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.
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