianae I thought I'd found the Hawaii version of Memphis's Summer Avenue.

I finally found the place I wanted to paddle when I came to Yokohama Beach near the northernmost point of Leeward Oahu.  I put my boat in the water and started paddling toward Kaena Point, a sharp peninsula that forms sort of a "northwest corner" of the island of Oahu.  The closer I got to the point, the more I could feel the northeast wind and the more I could see some downwind runs moving from right to left.  Soon I found myself among some large swells with long periods: the water I was on wasn't rough, but I had the sensation of paddling up an incline toward a distant ridge top.

I finally decided it was time to turn around and try my luck with some downwind surfing.  There weren't really any waves I could just sit on all day long, but there were all kinds of little bumps that I got brief rides on.  I had fun sprinting after each one and seeing what would happen.

The waves were moving at a slight angle away from the shoreline, and it wasn't long before I realized that I was getting pretty far offshore.  So I tore myself away from the surfing and started angling back.  I was never in any doubt that I would make it, but it took what felt like an awfully long time to make progress back to where the car was parked.

The skies were overcast for most of my time on the water, but as I approached the beach the sun started finding gaps in the clouds and illuminated the deep, clear blue seawater beneath my boat.  Paddling water so clear is a novel experience for a guy who spends most of his time on the Mississippi River, and once my boat was back on the beach I just had to dive back in and swim for a few minutes.

Paddling in a reputed paradise

I've checked the forecast for Memphis and it looks like they'll be having Fahrenheit highs in the 60s for the rest of the time I'm in Hawaii.  Hmm... should I ask for my money back?  At least the water here in Hawaii is a lot warmer than the Mississippi at this time of year.

Hawaii is certainly a beautiful and fascinating place, very different from any other place I've ever been.  But mainland Americans like me are led to believe in a certain stylized version of it that's not entirely accurate.  You know what I'm talking about: you picture yourself whiling the day away in a hammock between two palm trees, sipping the milk from a coconut through a straw, the entire landscape bathed in sunshine, a gentle ocean breeze caressing your skin...

I'm told that in fact the weather here is often like that during the summer months, but right now it's rather unsettled.  At just about any moment it's raining somewhere on Oahu, especially up along the Koolau Range.  And the wind from the northeast is pretty persistent.  This week we've had stronger winds than normal, according to my cousin; but I think 10-15 miles per hour is pretty standard.  And while the air temperature is generally pleasant, it's not always quite warm: at this time of year, the highs average around 78 or 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  I don't find myself yearning for a swim in the ocean until it hits the mid 80s or higher.

But... that's okay.  All that matters is that the weather is not bad, and there are all kinds of fascinating things to occupy my attention.

A really, really cool thing about Hawaii is (a) outrigger canoe racing is an official high school sport here, and (b) it's on TV!  The 2016 state championships took place on February 6 on Ke'ehi Lagoon, and my cousin recorded the telecast of it so that we could watch it during my visit.  Athletes competed in OC-6 for state titles in girls, boys, and mixed.  Kamehameha Schools of Kapalama claimed the girls title; Punahou was the winning boys' boat; and Seabury Hall won the mixed title.  It was fun to see the teamwork and camaraderie among the athletes as they pursued excellence in a craft that's been practiced in this part of the world for thousands of years.

As for my own paddling, my biggest nemesis so far has been adjusting to the change in time zone: Hawaii is four hours behind Central Time.  Wednesday morning I was feeling particularly sluggish and unenthusiastic as I paddled in Hickam Harbor.  The wind was really blowing and I was skittish about venturing far from shore.  I'd planned to paddle for 80 minutes, but ended up quitting after 50.

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling a bit groggy again, and my whole body felt stiff as a board.  I drove over to Ke'ehi Lagoon, where the outrigger championships had taken place, and did a long, slow round of stretching and warming up before doing the February strength routine in the park pavilion there.  The short power-oriented exercises seemed to give me a jump-start.  By the time I was putting my boat in the water I felt awake and enthusiastic again, and I eagerly paddled out onto the lagoon to see what I might see on the way out to the Pacific.

Mind you, I didn't paddle entirely like a champ.  Once I was out on the open ocean I found the water choppy and confused, not really the clean downwind run that a surf ski paddler craves, and my paddling felt tentative at times.  Paddling by myself in a borrowed boat doesn't exactly inspire fearlessness in me.  I could tell the wind was starting to pick up as I headed over toward Waikiki, so I turned back and looked for the channel marker that would lead me back into the lagoon.

All told, I was satisfied with the session and just happy to be in an interesting place for a while.  As I paddled across the high school championships course back to the beach, I tried to treat it with the reverence it deserves.

Starting to settle in

I spent yesterday recovering from the traveling and getting familiar with my surroundings.  The kids were out of school for the Presidents Day holiday, so my cousin's family and I spent the afternoon driving around the southeastern portion of Oahu, beholding some of the majestic beauty of this most unique archipelago.

This morning I did the February strength routine, and then spent several hours checking out part of Oahu's north shore.  I visited the town of Hale'iwa, the reputed surfing capital of the world.

In the late afternoon I met Epic Kayaks representative Zsolt Szadovszki to pick up my rental boat, a V-10L.   My boat at home is a V-12, but I'm considering a V-10L for my next boat purchase and am taking this opportunity to paddle one for a few days.  I met Zsolt next to the Ala Wai Canal near Waikiki Beach, and once I had the boat I did a 60 minute paddle in the canal.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then just paddled around trying to get used to the boat.  So far I like it.

Monday photo feature

I spent all day yesterday traveling from Memphis to Atlanta to Seattle to Honolulu, and the experience was a grisly reminder of how much I despise air travel.

As I got off the plane in Honolulu, I expected to be presented with a lei just like in all those 70s TV shows whenever people like Starsky & Hutch made a trip to Hawaii.  But apparently they don't do that anymore, maybe because a trip to Hawaii is no longer the sort of once-in-a-lifetime luxury it was back then.

But my cousin Jimmy and his family saved the day!  When I arrived at baggage claim, there were Leah and James to give me hugs and hang a flowery wreath around my neck.  This trip just might be a success after all.  Photo by Jimmy Matthews.

Ready to go someplace warm

When I got down to the river on Thursday it was some ten degrees warmer than it had been on Tuesday and, more importantly, there was plenty of sunshine and the wind wasn't so bad.  I warmed up with fifteen minutes of paddling toward the north end of the harbor, and did three 8-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  Coming back south I did a couple of surges of maybe two minutes each, and they felt hard... I was bit tired, I guess.  When I got back to the marina Joe had just gotten in his boat, and he joined me for another trip up to the north end of the harbor.  When we returned to the marina Joe continued toward the south end of the harbor while I took out at the dock.

Yesterday I did another round of the February strength routine.  Because this routine is so brief I'm doing three sets.  I'm starting to get the hang of the exercises, even those "Rolling squat burpees," though I'm probably not doing them as well as the guy in the video yet.  "Hannibal pushups" is the one I'm having the hardest time doing like the guy in the video does.

Today winter got one last shot at me before I escape to the tropics for a few days.  A blast of Arctic air moved in last night, and as I pulled into a parking space at the marina this morning the temperature display in my car's dashboard read 30 degrees Fahrenheit.  The sky was largely overcast, and the north wind, though not too bad, was bad enough for me to bury my chin down in my coat collar as I walked down the ramp to the dock.

I broke out my fleece-lined pogies for the first time this year--and maybe the last time, unless we have an unusually cold month of March.  Most of the winter I use my unlined pogies, only getting out the fleece-lined ones when it's below freezing outside.

As I headed down the ramp I realized I'd made a grave mistake: I'd forgotten to throw my paddle jacket in my bag.  Even the heavyweight fleece shirt I had wouldn't be enough on its own, and I briefly considered going all the way back home to get the jacket.  But then I figured that the winter coat I was wearing, an "active-wear" sort of thing--fleece lining, nylon shell--would probably work.  To the dock and into the boat I went.

As it turned out, I was hot after the first ten minutes of paddling.  The sun came out shortly after I left the dock, and the fleece-lined coat on top of the heavyweight fleece was a bit much.  I probably didn't need the fleece-lined pogies, either.  But I'm used to sweaty summer days here, so a sweaty winter day wasn't going to kill me.

After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a couple of hard pieces of about eight minutes each, with five minutes or so of rest in between.  Then I timed myself from the A.W. Willis bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  My best time over this distance is a little under three minutes; today I did it in about 3:16, which I think was pretty good considering how tired I was from the longer pieces.

If all goes according to plan, my next time in the boat will be in the Hawaiian Islands.  Tomorrow I'll be sitting in airports and airplanes all day, and I'll probably spend Monday just getting acclimated, so maybe by Tuesday I'll be ready to paddle.  I'll post updates here as circumstances allow.

Brrrrr

The mild weekend is over and we're back to the sort of weather I associate with the month of February.  When I got down to the river today the temperature was in the mid-30s Fahrenheit and a wicked-cold wind was howling out of the northwest.  There was some blue sky up among the clouds but not much sunshine was getting through.

I've remarked numerous times in the past that the hardest part of paddling on such an unpleasant day is getting yourself down to the dock in the first place.  Once you're in the boat you'll probably feel fine as long as you're properly dressed.  So it was with Joe and me as we paddled away from the marina toward the north end of the harbor.  Knowing that very soon I will be getting "a nice Hawaiian punch" didn't hurt, either.

As we paddled north we enjoyed some protection from the trees that line the banks up in that end of the harbor.  Coming back south, we had the wind mostly at our backs.  The hardest leg of today's paddle was coming from the harbor's mouth back to the marina: the harbor isn't nearly as protected from a north wind in its southern half as in its northern half.  I was good and chilled by the time we got back to the dock, and I spent the rest of the day trying to thaw out.

Monday photo feature

A team from New Zealand competes in the Molokai Hoe outrigger canoe race, a crossing of the channel between the islands of Molokai and Oahu, in 2010.  Photo lifted from the website newswire.co.nz.

I don't know if I'll be paddling the high seas like this during my stay in Hawaii; frankly, I'll be happy if I can get a few workouts in and enjoy the sights on less-exposed bodies of water.  But you never know.

Availing myself of a lovely day

I paddled for 80 minutes this morning.  After warming up for the first 15 minutes, I did my three 8-stroke sprints.  I haven't said it lately, but I do these sprints at two-minute intervals; that's enough recovery time for me to go totally all-out on each sprint.

Sometimes these sprints feel as fluid and smooth as can be; other times, like today, they feel a bit forced and sloppy.  The goal is to do them with the same precise form I use while paddling at lower intensity, with legs, abs, shoulders, and arms all firing in unison.  My first sprint was the worst one this morning; I did a bit better on the second and third.

Today we're enjoying another mild sunny day in the Mid South, with the temperature expected to reach the high 50s Fahrenheit.  Of course, we've got a saying around here that goes "If you don't like the weather here, just wait a while," and in keeping with that it's going to be colder and grayer for the next several days.  That'll get me all the more ready for my trip to our nation's 50th state next Sunday.

This nice weather, combined with a river level (20.1 feet on the Memphis gauge) that has all the Corps of Engineers' wing dikes well under water, motivated me to ferry across the river and check out some of the lovely scenery on the Arkansas side.  The Loosahatchie Chute separates the Loosahatchie Bar from the mainland a couple of miles upstream of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and once I'm up above the bridge paddling north, all I see is water flowing between forested banks.  It's lush and green in the summertime, of course, but I like it in winter, too, when the leafless trees give off a bronze hue in the sunlight.

Power and paddling

It got cold midweek, but today we had a high in the 50s Fahrenheit with partly sunny skies.  I paddled Thursday in a brisk north wind, but today it was almost dead calm and I was plenty warm in the boat.  Today's 80-minute session took me down below the Frisco Bridge, back upriver along the Arkansas bank above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and then back to the harbor.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I paddled a quick cruising pace with several long surges.

Yesterday I did the February strength routine again, and I'm still getting used to the more complex movements, notably the "rolling squat burpee."  It takes quite a burst of power right at the beginning to get myself on my feet and over into the pushup position.  Because all the exercises, besides maybe the "super crunches," emphasize bursts of power, they are low-rep affairs.  Power isn't something you can build with endless repetition.

I hope that doing these exercises that involve exerting power while in awkward positions will translate into some paddling success: canoe and kayak racing, after all, requires the application of power on a paddle blade while balancing in a tippy race boat.  Many of the strength routines I've done included exercises that I could barely pull off at first but had much better command of by the end of the month, and that gives me some hope that I can improve what I do in the boat, too.

Of course, there are in-the-boat power-building drills one can do, and I'll talk more about that soon.

Mending body and spirit

Back on January 17 I mentioned some aches and pains.  Basically, the entire right side of my body seemed out of whack.  My right foot hurt up in the arch; my right hamstring was tight and sore; my right hip and the right side of my lower back ached; and my right shoulder, right in the front, felt weak and sore.

I had a strong suspicion that the hamstring and hip ailments were the result of limping around on my hurting foot.  I don't know how a bum foot would affect my shoulder, but who knows?  In any case, I finally decided it was time to seek professional help with the foot, and I made an appointment with an orthopedist last Friday, the 29th of January.

The doctor told me it looked like a textbook case of plantar fasciitis, and he prescribed his standard treatment regimen for this common overuse injury.  I would be taking an oral anti-inflammatory, doing a few specialized stretching and massage exercises, and wearing this splint while I slept at night:

I was a bit dubious about the splint as soon as I put it on.  It's not very tight-fitting, and I couldn't believe that wearing it overnight would make much difference.  But lo and behold, it did.  When I got out of bed the next morning, the pain was gone from the arch and replaced by some mild soreness in the lower calf and Achilles area.  This latter bit made sense to me, as plantar fasciitis comes about when lower calf tightness causes more of the burden of standing and walking to be shifted down into the arch area.  I knew I would have to keep stretching and massaging, but this simple splint was making most of the difference.

My foot has continued to feel much better in the week that has passed since my visit to the doctor, and perhaps as a result, the rest of my body is feeling better as well.  Feeling better after weeks of feeling crummy has renewed my enthusiasm for doing all the little things that help keep an athlete feeling good: hydration, thorough stretching and warmup, and plenty of rest and good nutrition between workouts to facilitate recovery.

February strength routine

It's time for a new strength routine, and since I'll be traveling for a big chunk of this month I'm doing all body-weight exercises that require no equipment.

Last month's routine included a lot of exercises from this video featuring extreme kayak racer Michele Ramazza.  This month I'm doing one exercise from this video: the "super crunches."




The rest of this month's routine comes from this video, posted on Face Book by slalom coach Ron Lugbill a few weeks ago:



The exercises here all focus on explosive movements to build power, and they are technically quite tricky.  I'm spending the first few days of this month just learning them: I watch an exercise in the video, then I get down on the floor and try it myself, I see where I'm having difficulty, and I watch the video footage again to see how this athlete handles it.  I hope that by the time I'm in Hawaii I'll have a good grasp on all of them.

In summary, here are the list of exercises I have chosen for this month:

1.  Power plank-ups

2.  Super crunches

3.  Pendulum planks

4.  Glute/ham single-leg plyo bridge

5.  Hannibal pushups

6.  Rolling squat burpee


Like last month's routine, this one keeps me in near-constant motion, and I like that.

Catching up

I apologize for the break in posting.  Sometimes life just gets in the way.  I've been busy in my workshop as well as tending to some pet care.  But fear not: the training continues.  I've been paddling my boat four times a week and closing out the month of January with the strength routine.

Here in Memphis it was cold, then it got warm (and windy and wild), and now it's cold again.  Such is winter in the Mid South.  After getting a pair of chilly-day paddles in with Joe last week, I arrived at the riverfront on Saturday and Sunday amid balmy temperatures and the strongest wind from the south that I've seen in quite a long time.  The water was still frigid, so in the interest of safety I stayed in the harbor both days.

On Saturday I paddled into the wind to the mouth (the south end) of the harbor, doing three 8-stroke sprints along the way.  Then, coming back north with the wind at my back, I did eight 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  The sprints were hard but felt fast and fun.

On Sunday the wind might have been even a bit stronger.  Once again I paddled to the harbor's mouth and then, with the wind at my back, I did some not-so-structured play.  The waves weren't quite big enough for true surfing, but I could get a little ride now and then for a few seconds at a time; when the wave gave out I would sprint ahead to the next wave.  The best action was between the Hernando DeSoto and monorail bridges, where the harbor gets constricted between a marina on one side and a steep bank on the other, and the wind sort of tunnels.

By the time Joe and I met again yesterday, a front was moving in but the air was still warm.  It was breezy and we got rained on a good bit, but the water wasn't really that rough.  We put in a good 80-minute distance session.