Legging out a few more sprints

My body got stressed a bit more than usual on Monday: after doing a round of the strength routine, I went to a rental property I own and spent a couple of hours cutting up a big tree branch that had fallen in the front yard during some weekend storms, and moving the big chunks of wood.

Because of that, as well as the hard workout I'd done on Sunday, I was as tired as could be when I got back in the boat on Tuesday.  I paddled easy in the harbor for 70 minutes and at times it felt like it was all I could do to string together a few dozen strokes at a time.

The heat has returned to the Mid South.  By yesterday the forecast was calling for a high temperature of 97 degrees Fahrenheit.  When I got in the boat at 10:30 yesterday morning it wasn't that hot yet, but it was well on its way.  Fortunately I was feeling much more rested than on Tuesday.

It was time for another set of 450-meter sprints in the harbor from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and got right to it.  Even though I was feeling pretty good and had a tailwind, I was off the pace: the times were 2:00, 2:01, 2:03, 2:06 (that would be 2:13, 2:14, 2:17, 2:20 for a full 500 meters).  As that last time suggests, I was falling apart a bit by the end of the workout.

I try not to worry too much about the times, seeing as how my races are all quite a bit longer than 500 meters.  Still, the competitor and the perfectionist in me likes to see times under two minutes.  But no matter how fast I'm able to go, I'm concentrating on the technical stuff.  Greg Barton has said that the speed with which you pull through your stroke dictates the speed of your boat, so I try to explode through each stroke during these sprints.  Meanwhile, one of the things Morgan House emphasized in his clinic that I took last fall was keeping the stroke rate under control to get the maximum benefit of the boat's glide between strokes, so I'm trying to do that.  And then, of course, there's the individual advice Morgan gave me about keeping my elbows close to my body and exiting each stroke closer to the boat than I had been.  I'm still working on that.

Where do I feel it during these sprints?  A little bit in my arms, sure; a little bit in my shoulders, sure; but mostly in my legs.  I really feel it in my legs.  By the end of a set of these long, hard sprints, my thighs feel like rubber.  That's where the power comes from, and it's why kayak racers typically include exercises like squats and lunges in their strength routines.

Speaking of strength routines, I did mine again on Wednesday and had planned to do it again today.  But life got in the way today, and I didn't manage to do it.  Maybe I'll work it in tomorrow morning before I go down to paddle.

Monday photo feature

Why wouldn't I be happy, spending a day on the Chattooga River?  The Chattooga originates on the southeast face of the Blue Ridge Escarpment in North Carolina, and then flows along the Georgia-South Carolina state line.  Clay Barbee shot this photo in August of 1994.

Miling

The weather has continued to be humid but not too terribly hot.  When I went down to the river yesterday a line of thunderstorms had just passed through and the sky was still mostly cloudy, the temperature rising toward a high in the high 80s Fahrenheit.  I was feeling somewhat on the tired side, but not too bad.  I paddled for 60 minutes at a healthy pace that included a few surfing attempts behind a downstream-moving barge rig out on the Mississippi.

Some heavy storms moved through the area in the early hours of this morning.  By the time I got down to the marina around 9:30 AM CDT, the rain was gone, the humidity was plentiful, and the sun was trying to come out.  The electricity was out in that part of town, but I didn't need any electricity to make my boat go.

Having spent recent weeks doing lots of hard, fast pieces, I decided I was due for some pace work today.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on four one-mile pieces in the harbor with five minutes recovery in between.  I had my G.P.S. device on board and my target pace was 7.0 miles per hour; but I did most of the workout with a tailwind (the wind was from the south at 5-10 mph) and had little trouble maintaining 7.2 or 7.3 mph.  During the last piece I reached the north end of the harbor and did the last quarter-mile or so coming back into the wind, and then it was a struggle to reach 7.0.  My times were 8:23, 8:16, 8:12, and 8:18.

The most exciting moment occurred about a minute into the third piece, when I surprised an enormous gar that had been snoozing just below the surface.  The startled fish gave my boat a big smack! with his tail as he dove for deeper water.

By the end of the workout I was hot and tired, but resisted the urge to take a dip in the water.  I expect the runoff from the heavy rain had sent the bacteria and other pollution to peak levels.  Instead, I paddled slowly back to the dock and enjoyed a nice bath under the hose.

Looking for speed over bumpy conditions

It has stayed humid this week but the air temperature has backed off a bit, with Fahrenheit highs in the 80s rather than the 90s.  It's still rather sweaty and uncomfortable because of the humidity, but here in the Memphis area we take whatever tiny relief we can get in the summertime.

On Tuesday I paddled a loop out on the river at medium-intensity.  I was feeling good considering the hard paddling I'd done on Sunday.

Yesterday it was time for another workout.  The idea of doing another set of sprints on my 450-meter bridge-to-bridge course was feeling a bit stale, so I decided to take a break from that and do some kind of race-pace-with-hard-sprints sort of thing in preparation for the Gorge Downwind race that's coming up next month.

After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I paddled out onto the Mississippi, where the conditions were about as Columbia-Gorge-like as I can expect to find here in the Mid South.  There was a pretty strong southwest wind blowing, and a couple of upstream-moving barge rigs had just passed by downtown Memphis, so the waves and chop were plentiful.

The workout itself was a "20 strokes on, 60 strokes off" series, where the 20-stroke pieces were the sort of hard sprint one must do to get on a wave, and the 60-stroke pieces were the normal race pace I would maintain in a two-hour-ish race like I expect the Gorge Downwinder will be.

I did this workout first moving upriver along the Tennessee bank.  Then, when I reached the south end of the Greenbelt Park, I ferried out into the middle of the river and paddled with a following sea.  The waves here weren't the best for prolonged surfs, but I could still work on my balance and control in that kind of conditions.  I tried to keep my whole body relaxed and trust the reflexes in my legs and hips to counteract whatever jolts the waves threw at me.

After a while I turned back downriver and returned to the harbor.  I continued the workout until I was at the monorail bridge.  Then, sort of on a whim, I decided to one 450-meter sprint for time.  I wasn't too worn out from the workout, and I figured that with mostly a tailwind I could clock a fast time.  I felt like I was moving the boat pretty well, but when I reached the landmark at the approximate halfway point I was already past one minute.  I tried to keep paddling strong but I finished in 2 minutes flat or 2:01.  Oh well... in general I was pleased with my 60 minutes of paddling.  Technically it was a "work" workout, but paddling through waves feels like play to me, especially when I'm handling them well and keeping the boat moving like I was yesterday.

I did the strength routine Monday and today.  On Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment (annual physical) that took up a good chunk of the day, so I gave myself a break from the strength work that day.

Monday photo feature

After I'd finished paddling on Thursday, I discovered I had company on the dock.

For the record, I'm not particularly a lover of snakes.  I would just as soon not be around them.  But I would never want to hurt one, for I recognize they have their role out in nature.  And anybody who wants to engage in outdoor activities must accept that he shares the outdoors with the native wildlife.

I was startled when I first noticed this one, but once I had a chance to get a look at him I was pretty sure he wasn't poisonous because of the shape of his head.  As I put away my boat and did my other post-paddling chores he just hung out and watched me, and darn if he didn't start to grow on me after a while.  A guy walked by who knew snakes better than I, and he told me this was a king snake.  Later on a buddy of mine saw this photo and said it was a hybrid juvenile king.  You're not likely to find a more good-natured snake than a king.

I haven't seen the snake since then, so I guess he's moved on.  And there I was almost hoping I'd made a new friend to hang out with at the dock.

A high heat index, some litter pickup, and a "play" workout

We're muddling through a spell of high-heat-index days.  The daily highs have been in the low to mid 90s Fahrenheit, but the humidity levels have made it feel like it's over 100 degrees.  We've also had a few "code orange" air quality days, when people who are asthmatic or otherwise respiratorily sensitive should limit their time outdoors.  Summers in the Mid South always seem to make life a bit more challenging than normal, but less than a month from now I'll get to escape for a while when I make my big trip out to the Pacific Northwest.

It was on its way to being a steamy day when I went down to the river yesterday morning.  I got in the boat and paddled for 70 minutes, going down to the old bridges below downtown and then paddling back up along the Arkansas side before ferrying back across to the mouth of the harbor.  The Riverfront Development Corporation and the Wolf River Conservancy were supposed to be conducting a riverfront litter pickup, but I didn't see anybody engaged in such an activity--I'm not sure where the meeting place for the event was supposed to be.  But I'm all for cleaning up the litter on our riverfront, so I grabbed the floating pieces of trash I encountered.  I got several plastic bottles, a couple of plastic shopping bags, and a couple of styrofoam plates.  That's about as much as my boat's footwell can hold.

I went back downtown to paddle this morning.  For this period leading up to my trip I've been trying to do workouts on Sundays and Thursdays, but for the last several days I've been feeling tired and thinking maybe I should back off a bit.  I expect the heat is partly to blame.  I've written here in the past about the distinction between a "work" workout and a "play" workout (or should I just call it a "playout"?).  My recent workouts have definitely been "work" workouts, in which I've endured the self-inflicted stress from having to satisfy the demands of a watch or a G.P.S. device.  A good example of a "play" workout is going out and surfing the wakes behind barge rigs: it's plenty taxing because of the hard sprinting required, but it's also a lot of fun, especially when I manage to get some good rides.

This morning I decided such a "play" workout would be just the antidote for my mental fatigue.  Of course, the problem with wanting to do some barge-wake surfing is that there aren't always barge rigs passing through the area when you want them.  I suppose I could call up one of the big shipping companies and ask them to send a rig through at a time that works for me, but I'm pretty sure I know how that conversation would go.

I paddled from the dock to the mouth of the harbor, doing three 8-stroke sprints along the way.  When I got out to the main river there didn't seem to be a barge rig in sight.  But then I looked south and saw a big rig coming upriver around the big bend down by Presidents Island.  I paddled downriver to meet it a few hundred meters below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.  It was producing some huge waves, and like I always do, I drifted down to the tenth or fifteenth wave back before I attempted any surfing.  Those first few waves behind an upstream-bound rig are enormous and intimidating... I wish I could tell you I'm fearless in the face of waves that big, but it isn't so.  And I'm not sure how good they'd be for surfing because the water has been churned up by the towboat's screws.  The waves smooth out farther back.

And so farther back I went to start surfing.  Over the next fifteen minutes or so I got two or three of what I'd call sweet rides, where I could stop paddling and just glide; other surf attempts didn't yield great rides but I think I still got some "aid," which is to say that I still had to paddle hard but the resistance was less because my boat was pointed downhill on the face of a wave.

As the barge rig continued to move upstream and leave me farther behind, the waves began to peter out.  I decided it was time to paddle upriver along the Arkansas bank and see if I could close the distance between me and the towboat; if so, I might find a few good surfable waves during the ferry back to the Tennessee side.  For the next 20 minutes I paddled a good strong pace and little by little I did gain on the big commercial vessel.  When I reached a point directly across from the mouth of the harbor I began my ferry back across.  The waves I found were not ideal, and I didn't get any more "sweet" rides, but I did get some more of that "aid."

When I got back into the harbor I was pleased with how today's session had unfolded.  The day had started with me feeling tired and unmotivated, but out on the river I got what I think was probably a very good simulation of what I might expect in the Gorge Downwind race out on the Columbia River next month.  Everybody knows about the great waves in the Columbia Gorge, but I understand there are also parts of the upstream-moving course where it makes more sense to stay close to the bank and paddle where the current is not so strong.  Today I got both some practice surfing and a good hard upstream tempo piece along the bank.

I rewarded myself with some re-mount practice (read: an excuse to flip the boat and cool off) in the harbor.  Back at the dock, as I enjoyed a cool hose bath, I felt good about my hot summer morning.

Some skills and some conditioning

When I paddled on Tuesday there was a pretty good south breeze blowing and an upstream-bound barge rig had just moved through the Memphis area.  When I paddled out of the mouth of the harbor I saw not exactly classic downwind conditions, but lots of surfable bumps out on the river.  So I went out and played around a bit.  Having just done a workout the day before with another one planned for Thursday, I didn't want to push the intensity too hard.  So I got just a handful of decent little rides and then returned to the harbor, where I paddled easy back to the dock.

Yesterday it was time for another set of four 450-meter sprints on my bridge-to-bridge course in the harbor.  When I did this workout last week I had a bit more of a tail wind than I had yesterday, so I knew it would be hard to produce the same sort of times.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then got with it, and sure enough, I was slower: 1:57, 2:00, 2:00, 2:03.  (For a full 500 meters this would be 2:10, 2:13, 2:13, 2:17.)

When doing these sprints I've always sort of "stroked for broke" from start to finish, but after failing to break 2 minutes for the second sprint yesterday it occurred to me that it might be useful to play around with the pacing a little bit.  So for the next two sprints I kept it a bit slower and more controlled for the first minute and then tried to bear down for a strong finish.  No miracles resulted, but at least my third piece was consistent with the previous one.  I was just about spent by the fourth one.

I did the strength routine Wednesday and today.  Tomorrow, of course, should be the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race; but since it has been called off I'm just training right on through this weekend.

"You can take the boy out of the camp..."

Yesterday's photo feature is a hint that camp must be on my mind.  For many kids, summer camp is starting up.  I attended camp in western North Carolina when I was a kid, and back then it started up on June 10 or thereabouts.

The Blue Ridge Outdoors website has posted this article about summer camps in western North Carolina.  These camps, says the author, have had a way of setting their attendees on a lifetime course marked by a love of the outdoors and a certain simplicity of existence.

Though the camp I went to is not mentioned in the article, I can offer a testimonial very similar to the ones featured.  I'm pretty sure going to camp did more than anything else to make me the person I am now.

Among other things, camp is where my lifelong love affair with paddlesports began in earnest.  I've written at length here in the past about my camping experience and the profound influence it had on me.  Rather than re-hash it all, I'll encourage readers to look at posts like this one in which I recall those days.

Like the camps mentioned in the article, the camp I attended is still in operation.  The late director's son now owns and operates the camp and I stop by there to say hello once every several years.  But it's a different place from what it was in my youth.  The staff is a sea of unfamiliar faces and the camp program features some new activities I never dreamed people would be doing at a summer camp in the mountains.

Mind you, I don't consider this a bad thing.  As time marches on, all institutions change and evolve in one way or another.  And from what I can tell, the present-day camp is staffed with talented, passionate people doing their very best for the campers.  Meanwhile,  I've changed, too: the traditions, rituals, and hijinks that were once staples of life for my camp buddies and me seem a little silly and dated now.  And so, because of all that, the place no longer feels like the home-away-from-home that it once was.

But that brings me to my main point: it doesn't really matter whether the camp I remember still exists in the physical realm, for it is alive and well inside me, and nothing and nobody can take that away.  Even though I spend most of my life in a flatland city these days, I still live "the camp life" in some small way almost every day.  Camp lives on every time I paddle my boat on the river here.  It's alive when I commune with the turtles and the gar and the ducks and herons and purple martins and all the other riverfront denizens.  Every time I take a cool bath under the hose after paddling on a sweltering summer day, knowing that it's just as luxurious as the treatment I'd get in some high-end spa, I'm back at camp.  Camp lives in my quest to keep my life simple and centered around good health, physical activity, family, friends--the things that matter.

Here's to another summer.  This very moment, thousands of kids are learning lessons they'll carry with them forever.

Monday photo feature

I shot this photo of Wyly Brown and Pierre Villere as they navigated Lost Guide rapid during a camp trip on the Pigeon River near Hartford, Tennessee, in 1993.  Wyly was from Massachusetts and Pierre was from Louisiana, but through the magic of camp they ended up in a canoe together in the mountains along the Tennessee-North Carolina border.

More good days in the boat

Lately the highs have been above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but it wasn't so bad yet when I got down to the riverfront Saturday morning.  There was a mild breeze blowing and it actually felt very nice out on the river.  It was one of those days when I just felt great in the boat and I had an enjoyable 60-minute paddle.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then paddled a strong tempo out on the river.  At Saturday's river level (14.4 feet on the Memphis gauge) the wing dams over on the Arkansas side were submerged and creating boily water, and I worked on keeping my boat gliding through that stuff.

Most weeks I paddle again on Sunday and do a round of the strength routine on Monday, but because of a busy day yesterday I flip-flopped those two things.  So I was in the boat this morning with a workout on the agenda.  In the harbor, I did ten one-minute pieces with three minutes recovery in between.  I had my G.P.S. device on board and my goal was to stay at or above 8.4 miles per hour during each piece.  (I mentioned in a previous post that 8.4 mph is about the average speed that produces a time of 2 minutes for my monorail-bridge-to-Hernando-DeSoto-Bridge sprint in the harbor.)

The workout was plenty taxing but I held up pretty well all the way through.  I kept my speed at or above 8.4 mph for the first nine pieces.  Toward the end of the tenth one I finally dipped below 8.4, and at that point I just tried to keep my form together and take the most effective strokes I could.  In the end I felt good about how it went and I think a few more weeks of workouts like this will have me well positioned when the racing starts back up.

Making some progress

We had several days of pleasant weather in the first half of the week, with sunny skies, Fahrenheit temperatures in the 80s, and moderate humidity.  Joe and I availed ourselves of a lovely day when we paddled a loop of the harbor on Tuesday.

Now, at the end of the week, we're returning to the sort of weather we're used to in the Mid South this time of year.  I wasn't able to get down to the riverfront until the afternoon yesterday, so I'd be doing my workout in the heat and humidity.  My plan was to do another set of sprints over the 450-meter stretch of the harbor between the monorail bridge and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.

As I've mentioned before, when I'm in good shape I'm breaking two minutes for this sprint.  When I did this workout three weeks ago I was well off that pace.  My energy level is often flagging by afternoon, and yesterday as I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints I wondered how my workout would go.

Once again I did four sprints; the recovery interval was five minutes, during which I paddled back to my starting position at the monorail bridge.  The workout was tough: the first piece was by far my best, while the other three took some considerable willpower.  But I can't complain about the results: 1:56, 1:57, 1:59, 1:59.  By the end I was really struggling to keep my form together and that last piece was probably a "heavy" 1:59--1:59.9 or maybe even 2:00.0.  But I'm happy that I managed a time that was reasonably consistent with the other three sprints.  (The equivalent times for a full 500 meters are 2:09, 2:10, 2:12, and 2:12.)

The most encouraging thing about the workout is how I felt the rest of the afternoon and evening: I was tired and a little sore, but it was what I would call a "pleasant" fatigue.  One of the signs of good fitness for me is quick recovery.  I know there's room for improvement because my in-workout recovery yesterday wasn't as fast as it could be--in other words, each sprint was affected by the impact of the previous sprint.  And it showed in my times.

I started my new strength routine on Wednesday, and did another round this morning.

New strength routine

Here are the strength exercises I'll be doing for the next little while.

1.  Walk up staircase carrying a pair of dumbbells

2.  Military press with dumbbells

3.  Torso twists with medicine ball

4.  Bicep curls

5.  Ball back extension (demonstrated at 1:15 of this video)

Monday photo feature

Don Walls and Dale Burris paddle from the Mississippi River into the harbor during the 2012 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race at Memphis.  Dale and Don have competed at Memphis many times and hold the course record for tandem canoes.  Photo by Roger Cotton Photography.

A welcome day trip

I got up bright and early yesterday morning to hit the road.  My destination was the kind of race I wish we could have a few more of.  The "Spring Time Sprint" was just two and a half hours away at Batesville, Arkansas.  The registration fee was 20 dollars.  For a price like that there would be no live music or beer garden or racers on the podium posing for the cameras with oversized novelty checks, but we would be served hot dogs for lunch after the race.  Not every canoe and kayak race has to be a big splashy production with a rockin' afterparty.  After all, the main thing we racers are interested in is the race... Right?

The attendance wasn't more than 25 or 30 racers, primarily because the event wasn't heavily advertised.  There was no website or online registration.  I learned of it through the grapevine, having raced for years with the Ozark-region paddlers who were "in the loop."

The race course would start and finish where Poke Bayou flows into the White River.  Racers would paddle up the White for four miles, round a buoy, and come back downriver to the finish.  As I said in my last post, I wanted to use the race to work on some specific things, especially the speed I'll need in the big race I'm going to next month.  And so once the race had started I found myself sharing the lead with a USCA-style "pro boat" C2 paddled by Don Walls and Dale Burris.  Don and Dale have piled up an impressive collection of national titles over the years, most recently the Masters title at the USCA Nationals up at Dubuque, Iowa, last summer.

My plan was to spend the upstream leg of the race saving energy by riding Don and Dale's wake as much as possible.  Of course, I did take a few pulls myself, because that's what a gentleman does.  I hope their big old canoe was able to get as good a draft on my wake as I was on theirs.

We climbed upriver first on the river-left side, then on the river-right, staying toward the insides of bends to avoid the strongest current.  I began to open a gap on Don and Dale about 500 meters shy of the buoy turn, and when I reached the buoy I was maybe 40 meters ahead of them.  Now it was time for my workout: I began to do a series of 20-stroke sprints, with recovery intervals in between of 40 strokes; I tried to keep this recovery interval as close to a normal race pace as I could.  I was hoping to extend my lead on Dale and Don, but every time I looked over my shoulder they were holding steady within less than a hundred meters.  I could still hear Dale every time he yelled "Hut!" to switch paddling sides.

Down the river we went.  As fatigue set in for real I lengthened my recovery interval to 50 strokes, then 60.  But I maintained my lead and got back to Poke Bayou for the overall win.  Dale and Don finished a short time later, and it was then that I learned that they were throwing in sprints of their own.  I wasn't the only one using this event for some training.

We enjoyed our hot dog lunch and got our awards, and then I headed back to Memphis.  The weather had been pleasant, if humid, in the morning, but by the time I was driving home the oppressive heat was beating down.  The temperature display in my car said it was as high as 97 degrees Fahrenheit as I crossed the Arkansas delta.

A front moved through overnight and today promised to be cooler and much less humid.  Having done two substantial workouts in the previous three days, I was ready for a recovery paddle.  I went down to the riverfront and paddled pretty easy for 60 minutes.  A stiff north breeze was blowing, but at this time of year that's mostly a nice thing.  Anytime I was paddling into the wind I tried to relax and not fight it.

Now it's time to settle into a few weeks of good consistent training.  I plan to get a new strength routine going this week, work on my speed and lactic endurance a couple of times a week, observe a healthy diet, and get good rest.

Regrouping

I'm feeling quite a bit better as this week draws to a close.  I gave myself a break from strength work this week and tried to get good nights of sleep and settle back into good dietary habits.  I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday but otherwise spent the week dealing with a long list of chores in my non-athletic life.

Maybe I had a virus or something, or maybe I didn't; I definitely think my fatigue was part mental, stemming from all the recent traveling, the mountain of work I've been facing in my professional life, and some rather tight finances with a major road trip coming up in July.

It's prompted me to think carefully about the approximately six weeks between now and my departure for the Pacific Northwest.  I've decided to keep my racing and travel schedule as simple as possible, to avoid exhaustion and to save money and to focus on good quality training and recovery here at home.  I plan to make the two-and-a-half hour trip to Batesville, Arkansas, this weekend for the race on the White River there, but I'm going to skip the race up near Louisville on June 9 that I'd been considering attending.

Yesterday I was feeling ready to give Sunday's aborted workout another try.  I had meetings to attend in the morning, so it was mid-afternoon when I finally got down to the riverfront, and once there I realized I'd forgotten both my wristwatch and my G.P.S. device.  I panicked for a moment, but then it occurred to me that it might not be the worst thing to do a workout without these things.  I was probably still not ready to produce optimum speeds at this point, and I could use this workout to get my heart rate up into the desired zone without the G.P.S. on board to suggest that I had "failed."  Lacking my watch, I decided to do 50 strokes (on one side) per piece, as 50 strokes is in the neighborhood of what I typically do in one minute.

I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then commenced the workout.  Not wanting to push my luck too much, I opted for eight pieces rather than ten, and I didn't worry about a strict recovery interval, instead starting each new piece when I felt ready.  My guess is that my recoveries were between three and four minutes, on average.

The workout went pretty well, though it was a tough one.  The last three pieces were particularly painful. As I fought through them, I feared that maybe doing such a workout was a mistake considering my questionable health.  Then again, a workout like this is supposed to hurt some, especially when it's above 90 degrees Fahrenheit like it was yesterday afternoon.

I'm reassured by my body's response in the aftermath: last night I was plenty tired and ready for a full night's sleep, but not feeling any worse than usual after a set of long hard sprints.  Today I'm feeling the sort of fatigue that some rest should take care of.  I plan to treat tomorrow's race as a workout and then get a good recovery for the next couple of days, settling into what I hope will be six weeks of good-quality training with plenty of rest.