Monday photo feature

Scott Cummins, the winner of Saturday's Music City SUP (and Kayak) Race, stands atop the podium with third-place finisher Ted Burnell to his left.

Where's the runner-up?  I was on the road headed east.  I'd been invited to a pot-luck dinner in North Carolina, and with the time zones working against me, I was concerned about making it there on time.  Now I feel bad because I generally believe a medalist should stick around to be recognized.

Oh well... I have a feeling there will be more opportunities to race with both these gentlemen.  I'll try to give the podium the respect it deserves then, whether I'm standing on it myself or standing among the applauding onlookers.

Photo by Mike Alan.

First weekend of vacation, Part C: Moving on to the mountains

I had to hit the road promptly after the race Saturday.  I'd promised some friends in North Carolina that I'd try to make it to their house in time for supper, and I'd lose an hour along the way when I entered the Eastern time zone, so there was no time to sit around and savor my second-place finish or agonize over missing first place by a narrow margin.

My friends live high in the mountains between Asheville and Johnson City, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous when I arrived there in the evening.  I gleefully changed into long pants and a long-sleeved shirt before joining them for supper.

I slept wonderfully and woke up yesterday morning to a picture-perfect kind of day.  And I've got an actual picture to prove it:

Suitably enough, my friends had plans to spend the day in the outdoors, so I bade them goodbye and continued east toward my sister's family's home, where I'll be spending several days.  As usual for a day after a race, I wanted to get in my boat and work some of the previous day's stresses out of my body, and Lake James appeared to be the most convenient venue along my route.  Lake James is a reservoir at the foot of the Blue Ridge Escarpment that was formed by a dam across the Catawba River.  It sits between the towns of Marion and Morganton.

On this beautiful Sunday afternoon the lake was utterly teeming with all manner of motorized pleasure craft.  Clearly, this would not be a serene recovery paddle.  It takes more energy and concentration to paddle in churned-up waters, and of course one can't expect me not to try to surf anytime some good waves come my way.

In any case, I managed not to kill myself out there during my 80-minute paddle, but I was quite worn out when it was over.  Fortunately my sister's house was less than an hour away, and when I got there I had just enough time for a nap before suppertime.  I plan to spend the next day or two giving my body some real rest before I set my sights on the next race this Saturday.

First weekend of vacation, Part B: Racing in Nashville

The weatherman had promised some relief from the sweltering summer heat, and it seemed that he'd delivered as I prepared to head out to the race site yesterday morning.  My stomach still felt a bit heavy from that massive burger but my bodily functions seemed to be proceeding on schedule.

My race was on J. Percy Priest Reservoir on the east side of town.  This body of water, formed by the construction of a dam on the Stones River near its confluence with the Cumberland River, is a place I hadn't visited since I'd been a college student in Nashville in the late 1980s.  I arrived at the race site yesterday morning and realized I'd forgotten what a nice lake it is.

The race distance was 6 miles: three laps of a 2-mile loop.  We warmed up and assembled at the starting line, and off we went.  Very quickly I found myself in the lead pack with Scott Cummins of Louisville, Kentucky, and Ted Burnell of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Out on the lake there were some decent-sized waves driven by an 8- or 9-mile-per-hour wind, and each leg of the triangular course offered its own particular challenge.  The stretch from the starting line to the first buoy turn seemed to be the "calmest" of the three legs; the second leg went straight into a headwind; and the final leg featured waves running from about four o'clock to ten o'clock, if our bows were pointed toward twelve o'clock.

By the three-mile mark Scott and I had opened a gap on Ted, and I knew I was in familiar territory.  I've been racing with Scott off and on for the last fifteen years or so, and while we're generally evenly matched, he has seemed to have my number when the finish line comes into view and it's time to go for the win.

This history between us was at the front of my mind as more and more of the course passed beneath us.  As we began the third and final lap I was still feeling reasonably fresh, and given the regular sprint workouts I'd done during the summer, I thought I should have a good shot at him as long as I conserved my energy for a strong finish.  Scott seemed content to hold the lead--he later told me he wanted to control how we approached the buoy turns among the standup-paddleboard racers who were also on the course--so I tried to stay positioned on his stern wake, especially on the upwind leg.

I didn't do myself any favors at the final buoy turn.  Scott went to the outside of a pair of SUP racers, and I thought I could cut inside and gain an instant boatlength or two on him.  But at the last second one of the boarders turned sharply right in front of me, and because he was in right-of-way position, there wasn't much I could do but stop paddling for the few seconds it took him to get out of my way.  Then I had to throw in a sprint just to regain contact with Scott.  Now we were headed toward the finish line with the waves following us at an oblique angle, and we tried to tack back and forth to get whatever boost from them we could.  The final 400 meters or so were in slightly more protected water, and as soon as I sensed the waves were starting to abate I began my final sprint.  By this time Scott had drifted off some distance to my left and it was hard to tell which of us was actually in the lead, but I liked my chances.  I pretended I was back on Patriot Lake where our "Thursday evening sprints" take place, and sprinted as hard as I could.

But as our paths toward the finish line converged, Scott wasn't giving an inch.  My fitness was there, enabling me to bear down ever harder, but the necessary speed was not, and Scott held me off to win by about a third of a boatlength.

The results are posted here.  You have to click on "Results," and then choose "6 mile" from the "select an event" menu.  Scott (who is listed as William Cummins) officially beat me by 1.46 seconds, but I think the true margin was about a second less than that.

But that's "all academic," as they say.  It was a good hard-fought contest and I have no complaints.  Surely it's only a matter of time before I finally end up on the winning end of a mad sprint to the finish with my Kentucky rival.

First weekend of vacation, Part A: leaving town and race prep

It's always hard to get out of town.  I spent the 48 hours from the middle of Wednesday to the middle of Friday furiously trying to tie up all the many loose ends.  Along the way I got down to the river both Thursday morning and Friday morning, doing a few 12-stroke sprints and trying to perfect my "race face."

The oppressive summer heat makes everything seem more difficult, including travel preparation.  It took me no time to become drenched with sweat as I carried my bags and paddling gear out to the car after lunch on Friday.  Finally, with everything packed, I toweled off and hit the road.  My first stop was Nashville, where I stayed with an old college friend.  We went out for supper at a bar and grill nearby, and about the only thing on the menu that appealed to me was the burger, so I ordered that... not exactly a textbook pre-race meal.  Once I'd wolfed down that half-pound of ground beef I wondered if my body would be able to process it before my 9:30 start the next morning.

Survival skills at the height of summer

This morning I did the strength routine for the last time before this next round of races.  Now it's time to hone my speed a little and get some rest.

Yesterday I had an enjoyable 60 minutes on the riverfront.  As I was paddling from the harbor onto the Mississippi there was a barge rig coming downriver, and I fell in behind it to see if the surf was up.  I got several decent rides before the waves began to peter out.  As I drifted along looking around to see if any more waves were developing, I saw a guy in a big bass boat heading my way.  He called out "Are you okay?"  Somewhat surprised, I said, "Yeah!"  He said, "Okay, I was just checking to make sure," and I gave him thumbs-up and yelled "Thank you!"

And just to be clear, I am very grateful for his concern.  But I'm also a bit puzzled, and curious to know just what he was seeing that made him think I was a boater in distress rather than the happy, relaxed, content paddler that I actually was at that moment.  I think it's an interesting example of the different worlds that paddlers and fishermen live in even though they're both boaters using the same river.  Somehow he looked at me and saw a different reality from the one I was experiencing.

Once I was certain the surfing opportunity had run its course, I paddled back upriver along Tom Lee Park and re-entered the harbor.  Once back on flatwater I did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.

It was another sweltering hot day, and with the wind at my back as I paddled back to the dock, I was feeling the heat in a big way.  But it was nothing a bath under the hose couldn't cure.  Who needs a spa when the marina where you keep your boat is equipped with a water spigot?

Monday photo feature

A couple of big races took place over the weekend.  The "new kid on the block" was the Gorge Downwind Championships, an event that's in its fourth or fifth year on the Columbia River at Hood River, Oregon.  On the opposite coast was the decades-old Blackburn Challenge, a circumnavigation of Cape Ann starting and finishing at Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Pictured here are the top three overall Blackburn Challenge finishers.  Craig Impens (center) was an impressive winner over Erik Borgnes (right) and Mike Dostal.  Photo by Bob Capellini.

The dog days are here

It's just about time for my race season to resume!  I have a competition each of the next three weekends.  Next Saturday is the Music City SUP and Kayak Race on Nashville's J. Percy Priest Reservoir.  A week after that is The Paddle Grapple on Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina.  And then on the 11-13 of August I'll be racing in the USCA National Championships on the Mississippi River up at Dubuque, Iowa.  I plan to make a little two-week vacation of it all and see what kind of summer this particular portion of America is having.

A forecast heat index up around 110 was good motivation for me to get down to the river promptly yesterday morning.  I didn't do anything too special in 60 minutes of paddling; I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then just tried to maintain a good solid pace.

Today's agenda was pretty similar.  I actually felt tired in the boat, and I'm not sure why because I hadn't done anything intense since Thursday evening.  But I went through the motions for 70 minutes and tried to achieve the best quality paddling I could.  Once again I warmed up and did three 8-strokers, and then I went out on the river and tried to paddle strong.  A barge rig was coming downriver and I followed it for a while and managed a couple of brief surfs, but nothing I'd describe as surfing ecstasy.

There was a pretty good breeze blowing from the south this morning and it felt good whenever I was paddling into it.  When it was at my back I got very hot.  As I paddled from the mouth of the harbor back toward the dock I stopped a couple of times to baptize myself.

Respite

For the last few Tuesdays in a row it's felt like paddling was the only good thing that happened.  Maybe it's the fact that the work week is still just getting started on Tuesday, and my work weeks have been pretty nerve-wracking for the last couple of months.  In any case, once again this week paddling was the bright spot of my day on Tuesday.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I paddled up the river into a north breeze that gave welcome relief from the stifling heat that's settling into the Mid South now. On the way back downriver I stopped and played around in the eddies created by the Hernando DeSoto Bridge pilings.  Slalom racing and whitewater boating are never far from my heart, and I had fun doing a couple of ferries from one piling to another.  They were long ferries, of course, but at 21 feet long my boat is commensurate.  Back at the dock I enjoyed a long drink of lovely cool water from our Memphis Sands artesian well.  I also took a bath under the hose, for which I keep a bottle of Dr. Bronner's soap down there.  And so at least for a little while, life was good on Tuesday.

Last night was another round of "Thursday evening sprints" out at Shelby Farms.  I mentioned that last week's sprints seemed to hurt more than usual, and I'm now convinced that wasn't just my imagination because I felt significantly better during last night's workout.  I must have been tired and low on energy last week; maybe I wasn't as hydrated as I should have been.

Yesterday was another hot and steamy day--I think the high was around 97 degrees Fahrenheit with a heat index value up around 106.  But out at Shelby Farms we got a break in the form of a nearby thunderstorm cell that provided some cloud cover and a cooling breeze.  We got rained on a little bit but the heart of the storm was several miles south of us for the entire workout.

This morning I wrapped up the "business" week with another round of the strength routine.  I did it on Monday, Wednesday, and today this week.

Monday photo feature

Here's another photo taken by Adam Davis during a recent trip around the Loosahatchie Bar.  Here we have the downtown Memphis skyline with Kata Dismukes, Fred Hatler, and me paddling in the foreground.  We're approaching the north end of the Bar.

Weekend mileage

Yesterday I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then just paddled steady.  Even though it was very humid there was a nice little breeze and some clouds in the sky that kept things comfortable.

The same was true this morning as I met four other paddlers for a group session.  Fred Hatler, Kata Dismukes, Jason Salomon, Ralph Dismukes, and I paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and then up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge before turning around and paddling back to the harbor.  We paddled a pretty good tempo up the Mississippi, and another one up the Wolf.  The rest of the paddling was pretty moderate.

It's been nice having some company out on the river the last several weekends.  So much of the time I feel sort of antisocial as a paddler, I guess because my particular training plan might not suit everybody.  But in the last month or so I've fallen into a pattern of doing sprints at Shelby Farms on Thursday evening and a group paddle on the riverfront during the weekend, and that's been fun.

We paddled in a nice tight pack as we came back down the Wolf from Danny Thomas.  We passed several men fishing near the Second Street bridge, and I imagine our bright colorful surf skis were quite in contrast to the camouflage-painted johnboats they're probably used to seeing on the Wolf.

Ecstasy and agony

The heat index has moved on up into triple digits this week, but it still hasn't been quite as bad as it can be in the Mid South in July.  I think the highest actual temperature we've had so far has been maybe 95 degrees Fahrenheit; some years we're over 100 at this time.

Tuesday was one of those days when my 60 minutes in the boat felt like just what the doctor ordered. I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then paddled up the Mississippi to the southern reaches of the Greenbelt Park.  A barge rig was coming downstream and I tried to ride its wake back down to the harbor entrance, but the waves weren't much good.  It was invigorating to rev my engines for that short period, at least.

Last night I went out to Shelby Farms for "Thursday evening sprints" on Patriot Lake.  I guess those sprints always hurt pretty good, but they seemed to hurt a little more than usual last night.  Moving into that "top gear" that I usually have felt like a real struggle.  We did four sprints with four or five minutes recovery in between.  We're using fixed landmarks for our start and finish; the distance is somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 meters--a little bit short of that, probably.

I was dead-tired after last night's workout but this morning I'm not feeling too achy.  I did a round of the current strength routine to complete my usual Monday-Wednesday-Friday cycle for that.

About those 8-stroke sprints

Anybody who has followed this blog for a while is familiar with me saying "I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints" at the beginning of a paddling session.  Maybe it's time I talked a bit more about what these are and why I do them.

An "8-stroke sprint" is just that: a forward sprint in which I take eight strokes.  I count my strokes on one side of the boat--in other words, one full cycle of a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right counts as "one stroke" in my book.  I suppose some would argue that I'm actually taking 16 strokes, but... my training, my rules.

When I do a set of 8-stroke sprints, I normally do them at two-minute intervals.  That gives my body time to recover fully from each sprint so it doesn't start to produce lactic acid.  Usually I will stop paddling 20 seconds before each sprint, so that I'm starting from rest or almost from rest.

What am I trying to accomplish with these 8-stroke sprints?  Several different things.

I believe that both starting the boat from rest and paddling very hard at a high stroke rate are skills that can be improved with practice.  Raw power and speed, mind you, are things that some athletes have more of than others: the current 200-meter world champion probably has natural gifts of this kind that I have never had and never will have.  But whatever power- and speed-related gifts you do have can be realized most fully with some practice.  And so doing several 8-stroke sprints at the beginning of a session are how I get in such practice on a regular basis.

Short, fast sprints are a good way to work the ATP-CP energy system.  This is the system that supplies a quick burst of energy at the beginning of a race.  It can be whipped into shape much faster than the aerobic system (which takes months) and the anaerobic system (which takes weeks), and doing so doesn't tax the body much because of the short duration of the sprints; because of those things I used to work it only in the week or so before a big competition.  But I've since learned that giving it a tiny bit of work on a regular basis helps me avoid that sluggish feeling in the boat.  In the days before a big race I'll get a little more serious about it since I've tapered off all other types of training; typically I'll stretch the sprints out to 12 strokes to make them about 15 seconds each, close to the maximum for an ATP-CP energy burst.

Some days my 8-stroke sprints feel smooth and effortless, and some days they feel like a sloppy struggle.  I have to focus extra-hard on making sure all my muscles are firing in unison, from my legs up through my torso and arms.  I think this is a good exercise--if I can be precise at high intensity, then precision will feel natural when I relax and paddle at a more reasonable pace.

Technique, start practice, speed, quick energy... those are the things I have in mind when I do my 8-stroke sprints.  And if nothing else, they spice up my paddling session a little.

UPDATE (August 16, 2018): Here's a video of me doing an 8-stroke sprint!

Monday photo feature

When you build something on the bank of the lower Mississippi River, you do so at your peril.

This house, sort of a "weekend getaway" owned by a prominent Memphis attorney, sits on the Arkansas side a mile or so above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  While the city of Memphis sits on a bluff, the Arkansas side consists of low-lying floodplain, and I expect this lot was built up with fill dirt.

The house has a breathtaking view of the river with the downtown Memphis skyline in the distance.  And yet, I'm very glad I don't own the place, for unless some extensive and expensive bank stabilization gets done this house is not long for this world.  There's a reason that most of the lower Mississippi River is surrounded by miles of uninhabited and undeveloped bottomland.

Summary of a busy week

After another week filled with out-of-the-boat distractions it feels as though I've accomplished nothing as a paddler.  But that's not really true.  I paddled my usual number of times (four) last week and I got a couple of pretty good workouts in.  I also did two rounds of the current strength routine.  What's been missing is the spare time to process these activities in my mind and share my thoughts with you here.

I paddled with Joe on Wednesday and planned to attend "Thursday evening sprints" the next day, but something came up to prevent me from doing that.  So I went down to the river on Friday intending to paddle hard.  At this time of year, when I've got a pretty good base under me from the winter and spring, I do a lot more short fast pieces; but on Friday I decided to take the opportunity for some pace work.  I did three one-mile pieces with five minutes recovery in between.  My target pace was 7.0 miles per hour; I ended up averaging a little over that--7.1 or 7.2.  My time for each mile was about 8 minutes, 26 seconds.

Yesterday I went back out and paddled for 70 minutes.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I paddled out onto the Mississippi and surfed the waves behind an upstream-bound barge rig. Surfing demands some hard paddling, but it seems a lot more fun than when I'm doing a timed piece, probably because there's no pressure to achieve a certain time or pace.

Today I joined five other local paddlers for another trip around the Loosahatchie Bar.  The upstream leg of our journey had the feel of a group training session, with exchanging of wake rides and stuff like that.  Once we had "summited" the north end of the Bar it was more of a relaxing Sunday float.  As we crossed the Mississippi back toward the mouth of the harbor there was another barge rig coming upstream, and I managed to get several brief surfs on its waves.  So today's trip had a little of everything.

Monday photo feature

Adam Davis shot this photo of (left to right) Jason Salomon, me, and Mike Womack as we emerged from the Loosahatchie Chute and headed back toward downtown Memphis today.  The Mississippi River is about as good a place as any to spend a muggy summer day.

Sore but active anyway

On Saturday I paddled for 60 minutes downtown.  I was still feeling a bit sore and worn out from the Thursday evening session.  I just tried to relax and enjoy the morning on the river.

Yesterday was a burly work day.  I spent the day cutting up a section of a large tree that fell in my mother's neighborhood.  The wood was desirable for my woodworking business, so I put quite a bit of effort into busting up a 55-inch-long, 40-inch-diameter piece of the trunk into small enough pieces for me to lift into the back of my truck.  The task left me exhausted and sore.

I was still very sore this morning, but not too much so for a paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar with several other local paddlers.  I went downtown and met Adam Davis, Jason Salomon, and Mike Womack for this journey of 12 miles or so.

This image shows a typical lap around the Bar.  It actually depicts a trip that Joe Royer and his wife Carol Lee took a month or two ago, but the route is similar to what Adam, Jason, Mike, and I did today:

At today's river level--15.3 feet on the Memphis gauge--I was afraid we would have to paddle a lot of extra distance to get around the exposed sand at the upper end of the Bar, but we found a route through it with minimal scraping of the bottom.

We pushed the pace at times but also took time to relax and enjoy the environs.  All told, I think it was a pretty good remedy for my sore body.