Preparing for my last hurrah of '18

My favorite baseball team has gone home for the winter.  They were eliminated from playoff contention yesterday, and so today's season finale was meaningless for them.  In light of what I wrote this past week, you could say the same thing about the final race of my season that's coming up next Saturday.  But I'm trying to stay upbeat about it.

Yesterday started foggy but the sun was coming out when I got down to the river.  The Fahrenheit temperature was in the mid 70s, rising to a high in the low 80s.

Paddling from the marina to the mouth of the harbor, I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints.  Then I paddled out onto the Mississippi to see what was going on.  A coal-laden barge rig coming downriver in a hurry is what was going on.  It was producing some of the biggest waves I've ever seen from a downstream-going vessel.  I knew I should take it easy after Thursday's hard workout, but opportunities to surf don't present themselves every day.  So out I went.  But a lot of hard sprints and a couple of near-flips later I couldn't boast much in the way of good rides.  The waves were a little too big and moving a little too fast.  I eventually gave that up and paddled a steady pace for the rest of my 70-minute session.

Today we had some chamber of commerce weather: clear sunny skies, warm temperatures, and a pleasant breeze.  I went down to the river starting to set my mind on next Saturday's race.  After warming up I did six 12-stroke sprints and then paddled mostly easy.  Again I was tempted by a couple of towboats coming downriver, but I restrained myself.

The Mississippi is still quite high for this time of year.  Having dropped to around 18 feet on the Memphis gauge, it's now rising again toward a crest of some 22 and a half feet.  This morning the level was 20.4 feet while I was paddling.

Feeling like fall at last

This week has been a slow transition from damp and warm to drier and cooler.  Even though last weekend's rain brought lower temperatures with it, it remained very muggy for the first half of this week.  Yesterday morning we had our first true chill in the air.  I'm not eager for winter but I'm hoping for a good long period of comfortable fall days.

On Tuesday I paddled away from the dock feeling tired and lethargic.  For the first time in several weeks, I did a set of three 8-stroke sprints, just to see if I could even make my body move that fast.  I was pleased to discover that I could.  For the rest of my 60-minute paddle I felt somewhat more upbeat and energized as a result.

It was only 60 degrees Fahrenheit when I got down to the river yesterday.  I thought I might be underdressed, but once I was in the boat and paddling I felt fine.  With nine days to go before my last race of the year, it was my last chance to do a workout that my body will have internalized by race day.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a set of five 5-minute pieces with two minutes recovery in between.  I had my G.P.S. device on board and shot for 7 miles per hour during each piece.  As it turned out I was able to maintain 7.2 or 7.3 mph while paddling well within my comfort zone.

I did this workout in the harbor, and during that time the Memphis Police Harbor Patrol was cruising around in the fancy new boat they've got.  The boat is equipped with a big nozzle for fighting fires, and as I headed in to the dock the officers were spraying the prettiest arc of water you've ever seen.  I wondered where they were a week earlier when the heat index was in triple digits: I'd have been paddling right into that spray.

Monday photo feature

Yep, I'm a national champion.  Says so right on my shirt.

The reason for this post, besides the blustery braggadocio you've all come to expect of me, is to illustrate a curious quandary faced by participants in the particular branch of canoe and kayak racing that I do.

First, let me explain the circumstances of my national title.  I won it in the men's "K1 Unlimited" class at the 2017 USCA Nationals up at Dubuque, Iowa.  I actually finished fourth overall in the class, but because I was the first racer in the 40-49 age group to finish, I was awarded this shirt as the "champion" of that age group, even though there wasn't but one other forty-something entrant in the whole race.

The Dubuque Nationals wasn't particularly well attended.  In the 2016 Nationals at Northfield, Massachusetts, the competition was much more formidable: I managed only 14th place in men's K1 Unlimited, and I know at least one of the guys who beat me was in the 40-49 age group.  If I had made it up to this summer's Nationals at Syracuse, New York, my result would probably have been similar, as the K1 Unlimited field was loaded.  And having turned 50 in the previous year I would have been in a tougher age group, oddly enough.

I don't mean to throw cold water all over my 2017 accomplishment--you've got to show up to win, and that year I was the better of the two guys in their 40s who showed up.  The point I'm really trying to make in this post is the challenge of assigning "titles" in our sport: just because an event is billed as "The Nationals" doesn't mean you can count on having the very best racers in the nation there year in and year out.  Indeed, it's hard to get people to agree on just what "The Big Race" is.

Flatwater/open water/marathon canoe and kayak racing is not an Olympic discipline, so there's no gold medal to aspire to there.  The International Canoe Federation has recently begun having a world championships for surf ski racing, but I suspect a lot of top surf ski racers still take the annual Molokai race in Hawaii, long considered the unofficial "world championship," more seriously.  Many North American-style canoe racers are more interested in the "Triple Crown" events (the General Clinton Regatta, the Ausable Marathon, and La Classique Internationale de Canots de la Mauricie) than they are in the USCA Nationals.  On the U.S. domestic circuit many downwind enthusiasts shoot for the Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River, while the more flatwater-endurance-oriented folks might save their best effort for the Chattajack race on the Tennessee River, which has managed to become very popular and therefore always has a competitive field.  Ultra-endurance types focus on the Texas Water Safari or the Missouri River 340 or the Tour du Teche.  As for myself, most years my biggest race is the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, because (a) it's a distance to which I think I'm athletically well suited, and (b) it's my hometown race and I want to do whatever I can to make canoe and kayak racing "a thing" in Memphis.

In the end, it all seems like a big hodgepodge that produces no agreement on who "the champion" really is.  But that's really the lesson we should be taking away from all this: awards and titles are not why we race.  We do it because we love it.  I've mentioned before that spending an hour or two in my boat is likely to be the most satisfying thing I do on any given day.  That's more valuable than anything you can print on a tee shirt.

Trying not to be terrible as the sun sets on my season

I'm sort of plodding through these last few weeks of the race season.  Motivation continues to be a challenge.  Most days when I paddle, I feel tired and sluggish in the boat.  The reasons abound:

Physical labor in my non-athletic life.  Most recently I've been painting the outside of a rental property I own.  This past week I spent a lot of time up on a ladder, and somehow that makes the work a whole lot more exhausting.  Paying attention to balance and making sure I don't fall and break my neck increases the stress level, and I think that adds up to a greater expenditure of energy as the day goes on.  One thing I've learned from listening to baseball games on the radio is how much more stressful it is for a pitcher to pitch an inning with a lot of baserunners than to pitch an inning with the bases empty, even if the total number of pitches is the same.  I imagine there's a similar difference between painting up on a ladder and painting while standing on the ground or a solid scaffolding.

Hot, humid weather.  The last couple of weeks in the Mid South were marked by Fahrenheit highs in the 90s with triple-digit heat index values.  Even while doing light chores outside I'm drenched in sweat in no time.  With such conditions piled on top of the challenges described above, I've been in a perpetual state of lethargy.

My epic trip out West.  Exciting and rewarding as it was, the trip took a lot out of me.  It felt as though I packed an entire season into that two-and-a-half-week period.  The idea of continuing the race season since then has been difficult to wrap my mind around.

The cancellation of all my September races.  This has made it that much more difficult to keep my head in the game.  By the time I line up to race on October 6, it'll have been over two months since my last race.  Sharp racing form isn't something you can turn off and on at will; it takes some practice and some fairly regular repetition to do it well.

I guess in a way this post is a preemptive excuse for whatever lousy effort I manage in my October 6 race on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River up in Kentucky.  Then again, maybe I shouldn't be such a pessimist.  I am still getting down to the river for my regular paddling sessions, putting my body through the motions if not my brain, and once I'm there on the starting line alongside athletes I respect, maybe the adrenaline and the competitive juices will kick in and I'll produce a result I can feel good about.  And even if that doesn't happen, it'll be good for me to make the trip.  That part of the country is lovely in October, and I expect to see some people whose company I enjoy.

On Tuesday I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe.  Thursday, yesterday, and today saw me doing 60-minute sessions in which I mostly just paddled steady.  The Mississippi River crested at 23.3 feet on Thursday, and remains unusually high for this time of year.  The heat finally broke Friday evening when a system of rain moved into this region, so I was no longer enduring the scorching heat this weekend.  Instead there was rain, and I've been torn between elation at the cooler temperatures and melancholia over the gloomy weather.  As I paddled this morning the precipitation built from a steady drizzle to a pretty heavy downpour.  I didn't let it bother me.  It sort of suited the mood I've been in lately.

Monday photo feature

Mike Herbert races at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in the spring of 2016.  Photo by Doug Heller.

Today's photo feature is a follow-up to Friday's post: let's all help Mike Herbert get inducted into the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.  There are three things you need to do:

1.  Go here to join the ASHOF.  (Anybody may join--not just Arkansans.)

2.  Receive a ballot for the next induction class that has Mike's name on it.  (Ballots are supposed to be sent out the first week of October.)

3.  Vote for Mike and submit your ballot!

Furious activity in the late-summer heat

This past week I've been as busy as ever with out-of-the-boat concerns--some good and some bad, but all hectic and demanding of my mental energy.  I still managed to get in the boat and at least go through the motions.

On Tuesday Joe and I did our usual loop of the harbor, and on Thursday I went out and found some good barge traffic moving up the Mississippi.  As I went out to play on the wakes, I focused hard on the need to keep paddling in order to prolong wave rides, link one ride to another, and advance to waves in front of me.  When you're getting a great ride it's tempting to stop paddling and savor the sweetness, and there's nothing wrong with that, but this time I was in a mood to work on my maneuverability in the waves.

Like I mentioned before, the Mississippi has been on a big rise this week.  With a long-ish race coming up in several weeks I figured my mileage base could use some freshening up, and I decided to spend yesterday morning paddling around the Loosahatchie Bar, made possible by the 21.7-foot Memphis gauge reading.

It's gotten quite hot again--we had a cool spell earlier in the week but now that seems like it was just a dream--and as I paddled south from the marina toward the mouth of the harbor yesterday, I could feel the sun beating down on the left side of my body.  Once I was out on the main river it felt like an early-summer day in June: the vegetation on the bank is still dense and green and lush, and the high water level enabled me to paddle alongside it or even through it, the crickets and katydids singing away.  With the water rushing through the trees the big river had the feel of a playful babbling brook.

Back at the house I'd packed my camelback full of ice cubes, but by the time I reached the north end of the Bar they'd long since melted and my water was becoming lukewarm.  I got what refreshment I could from it and reminded myself that some lovely cold water awaited in an insulated bottle on the dock.

I felt as though I was making decent time throughout the trip, but as I neared the southern end of the Bar I realized I would have to hoof it to break two hours as I like to do.  So hoof it I did for the last half hour, and at last I glided alongside the dock at right about an hour and 59 minutes after I'd left.  Not my best time ever, but under two hours.

The reward for my efforts was to be dead tired and achey in my back for the rest of yesterday.  By this morning the aching had eased but I was sore in my midsection.  I went down to the river and paddled easy for 60 minutes.  It was another hot day but a north breeze made it bearable.

Vote for Mike!

Long-time readers of this blog should be familiar with Mike Herbert, with whom I've enjoyed many a memorable race.  Mike lives in the town of Rogers up in the northwest corner of Arkansas.  This region might not be known for producing elite-level canoe and kayak racers, but Mike has risen awfully close to the pinnacle of the sport.  He has competed in flatwater sprint in three Olympic Games, falling just inches shy of the medal podium in one of them.  He has won three medals at the sprint world championships, something precious few U.S. athletes have ever done.  He was the 1000-meter champion at the 1991 Pan Am Games in Havana, eliciting a salute to the U.S. flag by one Fidel Castro.  And he has won many national titles both in flatwater sprint and in USCA marathon racing.

Some eight or ten years ago, I learned of the existence of an Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.  As the name suggests, the purpose of The Hall is to recognize Arkansans who have distinguished themselves at the highest levels of their sports.  As I browsed the list of past inductees it occurred to me that the caliber of Mike's accomplishments places him right alongside the athletes in The Hall.

Others in the paddling community agreed, most notably Phil Capel.  Phil lives in suburban Little Rock and is acquainted with some of The Hall's "insiders," and as such he has taken the lead in trying to get Mike on their radar.

At long last, these efforts have produced a result: Mike's name has made it onto the voting ballot for the next induction class.  So get yourself a ballot and vote for Mike!

There is one catch: you have to be a member of the ASHOF to get a ballot and vote.  A membership costs $75.  Just how steep that is depends on who you are, I guess.  To me, it's a little pricey considering that I'm otherwise not that interested in being an ASHOF member.  But I can't not join, really, considering I was among the early instigators of this movement.  So I'm going to pay up.  Anybody who would like to join me may do so here.

Now in his late 50s, Mike Herbert continues to participate in races from the international level all the way down to the local "sandlot" level.  Here he poses with Joe Royer (left) and me after a 2010 race on the White River near Mountain View, Arkansas.

I can't imagine a more deserving candidate than Mike.  But for me it goes even deeper than that.  I want to see our sport get a bit of the recognition it deserves.  If you look over the list of past inductees, you'll see that the great majority of them come from the big commercial spectator sports, especially football.  It's no surprise, really.  But those who know will tell you that performing at the elite level of canoe and kayak racing takes every bit as much hard work and dedication as performing at the elite level of any sport with greater mass popularity.  And it just so happens that one of the best canoe and kayak racers the U.S. has ever had is an Arkansan.  Mike Herbert needs to be in the Arkansas Sports Hall of Fame.

I hope at least a few readers of this blog will consider joining the ASHOF and casting a vote for Mike.  Once again, the link to join online is here.  The ballots will be sent out in the first week of October, so please join soon if you're going to do it.

Monday photo feature

The city of Saint Louis presents the Mississippi River paddler with vistas that are a mixture of glass-and-steel glitz and humming industry.  I paddled here in the summer of 2011, just a few miles downriver from where I should have been racing this past weekend.

Summer stubbornly persists, but fall is coming

All these casualties on my race calendar are a good reminder of how much we should appreciate the race directors in our sport.  Putting a race on is an enormous, largely thankless job even under the best circumstances, and if it weren't for the dedication of these men and women my entire race schedule would be just what it is here in the month of September: empty.

For me there's just one race left to do in 2018, and it's four weeks off, and it's a longer-distance event in which speed won't be of premium importance.  So I'm sort of hitting the reset button.  I expect that for the rest of the year my routine will consist of more touring and playing than "serious" training

The last few days here have been overcast with occasional showers.  Unfortunately it's been the kind of rain that makes it muggier, not the kind that cools things off.  When I got down to the dock yesterday afternoon the air was thick with the heaviest humidity I think we've had all year.  Joe and his wife Carol Lee arrived at the marina a few minutes after I did, so we paddled together, they in a tandem surf ski and I in a solo.  There was just enough of a south breeze blowing to keep us reasonably comfortable out on the water.

The Mississippi is about to rise sharply as the water that has forced the cancellation of the Firecracker Race and one other event on the upper river runs down into the lower.  Today the river sits at a very seasonable 4.8 feet on the Memphis gauge, but the current forecast shows a rise to almost 21 feet over the next ten days.  Last night a system of heavy rain moved through here, and a check of the radar revealed that it's moving on up into the Ohio River valley, so that crest prediction may well be revised upward.  So we're in for a lot of water at a time of year when the Memphis gauge readings are typically hovering around zero.

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes, during which the last half-hour of the rain gave way to a north breeze that would finally bring some cooler, drier air into the Mid South as the day went on.  There was a barge rig coming upriver and I got behind it to do some surfing.  I got several nice rides, but even when the rides weren't solid the waves were the sort of size and configuration that allowed me to paddle aggressively and work on some of the concepts I learned during my week in the Columbia River Gorge two months ago, such as advancing onto waves in front of me.

Monday photo feature

Fairly often I mention the various bridges we have spanning the Mississippi River here at Memphis.  Pictured here is a trio of bridges down at the southern end of the Memphis riverfront.  The oldest bridge here is the middle one: the Frisco Bridge, the first bridge ever attempted across the lower Mississippi, was completed in 1892.  The next-oldest bridge is the Harahan Bridge on the left.  Finished in 1916, the Harahan, like the Frisco, continues to carry rail traffic across the river, and it enjoys newfound fame as a conveyance for the Big River Crossing bike and pedestrian trail.

The bridge that's visible beyond the Frisco Bridge is the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, completed in 1949.  It carries Interstate 55 across the river.

Locals commonly refer to these bridges as the "old" bridges.  That's because there's a newer bridge, the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, a couple of miles upriver near the northern end of the riverfront.  Completed in 1972, the Hernando DeSoto Bridge carries Interstate 40 across the river.

The spot from which this photo was shot is usually dry land.  I took it during a high-water period, on the Arkansas side of the river looking east.  The main channel of the Mississippi passes beneath where the trusses appear atop the Harahan and Frisco Bridges.

Hobbled

In my last post I should have mentioned another contributor to my weary mood these days: the return of my plantar fasciitis.  My right foot is hurting as bad as ever.  I'm back to making frequent visits to the chiropractor and I hope I'll start to get some relief soon, but it's disheartening because it feels like we're back to square one treating a problem I'd thought I'd licked.

I guess there's a bright side: while this injury puts a damper on my daily existence, at least it doesn't stop me from paddling.  The river is about the nicest place to be during these steamy, muggy days because there's usually more of a nice breeze there than in the middle of town.  Yesterday I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, then headed out onto the Mississippi hoping to find some barge traffic for a "play" workout.  But the river was quiet and I ended up doing a steady up-tempo loop around the Harahan Bridge to the south and the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to the north.  As I headed back toward the harbor I ran into a couple of other surf ski paddlers, Adam Davis and Mike Womack.  They'd put in about 18 miles upriver at Shelby Forest and were paddling down to the Memphis riverfront.

Today I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  I typically do stuff like this in the harbor, but today I did them out on the river.  The conditions were calm, but on the river the water is always squirrelly enough to add a balance aspect to the workout.