One extreme vs. the other

Yesterday the heat was getting to me badly enough that I had to cut a workout short.  I don't recall ever having to do something like that in the wintertime.

The way training is supposed to work is you go out and do some mild damage to your muscles by exercising, and then during recovery your body repairs those muscles and makes them stronger and more fit to handle the task that did the damage.  But after working out in the boat on a very hot day I feel as though my body has more to recover from than just the paddling, making the whole process less efficient.

I've long considered winter a better season to train than summer (I prefer spring and fall, actually, but I'm comparing extremes here).  More people tell me I'm crazy for paddling in the cold, but people unfamiliar with our sport like to overlook the fact that paddling takes place on the water, not in it.  Basically, we confront the same challenges in both winter and summer that athletes in land-based outdoor sports confront.

I am not an expert physiologist--and I welcome comments from anybody who is--but I think the human body keeps itself warm in cold weather a lot more efficiently than it keeps itself cool in hot weather.  Heat is a natural byproduct of vigorous exercise, and in cold weather you can use that body heat to your advantage with layers of insulating clothing.  But when it's hot your body has to use extra energy to expel that heat by producing sweat that carries the heat away as it evaporates from your skin.  And the more humid it is (it's typically very humid here in the Mid South), the less well that cooling system works.

Furthermore, I think the average athlete is more likely to be exposed to extreme heat in summer than to extreme cold in winter.  The coldest moments of winter usually occur at night, when people like me are nestled all snug in their beds.  The hottest moments of summer, on the other hand, are in the daytime hours.  And paddlers are less likely than other athletes to train in truly dangerous cold simply because they can't: the water freezes up in climates where it gets that cold.

So... here we are at the most potentially dangerous time of year for training.  In years past I've done most of my racing in the spring and laid low in July and August; but in just the last two or three years some events have sprung up in the late summer and fall that I really enjoy competing in, and so I find myself dealing with the challenge of doing some good work in the boat without succumbing to the heat.  Like I said before, I'll consider other times of day to paddle and I'll also be extra conscientious with hydration.  I'll continue to paddle thinking of nothing but the cool bath under the hose that awaits back at the dock.  And soon--just over two weeks from now--I'll be on my way to what I hope will be more tolerable climates.

This morning Joe and I did an 80-minute paddle in the harbor, and some cloud cover gave us a welcome break from the scorching sun, a formidable adversary when you paddle mostly on an open body of water like I do.  I was tired from yesterday--from both the workout I did and the heat I endured--and I tried to relax and take good strokes and let the blood flow through my muscles and replenish them for the next challenge.