The south wind that I paddled in on Monday has persisted all week. Even though it's been very hot in the middle of town, the wind has helped keep things bearable out on the river. I paddled for 70 minutes on Thursday and 100 minutes yesterday. I also did a round of the current strength routine before paddling yesterday.
Earlier this week the Surf Ski News website posted an interview with Austin Kieffer, probably the best surf ski racer in the U.S. these days. I'm a fan of the guy for a couple of reasons. For one, he comes from a whitewater background like I do; and for another, he's positioned for success at the top levels of surf ski racing--very rare for a North American in this sport dominated by South Africans and Australians and the like.
The interview is worth reading under any circumstances, but I bring it up here because of one particular passage--the one in which Kieffer mentions South African great Dawid Mocke and his ability to glide through rough conditions as if he were paddling on flatwater.
The sort of absolute confidence in one's balance and boat control is something I've worked on for quite a few years now. I wish I could tell you I've mastered it. But at least I've developed a few drills that I think have helped raise my balance and control to something better than terrible. My favorite drill is to paddle in a beam wind on flatwater, and try to keep the boat moving through the waves and chop without letting it roll right and left or pitch up and down--back when I was racing slalom we called this "keeping a quiet boat."
Out of the boat I always include some work on my core muscles, since those are the ones that keep my boat rightside-up. I've described many such exercises on this blog over time, and I'll do so again whenever I talk about my strength routines. I'll just mention that the stability ball is one good tool for working specifically on balance.
Having worked on all those basics in low-risk environments, I was eager to get out on the river Thursday and yesterday and see how well I could keep the boat moving in those south-wind-driven conditions, just like Dawid Mocke would. I doubt anybody would have mistaken me for Mocke, but I did feel good out there. In this hot weather the consequences of a swim were as low as one can ask for, and because of that I was able to relax and take effective strokes with full rotation. I never flipped or even came that close to flipping.
Thursday was the more "fun" of these last two days: there were all kinds of little bumps I was able to get brief rides on. By yesterday the wind had diminished a bit and I spent the second 50 minutes feeling the heat while dealing with the usual fatigue of a long, hard paddle. Paddling upstream out in the middle of the Mississippi was a pokey affair: every time I glanced down at my G.P.S. device it was showing about two miles per hour.
Whatever the case, I've come away from these last two days feeling good. I had some fun, I beat the heat a little bit, I got in some good mileage, and I gained some confidence in my boat control.
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