Keeping it speedy late in the season, and learning from another sport

Yesterday I got in the boat for 60 minutes, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then heading out onto the Mississippi.  I paddled a mile or so upstream and met a barge rig coming downriver, but this one wasn't producing anything like the sweet waves I rode on Thursday.  I followed it back down to the mouth of the harbor, and mostly got pitched around in boily water.

I've mentioned the gar that have been populating the Memphis riverfront all summer.  They're generally docile and non-threatening, but many of them are quite impressive in size.  As I was paddling out of the harbor yesterday I saw one break the surface about 20 meters in front of me, and it looked like a dolphin coming up for air.

I haven't pulled the registration trigger yet, but I do think I will be going to this race in Louisiana next Saturday.  I've been thinking about how best to prepare: at this point in the season I think the main objective is to maintain fitness, not build it, so whatever workouts I do the rest of this season will be moderate in volume but high in quality.  And so today some hard short sprints were on the agenda in a session of 60 minutes overall.  I warmed up for ten minutes and then did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals near the mouth of the harbor.  Then I paddled up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and back, maintaining a brisk but comfortable tempo.

Back in the harbor I paddled up to the monorail bridge and timed myself in a sprint from there to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I had broken two minutes in this sprint once or twice in the past, but most of the times I do it my time is closer to 2:10.  Today my time was 1:58.  It was a nice mental boost to know I'm still moving the boat pretty well.

(As measured by my G.P.S. device, the distance from the southern edge of the monorail bridge to the southern edge of the HDB is 0.28 mile.  Using the international standard of 1609.344 meters to one mile as a conversion factor, that's about 450.62 meters.)

In the summertime I'm a regular listener to Saint Louis Cardinals baseball games on the radio, and as such I find myself thinking a lot about the technical challenges faced by both paddlers and baseball players.  The Cardinals have a player who's built a career as a good hitter but has struggled mightily at the plate this season.  Discussing his troubles during yesterday's game at San Francisco, the radio announcers pointed out that he seems to be swinging only with his arms, and not getting his entire body involved from the feet up.  The announcers went on to say that pitchers, too, often struggle when they don't use their entire bodies to throw pitches.

The point I'd like to highlight here is that technical issues must constantly be worked on.  Players at the major league level are the best in the world at the game of baseball, and yet even for them perfect technique is not automatic.  When a player is "hot" it usually means that all parts of his body are moving together in perfect harmony, but when he's "in a slump" everything seems to fall apart.  This Cardinals player actually got sent down to the minor leagues for a while this season so he could work on his batting technique out of the spotlight.

Paddling is, of course, a full-body endeavor as well, and doing it right requires ongoing concentration.  I've mentioned in the past that sometimes my 8-stoke or 12-stroke sprints feel fluid and natural and other times they feel like a sloppy mess.  Sometimes all it takes to make them go better is for me to say to myself "Use your feet!" or something like that.

Anyway... that's my "deep thought" for now as I try to finish up a pretty successful race season on a high note.