Monday photo feature

Here's another photo from the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race archives.  The year is 2012, and Phil Capel (left) and Mike Herbert are beaming in the moments after the finish.  The 2017 edition of this event is less than three weeks away.

An energy crisis in more ways than one

I'm just now catching up with the outside world after having no electricity at my house for some 36 hours.  A pretty violent storm moved through the Memphis area Saturday evening and knocked out power for about 188,000 homes, according to our local utility provider.  I do not have one of those new-fangled telephones with a cellular data plan, so I rely on my electric-powered wi-fi router to move about in cyberspace.

I paddled for 60 minutes Saturday morning and felt incredibly tired in the boat.  That listless, lethargic feeling persisted for the rest of the day.  I had a workout scheduled for Sunday but I thought about pushing it back a day to allow myself a bit more rest.

Then the storm happened, and I learned that a big pecan tree had fallen in the back yard of a rental property I own.  It didn't hurt the house, fortunately, but I did have a big mess to clean up.  And so I spent yesterday morning cutting up the tree with my chainsaw.  It was neither a workout nor rest.  It was just... work.

This morning I got back to business, doing a round of the current strength routine and then heading down to the river.  I warmed up, did three 8-stroke sprints, paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and did my "start-to-boat-ramp" workout, just like I had done back on the sixth of May.  This time I started each piece six minutes after the previous piece; that tightened my recovery interval a bit, but not as tight as it was during my workout on Thursday.  I tried to paddle back up to the start in quick order so that I would have 30 seconds or so to sit at the starting line and await the start, just like on race day.

The workout today felt a lot more taxing than it did on May 6.  I was tired from the strength workout and I'm sure I was feeling yesterday's logging work as well.  I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight.

Life can be such a pain in the neck

I woke up Monday with one of those awful cricks in my neck and I've been coping with the discomfort all week.  The neck is slowly getting better but I have a lingering headache that I think is related to muscle tension.  Whenever something like this happens it's almost never because of my canoe and kayak training.  I think this episode was brought on by some home-upkeep labor I've been doing.  I've been repairing some peeling paint in my house, scraping and sanding the wall in preparation for a new coat, and it's put my body in some awkward positions, especially when my arms are up over my head.  I think I withstood stuff like that better when I was younger.

Aside from that it's been a decent week of training.  I'm in my last intense block before the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race and I'm doing a couple of hard sessions in the boat each week along with the current strength routine.

Having done a couple of steady 80-minute sessions Monday and Tuesday, I was ready to go hard again yesterday.  The plan was to do three one-mile pieces, but when I got down to the river I realized I'd left my G.P.S. device at home.  So for Plan B I picked a course in the harbor for which I have a well-documented history: the southern edge of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to the southern edge of the Auction Avenue (A.W. Willis) bridge.  This stretch is about 750 meters in length, and my best time ever for it is a second or two under three minutes.  I decided to do four pieces, seeking a pace I could sustain over all four.  And I was pretty pleased with how it went: my times were 3:08, 3:08, 3:09, and 3:09.

I started a new piece every eight minutes.  That meant that each time I finished a piece I had just under five minutes to get myself back to the HDB to start the next one.  I had to hoof it a little bit to do that, and so my recovery interval was a bit more demanding than usual.  But I held up just fine--it didn't take more than 30 seconds or so for my heart rate to settle down from the piece I'd just finished.

Monday photo feature

With the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race now less than four weeks away, I'm thinking I'll share a few photos from the OICK races of yesteryear.

This one's from 2007.  Top finishers Robert Clegg, Mike Herbert, and Pete Greene are already in the harbor and paddling toward the finish line; what you see here is the rest of us angling toward the harbor entrance.  That's me in the white boat, with Shawn Wilbur of Spanish Fort, Alabama, hot on my tail over my left shoulder.  Many "races within the race" are going on behind us.  Photo by Willarts Photography.

A tiring warmup and a hard workout

The last several days have been very humid and today promised to get even more so (rain).  The raindrops began to fall as I drove down to the river this morning and then a couple of heavy showers moved through as I stretched under the marina's shelter.  By the time I was through stretching the rain had abated to a light drizzle and mostly held off the whole time I was on the water.

I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and then up the Mississippi toward the mouth of the Wolf River. I found myself paddling into a strong northwest wind as well as the swift current of the swollen river, and the going was slow.  It was a struggle to go much over 3 miles per hour from the mouth of the harbor to the Greenbelt Park.  Once I reached the greenbelt I was able to move into more protected water since the park's lower tier was underwater with the Memphis gauge reading at 34.4 feet.  But the wind still impeded my progress and getting the boat up to 5 mph was a challenge.

I finally reached the mouth of the Wolf more than 50 minutes after I'd left the dock--most of the time it takes me between 45 and 50 minutes to get up there.  I'd had quite a workout, but the day's official workout was only beginning.  I embarked on eight three-minute pieces with three minutes recovery in between; the target pace for each piece was 7.5 mph, pretty quick for me.  With the 5-kilometer Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race just four weeks away, it's time to go faster.

I did the first piece up the Wolf and struggled to achieve 7.5 mph; after the recovery interval I did the next piece back down the Wolf and maintained 8 mph for most of it.  There must have been a bit of flow in the Wolf even though the Mississippi was backed up into it.

I did the next two pieces going back down the Mississippi, so the 7.5-mph standard was irrelevant, but I tried to paddle with the same intensity.  The water was squirrelly and I occasionally had trouble taking good strokes while trying to stay balanced.

I did the last four pieces back in the harbor and kept my speed at or near 7.5 mph throughout.  I was feeling it big-time in the last two but I got it done.

I'm still a bit sore from the new strength routine, and now I'm exhausted from today's workout.  Fortunately I didn't have anything pressing on the agenda for the rest of my Saturday.

Race schedule update

Here's an updated schedule of races for the remainder of this season.  New additions include an event on Taylorsville Lake outside Louisville on June 10, a race at Charleston, South Carolina, on September 16, and a race on the Ouachita River in Louisiana on September 23.


June
10  4th annual Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle.  Taylorsville Lake, Taylorsville, Kentucky.  A 10-mile flatwater race.  Register

17  Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee.  The 36th edition of this classic.  A 5000-meter race down the Mississippi, finishing at Mississippi River Park in downtown Memphis.  Register


July
29  Music City SUP and Kayak Race.  J. Percy Priest Reservoir, Nashville, Tennessee.  A 6-mile flatwater race.  Register


August
5?  The Paddle Grapple.  Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina.  A 6-mile flatwater race.

10-13  U.S. Canoe Association National Championships.  Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa.  Flatwater marathon races in numerous classes sanctioned by the USCA.


September
2  Big River Regional.  Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.

3  Rock Island Paddle Rampage.  Center Hill Reservoir near Walling, Tennessee.  A 14-mile flatwater race.  Register

9  Lower Atchafalaya Race.  Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana.  An 8-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.

16  Chucktown Showdown.  Charleston Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina.  A 9-mile offshore race.  Register

23  Ouachita River Rat Race.  Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana.  A 6.5-mile race on a Class I river.


October
7  Gator Bait Race.  Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi.  A 5.5-mile flatwater race.

The river's still up

Having started the new strength routine Wednesday, I was sore as I paddled away from the dock yesterday.  My triceps and armpit area is where I felt it the most--I guess that was probably from the pullups.  I was all the way to the mouth of the harbor before I was finally loosening up a little.

The Mississippi River had been dropping slowly from its crest last weekend, and registered 35.2 feet on the Memphis gauge while I was out yesterday.  Knowing that it might be my last chance to explore the flooded bottomland on the Arkansas side for this particular high-water event, I wanted to head back over there.  There was a pretty strong south wind blowing and the river was choppy, but I was feeling relatively bold and handled the conditions just fine as I ferried across just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.

There's an outlet channel from Dacus Lake a few hundred meters above the HDB, and I paddled up that, savoring the protection from the wind that the wooded environs provided.  Then I paddled out onto Dacus Lake and looped around through the flooded bottomland to its south, rode the sluice of current flowing under the HDB, paddled through some more submerged bottomland, and finally re-entered the main river channel directly across from the mouth of the harbor.  By the time I'd ferried back across the river and re-entered the harbor I'd had a pretty good tempo session.

A new strength routine

Well, it's time for a new strength routine.  I started easing into this one yesterday:

1.  "Explosive" pushups: clap pushups, pushing up from prone position to kneeling position... stuff like that

2.  Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:34 of her video that's posted here

3.  Pullups

4.  Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:50 of her video

5.  Front and lat raises

6.  Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 3:11 of her video

Monday photo feature

My friend Scott Banbury and his family live on a lovely little estate overlooking Cypress Creek in North Memphis.  In its present-day form Cypress Creek is mostly a concrete-lined ditch with little more than a trickle of urban runoff.  But when the Mississippi River gets very high, it backs up Cypress Creek all the way to the Banbury home, providing deep water that's perfect for--what else?--canoeing!  This past Friday, as the river was approaching its crest of 36 feet on the Memphis gauge, Scott (left) and his son Kade grabbed their boat and bushwhacked down to the creek for some high adventure in the urban jungle.  Photo by Amy Stewart-Banbury.

Post-race notes and "recovery"

Before yesterday the fastest time recorded in the Osage Spring 12 race had been one hour, 34 minutes, 1 second.  Tandem kayakers Joe Mann and Matt Dressler turned in that time in the 2015 edition; yesterday's overall winners Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski were just three seconds back that year.  With the help of the strong river flow and ideal weather conditions yesterday, ten boats were faster than the old record.  Mira and Ron set a new overall record of one hour, 17 minutes, 31 seconds; my time of 1:19:32 is the new record in the "men's solo unlimited" (i.e., surf skis and such) class.  The complete results are now posted here.

I don't think I've ever seen Mike Herbert use as low a stroke rate as he was using in the race yesterday.  He was in the stern seat, so Savanna got to set the rate and it was Mike's job to follow.  Savanna is a fine athlete but apparently she didn't inherit her dad's insane turnover ability.

I woke up this morning very sore in my midsection.  That's not at all unusual the day after a race, but what was unusual was some sunburn on my scalp.  My hair is pretty short right now--a man even asked me if I was in the military while I was filling up the tank on the trip home--and in the race I wore just a visor, without any thought given to the exposure of my skin up there.  I did apply sunscreen to the rest of my exposed skin.

Once I'd had some coffee and breakfast and was awake for real, I saw to the typical post-race chores: I washed the mud and grime off my boat and stored it in the garage, and I unloaded the car of paddling gear and camping gear and cleaned it up a little and put it away all nice and neat.

After that I headed down to the river for a recovery paddle in the old beat-up boat I keep down there.  At least, a recovery paddle is all I really needed today.  But with the river having just crested at 36 feet here at Memphis around midnight, there were all kinds of nifty places out there to explore, and on top of that it was another gorgeous sunny day with Fahrenheit temperatures in the mid 70s.  So I had to get out and do a little bit more than I'd normally do on a recovery day.

I did some thorough stretching on the dock and then paddled off toward the mouth of the harbor.  As soon as I got there I ferried straight across the Mississippi to the Arkansas side.  I had to hoof it a bit because a barge rig was coming upriver; then, over near the Arkansas side, I had to navigate the same minefield of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff I'd encountered last Sunday.

Then I was paddling across the flooded farmland across from downtown Memphis, and the water calmed down, though it was definitely flowing.  One thing you should understand about the Mississippi basin is that bottomland areas like the one across from downtown are in fact river channels that are simply between floods most of the time.  If you want to plant some crops on that land, or build a house on it, fine; but you must accept that when Old Man River has a mind to go a-floodin', he couldn't care less how many thousands of dollars you've invested there.

Here the current was mild enough that I could paddle against it without much trouble, and I did the easy "recovery" paddling I'd been seeking.  Soon I was north of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and I found a couple of open channels through the forested land up there.  I couldn't believe I was only a mile or so from the core of downtown as I drifted through this impromptu swamp, serenaded by the songbirds and dappled by the sunlight peaking through the lush tree canopy.

Soon I popped out of the woods and was back in the main river channel.  That barge rig I'd had to avoid earlier had left plenty of turbulent water in its wake and I tried to keep my sore body relaxed as I paddled through it.  As I re-entered the harbor I saw dozens of walkers and joggers over on the bank, enjoying the beautiful day, and I displayed my very best paddling form because, just like I said in my last post, I'm a bit vain that way, like a peacock showing off his tail feathers.

I returned to the dock to complete a 70-minute session, and all told it was a decent recovery paddle with maybe just a whiff of higher intensity.

Racing in the mighty Midwest

I left Memphis around noon on Friday, hoping to arrive at the race site less than six hours later.  It would take me closer to seven hours.  The drive west from Saint Louis seemed to take forever.  But at last I reached the point where U.S. 50 crosses the Osage River, some 15 miles or so east of the state capital in Jefferson City.  I checked into a campground a short distance from where the race would start the next morning.  I found the local Saint Louis Cardinals affiliate on my car radio and listened to the Cards lose to the Cubs while I set up my tent and got settled in.  The temperature was dropping toward an overnight low in the 50s Fahrenheit, and by ten o'clock I was snug in my sleeping bag and drifting off to sleep.  I like campin'.

When I got up yesterday morning I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunny day.  After a quick breakfast and breaking of camp I headed over to the Mari-Osa river access (so named because it's near the confluence of the Maries and Osage Rivers) and found several dozen other racers congregating there.  I looked out over the river and was pleased to see a good strong flow: much of Missouri had experienced significant flooding a week earlier, and a lot of water was still being released from the Lake of the Ozarks upriver.

I had always assumed that the Osage Spring 12 race was an all-downriver affair, but I quickly learned otherwise yesterday morning.  Bonnots Mill, where the race ends, is only eight miles down the Osage River from the Mari-Osa access.  The course proceeds downriver two miles past Bonnots Mill to a buoy near where the Osage enters the Missouri River; racers then must paddle those two miles back up the Osage to the finish line.  I was hoping that the Missouri would be high enough to back up into the Osage and spare us a struggle against the current in those last two miles.

As racers continued to arrive it became evident that Mixed Tandem Kayak would be the class to watch.  The biggest name involved was three-time Olympian Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, who was teaming up with his daughter Savanna.  Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski had made the trip over from Olathe, Kansas; in the last five years or so I had raced them two or three times and they'd looked better each time.  And then there was Dylan McHardy, a strong racer from Springfield, Missouri, who had recruited the lovely and powerful Mandy Urban to be his partner.

We all went through our warmup routines and maneuvered our boats into position on the swollen river.  At ten o'clock sharp the gun went off, and I sprinted hard off the line.  As I'd expected, Team Herbert had the fastest start and I tried to grab at least a few seconds on their wake.  They quickly pulled away from me and I sidled over toward Mandy and Dylan pulling even with me on my left.  Over to my right Mira and Ron were advancing, and in the next few minutes our three boats converged to form a chase pack.

It was a quick pace and I wasn't a hundred percent confident I could sustain it for the entire 12 miles, but I dug in and hoped I could hold my competitors' wakes for as long as I could.  I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I knew that if I lost those wakes the race would turn from a lively competition with my peers into a lonely, miserable slog in which I could easily be caught by my pursuers.

Several miles in Mandy and Dylan dropped off the pace.  They seemed to be having an amicable discussion about their preferred method of boat control and I sensed that their run as a contender had come to an end.  I held fast on the stern wake of Mira and Ron, who were throwing in surge after surge to reel in Savanna and Mike.  I was hanging on for dear life, but as we covered more and more distance with the aid of the current my confidence began to grow.  Finally Mira and Ron attained the Herberts' stern wake and I decided to make a move up onto the Kansans' right-side wake.  After several minutes of recovery there, I threw in another sprint and moved up alongside Savanna and Mike.  Now I was starting to have some fun.  After a few more minutes of recovery I moved up into the lead, because... why not?  How often do I get to lead a race in which Mike Herbert is participating?

I knew I couldn't be too cocky and a short time later I dropped back onto the Herberts' right-side wake.  Moments later I got a little surprise: off to my right Mandy and Dylan reappeared.  I'd thought surely we'd left them behind for good, and I was impressed that they had fought their way back into the mix.

We passed the finish line at Bonnots Mill and I knew things would get a little more serious in the last four miles.  The river surface had smoothed out and I was hoping we'd hit the backwater of the Missouri.  A few minutes later the big red turning buoy became visible in the distance, and I think all seven people in our lead pack were having similar thoughts.  A buoy turn is often the site of high drama in canoe and kayak racing, and I was hoping my sharper turning ability might give me an edge over the longer tandem boats.  But I think the others were aware of that issue too, and the pace began to quicken to the point that I was struggling to hold my position.  This was the first hint that my competitors might have more left in the tank than I did.

As we approached the buoy my spirits fell a bit more as I saw a pair of clean, crisp eddy lines coming off it.  Those last two miles back upriver would indeed be a fight against the current.  The Herberts were still in the lead and they followed a carefully-planned counterclockwise arc toward the buoy.  The moment their boat became broadside in the current Mike yelled "go!" and they shot around the buoy and into a ferry toward the river-right bank.  Mira and Ron closed tight on the buoy and I had to back off my speed for a moment to avoid getting pinched off.  That moment of hesitation neutralized my turn-radius advantage.  Mandy and Dylan got swept downstream a bit and once were were all around the buoy the order was Savanna and Mike in first, Mira and Ron in second, yours truly in third, and Mandy and Dylan in fourth.

And at this point my race began to fall apart a little bit.  Moving upstream I had trouble staying on Mira and Ron's wake and after several minutes of struggling I fell off.  With Mandy and Dylan closing in behind me I tried to read the water for the most efficient lines (I do paddle up the Mississippi River all the time, after all).  But I lost a gamble when I took a little slot between a hanging tree branch and the bank and found myself sliding over either a log or the muddy bottom, and I had to stop and make sure I eased over it without hurting my rudder.  Mandy and Dylan cruised right by me.

After this mishap it felt like somebody had thrown a cinder block in my boat.  Every stroke became excruciating, and the three tandems opened an ever-increasing gap on me.  I wondered if something had snagged on my rudder, and once it became obvious that I would not be able to catch back up to the tandems I stopped and took a few backstrokes, hoping that would get it off.  But moving forward again I still felt like I was paddling through cement.  I had at least a good three or four minutes on the next paddler behind me, so finally I stopped and hopped out of my boat to check my rudder.  There was nothing there.

Up ahead there was one final moment of excitement as the Herberts were closing in on victory.  They tried to duck under a ramp between the bank and a floating dock, and Savanna hit it with her paddle and broke off her right blade.  Mira and Ron, who had opted for the safer line on the other side of the dock, had gotten just the break they needed to move in front and cross the finish line in first place.  Mandy and Dylan also were able to sneak past the Herberts as Savanna labored through the final meters with only one blade.  A couple of minutes later I reached the same spot and ducked under the ramp like the Herberts had (I'm not a fast learner), and fortunately I was able to proceed across the finish line with no equipment damage.

After the race somebody pointed out that the water was quite shallow where we'd paddled upriver in those last two miles, and that's probably the reason for my sudden paddling difficulty in the last two miles.  It seems obvious enough but in these times of flood the idea hadn't crossed my mind.  And so I guess those tandem boats simply gave me a good whipping in that water.  I shouldn't let it dampen my spirits after what was otherwise a good race for me--I did take the overall win among solo paddlers, after all.  But you know me--I'm a competitive, slightly vain person who wants to go out and beat 'em all every time.

The race organizers provided a nice little lunch, followed by the awards.  I thought this was an excellent event and the gorgeous weather did nothing to hurt that.  I was tired as I began the long drive home, but in good humor.  The afternoon baseball game kept me entertained for most of the trip (this time the Cardinals beat those mean old Cubs).  I arrived home around nine o'clock and was passed out in bed not much later.

Getting ready to race again

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes on the riverfront, doing eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals and otherwise paddling a comfortable pace with the hope of feeling sharp at the Osage Spring 12 race on Saturday.

I've wanted to attend this race for each of the last two years, only to cancel at the last minute because of an injury popping up.  Neither injury turned out to be that serious, but at the time it was bothering me enough that I decided not to push my luck.  As for right now, I'm feeling pretty good, so with fingers crossed I'll be heading up to Missouri in the morning.

Yesterday I did my current strength routine for the last time before Saturday's race.  Next week I'll probably draw up a new routine to carry me through to the big race here at Memphis on June 17.

Gar-watching on a sunny day

It's official: I'm now registered for the Osage Spring 12 race up in Missouri this Saturday.  It's a 12-mile race down the Osage River near the town of Osage City.  From what I've been able to find out so far it sounds like the area didn't experience significant flooding during last week's storms.  My guess is that the most likely flooding effect on the race will be no current in the bottom miles: the finish line isn't far from the Osage's confluence with the Missouri River, and if the Missouri is high it could be backed up the Osage pretty far.

But such concerns seemed a long way off as Joe and I paddled a loop in the harbor this morning.  With the Mississippi River at 34.1 feet on the Memphis gauge, the harbor was broad and well up into the green trees, and the harbor denizens were taking it in stride.  We saw the turtles and the blue heron we're used to seeing, and just beneath the surface lurked many dozens of gar.  The gar is an ancient species--I believe they were around when the dinosaurs were--and it looks different from any other fish I've seen.  Gar are skinny and needle-nosed, and when they see a paddler like me coming they contort into a U-shape and quickly disappear into deeper water, leaving a small disturbance on the surface.  Up at the north end of the harbor there were many gar hanging out among the submerged trees, and a couple of times we were able to get close enough to one to get a good look at him before he fled.  I saw a couple of huge ones--one about half the length of our 20-plus-foot boats.

Monday photo feature

Here's a photo from a day in April nine years ago when the water was a little bit higher than yesterday's 32.4 feet on the Memphis gauge: what's usually bottomland beneath the old bridges south of downtown Memphis was under enough water for paddling.  That's the Frisco Bridge in the foreground; just beyond it is the Harahan Bridge.  The sloping ramp just behind the Harahan Bridge is what now carries the Big River Crossing bike and pedestrian trail.

Sunny skies and big water

The sun is out again but strong winds continued through yesterday in the wake of that weird storm system.  When I paddled yesterday morning the wind wasn't too bad yet but I could tell it would be a gusty afternoon.

I warmed up for fifteen minutes and did three 8-stroke sprints, then paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River.  With the water at 31.4 feet on the Memphis gauge the paddle up felt slow--the water was high enough to wash out a lot of the eddies along the bank but not high enough to inundate the Greenbelt Park and provide slack water to paddle on there.  But I got up to the Wolf in less than 50 minutes, and that's reasonably efficient for me.

Once there I commenced my main objective for the day: the "start-to-boat-ramp" workout.  This workout consists of five hard pieces from the power lines that mark the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race to the boat ramp at the south end of the parking lot, about 400 meters down the course.  The recovery interval is the time it takes me to paddle back up to the start (around five minutes).  It kind of reminds me of the slalom workouts I used to do, where I'd run a course, paddle back up to the top of it, run it again, paddle back up, and so on.

For years this workout was a staple for Joe and me as we prepared for the OICK race, but I hadn't done it in several years before yesterday, largely because doing the start-to-boat-ramp thing is a nearly two-hour undertaking because of the paddle up to the Wolf and back, and I was looking to do crisper, shorter-duration workouts.  But I've decided that the race practice built into this workout is invaluable: in a less-than-20-minute race like the OICK, starting fast and getting good position early is of paramount importance.

These pieces are often physically exhausting, but yesterday they seemed oddly exhilarating even though I was doing them into a pretty stiff headwind.  Maybe it was the fast current in the rising river.  Whatever the case, I was in a mood to paddle hard and was almost disappointed when each piece was over.

Typically a recovery paddle would be in order for the next day, but I really didn't feel so worn out this morning.  Today's weather was gorgeous--the wind finally subsided--and I made the enjoyment of it my main agenda.  I paddled out of the harbor and down the Mississippi to the trio of bridges below downtown (the Harahan, the Frisco, and the Memphis-Arkansas).  I kept the intensity mostly moderate, though a couple of times I did have to hammer a bit while working my way back up along the Arkansas bank: at today's river level I found myself fighting some strong current over there.  There were also a lot of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff that reminded me of big-water whitewater rivers like the Gauley and the New--it was a little disconcerting for a guy sitting in a tippy race boat.

Once I'd ferried back across the river I finished off my 70-minute session with an easy paddle up the harbor back to the dock.

A mid-continental nor'easter

Right now it feels like we've taken the Wayback Machine to mid March and its cold, wet weather.  Since Wednesday there's been a bizarre, slowly-rotating system parked over the Mid South and Midwest, visiting light but persistent rain, chilly temperatures, and occasionally fierce winds upon us.

Yesterday I paddled in a steady drizzle, a Fahrenheit temperature of 51 degrees or so, and a gusty wind from the west.  I stayed out for 60 minutes, using the first fifteen to warm up and do three 8-stroke sprints, and then paddling at anaerobic threshold from 0:15 to 0:45.

The Mississippi River stage forecast has been revised upward to 36.5 feet on the Memphis gauge.  That won't hurt the city proper, but surrounding bottomland will be underwater.  These high water levels are actually a fun time to get out and paddle because of all the new real estate one can explore.  If I can just find some time, maybe I'll do that.

For those following the news of all the flooding that has hit Arkansas and southern Missouri, I'll just mention that that region drains into the Mississippi downstream of Memphis by way of rivers like the Saint Francis, the White, and the Arkansas.  That's why flooding along the Mississippi here at Memphis will not be as bad as one might expect.  I'll be curious to see how river towns below the mouth of the Arkansas and White Rivers fare--the surrounding areas of places like Greenville, Vicksburg, and Natchez.

Monday photo feature

USA Canoe-Kayak held its flatwater marathon national championships over the weekend at Sugar Land, Texas.  Here, Carson Pellerin of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, begins a portage with his brother Peyton hot on his heels.  Carson and Peyton's brother Conrad took third place in the Junior age group of the K1 class.  Photo by Sandy Yonley.