Monday photo feature

Carol Lee Royer (front left) and a couple of fellow female racers pose with South African surf ski legend Oscar Chalupsky after the 42-mile "Phatwater" race on the Mississippi River at Natchez, Mississippi, in 2012.

One of the stars of my movie, Carol Lee is a mainstay of the paddling scene here in Memphis.  She is also an avid bicycle rider and racer, and holds a couple of age group records for the state of Tennessee.  She can often be found paddling and pedaling with her husband Joe.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Ready for a break

I struggled with motivation this weekend.  Maybe it was the weather (overcast, Fahrenheit temperatures in the 40s and 50s, rainy today), or maybe it was the winter solstice, or maybe it was the concern over this nagging injury I've got.  Whatever the case, it felt like I had to overcome some extreme inertia just to get myself down to the river and in my boat.

Yesterday I paddled for 60 minutes, and for the most part I maintained a steady pace.  There was a barge rig coming upriver, and while I don't normally surf wakes aggressively in the wintertime for safety reasons (i.e., I don't want to get soaking wet or possibly swim in cold weather), I was curious to see how my chest muscle would respond to a surf attempt, so I waited for the waves to die down to a modest size and then tried to sprint.  The muscle didn't respond well.

Today I did a round of my new strength routine, and then went back downtown and paddled for 70 minutes.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on a "pyramid" workout--pieces of 1', 2', 3', 4', 5', 4', 3', 2', 1' with two minutes recovery in between.  Here I was paddling pretty hard but not at sub-maximum or maximum intensity, and my sore muscle held up just fine.  So I'm glad I can train at a decently high level.  But I'm going to need to do some high-intensity workouts in the coming month, and that means I need for this ailment to get better.  I'll be out of the boat for the next four days and I hope that will help.  If it's still bothering me after that I'll look into some more treatment.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A new strength routine

I've changed up the strength routine.  I need something portable because I'm going off on a holiday road trip for a few days.  Also, I'm suspicious of those military presses as a possible cause of this chest-muscle injury I've got.

And so, I give you the Smart Bell workout:





My standard routine is to go through the circuit twice.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Managing a puzzling injury

This week hasn't gone the way I'd hoped it would.  The plan was to get a couple of good hard workouts in before spending most of next week out of the boat, but this nagging chest-muscle ailment has slowed me down.

Tuesday's weather was positively miserable--overcast, windy, high temperature around 38 degrees Fahrenheit.  Rather than do our usual loop of the harbor, Joe and I did two loops of the northern half of the harbor.  Our local real estate development industry and its flunkies in city and county government have yet to clear-cut the harbor's banks up in the northern half, so there's quite a bit more protection from the wind up there.  Even so, I was chilled to the core by the time we were finished paddling, and spent the rest of the day recovering some body heat.

I wasn't sure whether a chest-muscle strain was something my chiropractor could treat, but my buddy Rob, a chiropractor in New York State, assured me she could.  So I booked an appointment for Wednesday morning, after which I planned to go back to the river and do some kind of medium-intensity workout.  But my chiropractor, after making a few little adjustments that targeted the inflamed area, urged me to avoid activities that require torso rotation (read: paddling) for 48 hours.  So I came back home.  I didn't paddle yesterday either, though I did do a round of the strength routine minus the military press, which I suspect puts stress on muscles like the one that's hurting right now.

By this morning it had been eight days since I'd done a workout in the boat of any substance.  I went back to the river determined to do some kind of higher-intensity effort to see how my sore muscle would respond.  After warming up for ten minutes I did a set of three 8-stroke sprints.  They weren't as hard on the muscle as the Paddle Power drill, but I could still feel some stress.

For my main workout I decided to do four 5-minute tempo pieces during which I aimed to build the pace from 6.5 miles per hour to 7.0 mph.  I took five minutes for recovery in between.  It was not at all an ideal workout for the kind of paddling I'll be doing in South Africa in February, but right now I'm afraid to put any more stress on my injury than that.  The workout went reasonably well, though I was feeling some increased soreness in my muscle by the end of it.  By this evening it's settled back down to about the way it was before I paddled today.

This whole business is all very frustrating, but I'm trying not to let it upset me.  I plan to keep living my life and training in whatever way I can, and hope it'll be enough.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Another star of my motion picture that premiered back in October is Alessia Faverio of Asheville, North Carolina.  In addition to doing some surfski racing, Alessia is an avid wildwater racer and a member of the U.S. national team in that discipline.  At this moment she is in China competing in the World Cup series.  In this photo, lifted from the "Alessia Faverio--Wildwater and Surfski Athlete" page on Face Book, she is doing an 18-kilometer "classic" race at Liuku this past Friday.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

"I'm having chest pains..."

I'm still hopeful that this chest muscle strain is something that will run its course in a few days, but right now it sure does hurt.  It hurts when I inhale, hurts when I cough, hurts when I press on it with my fingers.  Very strange.

After doing a round of the strength routine Saturday morning, I went downtown and paddled, and I paid close attention to what did and did not bother the sore muscle.  Paddling at a normal cruising pace, the actual paddling didn't seem to affect it at all; it was the breathing that made it hurt.  But when I did a set of the Paddle Power drill, that made it hurt a lot, and might have even aggravated it a little.  I may have to back off from doing that drill for a while.  I spent the rest of my 70-minute session Saturday just paddling steady at a medium-strong pace.

Since Saturday I've had to modify my schedule a little.  The handbell group I play with had a performance yesterday morning, and while I could have paddled in the afternoon, I decided a break might not be the worst thing considering my injury.  I thought about paddling this morning, but seeing as how it's pouring down rain outside with some occasional lightning moving through, I've decided to give it some more rest.  Once this rain moves out it's supposed to be colder but sunny, and I'm hoping by mid-week maybe I'll be feeling better.  I'd sure like to get some good work in this week because I'll be out of the boat most of next week due to holiday travel.

It just so happens I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon--just a routine thing, getting some bloodwork done.  I'll be sure to ask the doctor what she thinks about this whole chest business.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Enduring high-intensity efforts

When I got up Tuesday morning another chilly spell had moved into the Mid South.  I did a round of the strength routine and then headed downtown for a loop of the harbor with Joe.  I've paddled in much worse winter weather than what we had Tuesday, but it seemed awfully gloomy and cheerless nevertheless.  The sky was overcast and the temperature hovered around 37 degrees Fahrenheit.  By the last couple of miles my feet were freezing and I was eager to get back to the dock and change into dry socks and shoes.

I was also feeling a little pain in my chest, sort of below my right pec muscle, while I paddled.  At first it almost seemed like a simple stitch or some such thing, but it has persisted since then and I now think I must have pulled or strained something during Tuesday's strength workout.  A quick glance at a Wikipedia diagram leads me to infer that maybe it's one of my intercostal muscles, muscles between the ribs that are involved in the mechanical aspect of breathing.  It hurts when I inhale deeply and especially when I cough, and that supports my suspicion.

Hopefully it's nothing too serious, just a strain that'll be better in a few days.  But I can definitely feel it when I paddle, partly because of the breathing and partly because of the torso rotation.

Today I did another round of the strength routine and then returned to the river.  The sun was out and it was breezy but warmer (around 50 degrees).  I warmed up and did several of those "paddle power" drills, and then commenced my workout.  I mentioned in a recent post that I struggled with the frequency of hard sprints I was having to do on the Columbia River last summer, and today I experimented with a workout that I hope will remedy that.  Basically, I did a series of 20-second sprints while decreasing the length of the recovery interval.  It went like this:

20-second sprint
60-second recovery
20-second sprint
50-second recovery
20-second sprint
40-second recovery
20-second sprint
30-second recovery
20-second sprint
20-second recovery
20-second sprint
10-second recovery
20-second sprint

I did two sets of this series, with a good long recovery in between sets.  By the end of each set I was gasping for breath.  But it's a start.  I hope to make some version of this workout a regular occurrence between now and the end of January.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Paddle Power!

Research has indicated that for building power, two or three explosive bursts of effort against high resistance works best.  For example, to build power in the bench press, put something close to the maximum weight you can handle on the bar, and then do two or three explosive reps.  (Use a spotter, of course.)

In the boat, my "paddle power" drill is simple: I use a few backstrokes to get the boat up to speed in reverse, and then do a few hard, explosive forward strokes to overcome that inertia.  In a typical paddling session, I'll warm up and then do three of these drills before moving on to the main workout for the day.





For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Amelia Taylor shot this photo after she and I paddled on the Memphis riverfront yesterday.  Atop the Beatermobile is my old touring boat that I'd brought down for her to paddle.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A hard day and a day spent guiding a friend

Friday morning was another rainy one, and I spent the first part of it indoors doing another round of the new strength routine.  I went easy on the Hindu squats because my quad muscles were still quite sore.

By the time I got down to the river around 10 AM, the rain had moved out, and I would be paddling under overcast skies with the temperature around 55 degrees Fahrenheit.  I warmed up and did another round of that backpaddling-then-forward-paddling drill, and then moved on to my main workout.  I did eight 4-minute pieces; each piece broke down like this:

(a) 2 minutes paddling at 6.2 miles per hour on my G.P.S. device
(b) 45 seconds at 6.8 mph
(c) 45 seconds at 7.2 mph
(d) 30 seconds at a sub-maximal intensity--worked out to around 7.8 mph

The two minutes at 6.2 mph served as my recovery interval--in other words, I did the 4-minute pieces back-to-back without any additional recovery in between.  The workout was pretty taxing--in particular, my already-sore thighs were protesting loudly during the last several pieces--but not to the point that my form was breaking down.

By lunchtime on Friday, I was one tired guy, but it was a good tired.

Yesterday I got a message from a friend that she was passing through town and would like to paddle with me on the Mississippi today.  Amelia lives in east Tennessee and has been paddling whitewater for a few years, but is less familiar with navigating big rivers like the Mississippi in longer boats; so it was my duty to help her through this rite of passage.  I retrieved my rarely-used plastic touring boat from its storage spot up under my back deck (I found an abandoned bird's nest in the cockpit), scared up a spare paddle and PFD, and took it all down to the river this morning for Amelia to use.

We paddled for about 100 minutes.  We didn't venture far from downtown Memphis, but after climbing up along the Tennessee bank to the foot of the Greenbelt Park we ferried out to the middle of the river for the trip back down, where Amelia could experience the mighty river in all its glory.  She seemed suitably appreciative.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Getting serious and getting sore

I started up a new strength routine Tuesday morning.  It had been a couple of months since I'd done any kind of leg exercises, and those Hindu squats hit me hard.  My quad muscles throbbed the rest of the day, and yesterday and today they have been wicked sore.  My arms are a bit sore too, from those curls and military presses.  They will, of course, become stronger than before as they repair themselves, but they always protest when given a new job.

After the strength work Tuesday I joined Joe for a loop of the harbor.  I think it's good to follow up weightlifting with some easy paddling.

I returned to the river yesterday and paddled for 60 minutes.  After a 10-minute warmup I did another set of those backpaddling-then-forward-paddling power drills that I talked about last weekend.  After that I just paddled steady.

The week started off sort of cold and bleak.  When Joe and I paddled Tuesday it was in the low 40s Fahrenheit and the sky was much more cloudy than sunny.  By yesterday the sun was out and the temperature was heading up toward the mid 50s.

For the second year in a row, the Mississippi River has been higher than normal in the fall months.  Sub-zero readings on the Memphis gauge are common at this time of year, but this year the river has barely dipped below 10 feet, and right now it's on a big rise in the wake of the heavy rains that have moved through the Tennessee and Ohio drainages in recent weeks.  The current forecast has it cresting near 26 feet.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A new strength routine

It's time to change up the strength routine.  Here's what I plan to do for the next little while:


1.  Core exercise where I kneel atop a stability ball

2.  Military press with dumbbells

3.  Core exercise demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:35 of this video

4.  Bicep curls

5.  Hindu squats (demonstrated in this video)


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

In recent weeks I've been highlighting paddlers who star in my movie that remains in its first run internationally.  I think I'll take a break from that and pick it up again later.

This week I post a photo related to the annual Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River at Hood River, Oregon.  Registration for next summer's race went live this past Saturday evening, and I wasted no time getting myself signed up.

My Go Pro camera captured this photo in July, 2018, as I had all the fun I could stand on the mighty Columbia.  I'm in an area of the river known as Swell City, and I'm most definitely having a swell time.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Heading into some crucial weeks

Two months from now--if the good Lord's willing and the creeks don't rise, of course--I'll be in the South Africa town of Fish Hoek for some instruction in the ways of downwind paddling from a couple of legends in the sport, the Mocke brothers.

Downwind paddling requires a unique skill set and an intimate knowledge of the behavior of ocean swells, and I hope I can make some gains in these areas during my eight-day seminar with the Mockes.

Meanwhile, downwinding is perhaps the most physically demanding paddling discipline I've ever pursued.  Catching a run requires a short but very hard sprint, and you can expect to do a lot of such sprints over a downwind session.  I've always been a generally fit, strong person, but "downwind" fitness is different from anything I've ever really needed before.  This became clear to me as I was training and racing out in the Columbia River Gorge last summer: often, when a good run presented itself, I just wasn't quite ready to throw in another hard sprint yet and I had to let the opportunity go and wait for the next one.

Of course, the more skilled you are at riding the swells and linking one run to the next, the longer your recovery period between sprints will be.  But opportunities to practice such skills aren't so frequent here in the Mid South.  What I can do is train hard, and I hope to spend these next two months fine-tuning my engine so it'll be the least of my worries on the South African waters.

I began the day yesterday with a round of the strength routine while the rain poured down outside.  By the time I was headed down to the river, the rain had moved out at least for a while.  There was a steady south breeze blowing, creating small but tricky chop out on the Mississippi.  I went out there and did a lot of short surges while trying to keep the boat gliding over that stuff.

When I returned to the river this morning the temperature had dropped some 15 degrees, and the wind was stronger and gusting in such a way that it was hard to determine its direction.  West-southwest was my best guess.  I stayed in the harbor and began December with some harder, faster paddling than I've done in a while.  First I did a power-building drill: I backpaddled for a few strokes and then did some hard forward strokes.  I did this three times.  It had been a long time since I'd done this drill; a couple of winters ago I started shying away from it because it almost always gets me wet, and that's not fun in the wintertime.  But power is what I need, so I'm going to do it at least when it's warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit or so.

I followed this work with a set of twelve 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  The last four or five of these sprints were tough: I was feeling it in my biceps and my stroke form started to break down a little.  I lowered the stroke rate and focused on taking the cleanest, most precise strokes I could.  The encouraging thing was that even late in the workout, my breathing and heart rate were recovering quickly from each sprint.

So here we go.  Serious training for the South Africa trip has begun.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Making these short days count

I did a round of the strength routine on Monday, and on Tuesday I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe.  On Wednesday it was another round of strength work followed by a spirited 60-minute session out on the river.

As we near the end of the month I'm mostly happy with how it's gone.  At the start of the month I was hurting in much of the upper half of my body and not feeling much like an athlete at all.  Now I'm back into a training routine and, while not entirely free of the occasional ache or pain, ready to get into some more serious workouts.  Like I said earlier, the key is to keep moving.  The hardest part always seems to be fighting out of the state of inertia--getting up out of my chair and starting a strength workout, getting myself out of the house and down to the river.  Once I'm actually in motion my productivity seems to flow with little effort.  It sounds like simple physics, really.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Of all the athletes interviewed for my movie that premiered last month, I doubt anybody has a brighter-shining star right now than Teneale Hatton.  She's pictured here racing the 1000-meter final at the 2014 world championships in Moscow, in which her winning time of 3 minutes, 49.42 seconds was (and currently remains) the fastest ever by a female kayaker.  She also won the 5000-meter race at that championships.

Sure, that was five years ago, but the 29-year-old New Zealander has hardly slowed down since then.  Flatwater sprint racing is actually just a small part of Hatton's overall paddling life.  She grew up primarily in ocean-based paddlesports like surf lifesaving and surfski racing, and continues to excel on the sea.  She took the title at the 2015 ICF world championships for ocean racing and claimed the bronze medal at that event this year.

Her appearance in my movie was shot just after she'd won the women's surfski class at the Gorge Downwind Championships at Hood River, Oregon, this past July.  If you look closely, you'll see that she's holding one of those oversize novelty checks that star athletes get to hold up on the podium.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A weekend to feel good about

It rained all day Friday.  By yesterday morning the Internet radar showed that it had mostly moved out, but a stubborn drizzle lingered for most of the day.  When I got to the river yesterday morning it was overcast with a temperature in the mid 40s Fahrenheit.

My plan was to paddle for 60 minutes and push the intensity during the half-hour from 0:15 to 0:45.  But I wanted it to be more than just a steady-state, metronomic tempo paddle.  So I varied the cadence, sometimes paddling at an unnaturally low stroke rate while exploding through each stroke.  I did the same sort of thing while one-sided paddling, focusing hard on making all the involved muscle groups fire as a single unit.  And then I did some ordinary surges, too.  It all added up to a pretty hard 30 minutes.  I was really feeling it in the last 10 minutes of this period, and my "explosive" strokes seemed to get less and less explosive.  I tried to keep paddling as precisely as possible and not get sloppy.

It was about 34 degrees when I got up this morning, but I was pleased to see clear skies.  By the time I got down to the river around 10 AM, it had warmed up into the mid 40s.  Having done a little workout yesterday, I was looking forward to paddling a relaxed pace and savoring the nice day.  I paddled for 80 minutes, and though it was mostly a fun relaxed session, I did push the pace at times.  What can I say?  I like paddling hard, especially when I'm feeling good, and I'm happy to say that I am feeling good right now.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

I've had better weeks

It's been a week spent dealing with life's minutiae.  My clothes dryer went out, a bureaucrat in the medical practice conglomerate that employs my doctor botched an appointment I was supposed to have, my state's department of revenue notified me of a back-tax amount I owed and promised grisly consequences if I didn't pay up at once... yep, a lovely week.  Getting together with Joe to paddle a loop of the harbor on Tuesday was probably the highlight of the week by far.

I did rounds of the strength routine Tuesday and yesterday.  Hopefully I'll be back into some regular paddling over the weekend.  After a few days of really nice weather we're headed back into some chillier, windier, rainier stuff.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

The parade of stars continues as we celebrate the worldwide release of my motion picture.

Terry Smith comes from a whitewater background.  A resident of the greater Chattanooga, Tennessee, area, Terry has done his share of steep-creeking in the Walden's Ridge area of the Cumberland Escarpment.  He even was among the featured boaters in the 1994 Wayne Gentry film Vertical Addiction.

But Terry is also drawn to the adrenaline rush of competitive paddling.  He is pictured above competing in the selection trials for the U.S. wildwater team last month on the Nantahala River at Wesser, North Carolina.  Photo by Chris Hipgrave.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Feeling better and settling in

The cold I came down with early in the week persisted into the weekend, but the symptoms have been subdued, I guess because of that shot I got at the doctor's office.  Most significant is that I've remained my usual energetic self for the most part.  Those illnesses I had in June and October had stretches where I didn't feel like doing much besides lying in bed.

And I'm pleased to report that my back and obliques have been feeling a lot better in recent days.  I'm not sure I'm ready to pronounce myself completely healed, but I'm encouraged by the way things are going.

As I said before, through all this I'm just trying to keep moving.  It sounds pretty simple, but that attitude has served me well in the past and I hope it will once more.

Yesterday morning I did a round of the strength routine and then headed down to the river.  It was sunny and breezy with a temperature in the mid 40s Fahrenheit.  I went out and paddled a somewhat strong tempo for 60 minutes.

This morning I was back in the boat on a warmer but not quite as sunny day.  Once again I paddled for 60 minutes, pushing the pace maybe even a little higher than yesterday.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Dancing with another bug

The same arctic blast that had brought snowy, icy chaos to the northern parts of the country gave the Mid South a nice taste of winter, too: when I got up Tuesday morning it was about 22 degrees Fahrenheit with a light snow falling.  After doing a round of the strength routine I headed down to the river, by which time it had warmed up to 26 degrees.  The first chore on such a day is dealing with a frozen rudder.  I put my boat in the water and paddled forwards and backwards near the dock for about five minutes before it finally came free.

The sun was out, but there was also a strong north wind blowing.  I stayed in the northern half of the harbor where there is some protection from the wind because the city and its real-estate-developing chums haven't yet denuded the banks.  I paddled easy while heading north and then surged once the wind was at my back.  To be on the safe side on this frigid day, I didn't venture more than about a mile from the marina.  I did a few backpaddling drills to work my opposing muscles and then called it a morning after 40 minutes in the boat.

By the end of Tuesday I was feeling pretty lousy: my throat hurt and it seemed I was back in the throes of the sort of illness I suffered both in June and last month.  This time I didn't wait to see my doctor: I was in her office Wednesday morning.  She checked me over pretty good and didn't find anything too alarming.  She gave me a shot that was supposed to address the standard cold symptoms and sent me on my way.

By yesterday morning I still felt like I had a cold but the symptoms were subdued, as if the shot had indeed had an effect.  My energy level was decently high and I felt fine as I went through another round of the strength routine.  My plan had been to wait until today to return to the river, but I found myself with some spare time yesterday afternoon and I decided to go on down there.  I do over 90 percent of my paddling in the morning and it always feels a bit strange when I go out in the afternoon: the sun is in a different part of the sky from where I'm used to it being, and most days I'm feeling more tired and sluggish in the afternoon.  But once I'm in the boat and warmed up I usually manage to find a groove, and that was the case again yesterday.  I paddled for 60 minutes at moderate intensity.  The temperature was a balmy 46 degrees, and the wind was light--pretty ideal for paddling, really.

This morning I'm still feeling reasonably good and I'm hopeful that this bug I've got is nothing more than a common cold.  As I've said before, my main goal for November is to get a routine re-established as a springboard for harder training in December and January.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

I've been blithely referring to my new motion picture as a "blockbuster," but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that maybe it's more of an "art-house" film.  Hmm.  If you'd like to do me a favor, you could go watch it and then tell me what you think.

Now matter how low-budget and low-distribution the production may be, the performance of the man pictured above is nothing short of Oscar-worthy.  Michael Meredith, a resident of the greater Detroit area, has been one of my housemates out in Hood River, Oregon, for the Gorge Downwind Championships the last two summers.  Here he's crossing the finish line in the 2019 race.  Photo by Sandy Yonley.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Back in motion but not free of woes yet

I'm getting with it again, albeit slowly and carefully, as I'm still experiencing discomfort in my back and oblique areas.  It hasn't helped that this week I've had to make some repairs over at my rental property that involve a lot of bending over in a tight space.

I paddled for 60 minutes on Tuesday, keeping the intensity mostly moderate but throwing in a pretty good 5-to-10-minute surge in the last 20 minutes.  I did another 60 minutes today, keeping the intensity moderate and doing some stroke drills and similar technical work.

I did my new strength routine Tuesday and Thursday.  I'm hoping that the core exercises in the routine will have some rehab value.

As I've said before, I'm able to paddle with almost no discomfort, at least at low to medium intensity.  However, I believe that when you're an athlete training for something, your recovery time is every bit as important as the workouts you do, so I shouldn't disregard the value of feeling good when I'm out of the boat as well as when I'm in it.  My inference is that if I'm feeling less than entirely happy and comfortable, my recovery won't be as complete.

Even though my recent sessions with the chiropractor didn't deliver the quick relief I'd hoped for, I probably should give that therapy several more chances.  It took quite a few sessions to get that plantar fasciitis under control last year, after all.  My mother has suggested seeing an orthopedist, but I'm afraid I don't have a lot of faith in those doctors in the case of low-grade nagging aches and pains like this.  If I had something that definitely required surgery, like a torn ACL or rotator cuff, then I'd absolutely see an orthopedist--surgery is what those folks know how to do.  But every time I've consulted one for a sore back or some inflamed soft tissue or some such thing, I've come away disappointed.

Whatever happens, I want to keep moving, putting one foot in front of the other, taking it all one paddle stroke at a time.

Pogies weather has returned.  I didn't wear them on Tuesday, and my hands stayed just warm enough on a breezy day of about 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  A big front came through on Wednesday and Thursday with frigid temperatures behind it.  We're having our first sub-freezing temperatures of the season overnight.  Today dawned around the freezing point, but by the time I got down to the river it had warmed up into the 40s with plenty of sunshine and just a light breeze from the south.  By most standards, it actually was a lovely day to paddle.  But I broke out the pogies.  When it's below 50 degrees, I need them.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A new strength routine

It's time to start building into a new training cycle.  I'm starting with this strength routine:


1.  Front and lat raises with dumbbells

2.  Stability ball exercise demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:51 of this video

3.  Bent-over rows with dumbbell

4.  4-way abdominal crunches

5.  Dips

6.  Stability ball exercise demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:03 of this video



For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Paddling the tandem surf ski in the foreground are two of the stars of my movie that premiered last month: Mike and Savanna Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas.

Long-time followers of the sport remember Mike as one of the top 500-meter racers in the world at his athletic peak.  In later life he has continued his career as a force on the domestic race circuit.  His daughter Savanna is a recent college graduate who has become more seriously involved in the sport in recent years and is steadily improving.

Sometimes Mike and Savanna race solo, and sometimes they join to make a formidable tandem team.  In this picture they're competing in the 31-mile "Chattajack" race two Saturdays ago on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga.  Photo by Christel Herbert.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Healing

I'm not free of pain yet but I think I'm headed in the right direction.  One of the frustrating things about this ailment was that the pain affected a general area and was hard to pinpoint, but in recent days it has receded from all except a rear-left-side abdominal muscle.  I now wonder if this is the sort of "oblique" injury that's dreaded by pitchers in baseball.  Such injuries are notorious for the time they require to heal: whenever a pitcher on my favorite team gets one, the commentators always say "Oh, he'll be out a couple of months."

For several days last week I was proactive about doing some therapeutic stuff like stretching and soaking in the tub, and I think that helped.  Then, later in the week, I got very busy preparing for a work-related event on Saturday and these activities fell through the cracks.  I'm hoping my schedule will calm down again so I can get back into a routine of recovery sessions.

The good news is that unlike a pitcher, I can still go out and do my sport with this injury.  It doesn't seem to bother me in the boat, and I sense that the rotational motions of easy paddling have some therapeutic value.  Whether I can handle more intense paddling remains to be seen.  My tentative plan is to spend the coming month rebuilding some volume so I can spend December and January doing more serious prep for the South Africa trip.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Here's another one of the stars of my blockbuster movie: Mr. Christian Massow.  Christian grew up in the robust flatwater racing programs in Germany, and now makes his home in the greater Houston area.  In this photo he's just finished first overall in the "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in 2013.  Photo by Robert Nykvist.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Muddling along uncomfortably

My back ailment is now two weeks old, and I'm puzzled by it.  Usually when I tweak my back it works itself out over several days, but this time it hurts just as bad now as it did on Day One.  I've been to the chiropractor twice now, with no improvement to show for it.

At this point I'm trying not to obsess over it, and just live my life the best I can.  But the question is in the back of my mind: what if it's feeling just as bad two weeks from now, or a month from now?  All I can do is try to be good to myself each day and be thoughtful about my movements.  It would probably be wise to do some daily stretching and maybe some warm tub soaks.

The training break continues.  For the last couple of weeks my only paddling has been the usual Tuesday session with Joe.  Joe says I should continue to take a break until I'm good and ready to get back at it.  "You should be hungry," he says.  He's right, of course, but with a physically demanding week in South Africa looming in early February, I can't wait too long to start up some training again.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Followup on my last race

The results of the Buck Island River Race that took place back on October 5 are now posted here.  A guy named Elmer Holmes was the winner!


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

A training break is a good time to freshen up your boat and gear.  My training paddle--a pair of full-size Epic wing blades on a homemade ash shaft--was past due for some love.  I gave the shaft a good cleaning and sanding, and then applied a new coat of marine-grade epoxy resin followed by two coats of spar urethane varnish.  The epoxy seals and protects the wood, while the varnish protects the epoxy from ultraviolet degradation.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Oh, to be back in the pink

It's been a while since I've written anything here.  My usual post-season training break is part of the reason.  Another part is my health being down in the dumps.

That "cold" I had during my last race turned out to be more serious than I thought.  As the following week wore on, it became clear that it wasn't going to go away without some pharmacological persuasion.  I finally went to the doctor, who prescribed an antibiotic.  Within a couple of days I was noticing some improvement at last.

The weekend of October 11-13 was the annual crafts fair here where I always demonstrate bowl carving.  I skipped it on Friday because I still wasn't feeling well, but spent Saturday and Sunday swinging my axe and adze.  Bowl carving involves handling some heavy logs, and at some point on Sunday I managed to strain my back.  That sort of thing happens once in a while and it almost always gets better after several days, but this time the discomfort dragged on all last week.  To make matters worse, I woke up this past Friday morning with pain in my neck from having slept on it wrong.

I don't visit my chiropractor as often as I used to because she dropped out of my health plan's network and it's a lot more expensive for me to see her now.  But today I shelled out her fee and got some spinal adjustments.  Sometimes when I see the chiropractor she cracks me just right and I exclaim "Oh yeah!  You nailed it!!!!"  But that didn't happen today.  At the moment I'm still sore, and I can only hope she hit the right spots to put me on track toward healing.

I do have a bit of good news: I've arranged a trip to South Africa in early February.  I'll be staying in the town of Fish Hoek, home of the Miller's Run, the global mecca for downwind paddlers.

I'll be talking a lot more about this trip in due course.  Downwind is the most physically demanding paddling discipline I've ever done, and my training in November, December, and January will seek to put me in an optimum state of fitness.  For now I plan to take it easy for a couple of more weeks and try to get myself feeling good again.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Karen Kesselring of Hot Springs, Arkansas, is one of the stars of my motion picture that premiered last week.  Here she's racing on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 2011.  Photo by Paul Ingram.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

The international premiere

Well, a couple of weeks ago I promised it was coming up soon.  And now here it is: my MOVIE!!!!



I know this sounds supremely corny, but I consider this film sort of a love letter to the sport of canoe and kayak racing. The interviewees here are all people I admire. Some of them are elite-level athletes, and some aren’t; what they have in common is that they’ve embraced the sport and made it an integral part of who they are. If you ask people who know them, one of the first things you’ll hear is “He’s a paddler” or “She’s into canoe and kayak racing.” In this film I ask them all the same questions, and while each of them provides unique answers, they all convey a motivation rooted in a journey of self-discovery and fulfillment. This film focuses on flatwater and open-water racing in boats like surf skis, marathon canoes, sprint K1s, outrigger canoes, and touring kayaks. But having competed in whitewater disciplines like slalom and wildwater in the past, I know that the passion and desire on display here is shared by those athletes as well. In 2019 I participated in nine events, and the interviews in this film were conducted at eight of these events. I regret that I did not conduct any interviews at the Oyster City race at Apalachicola, Florida, on April 6. It was my second race of the year and I hadn’t yet settled into the habit of getting out my camera. After the race I got busy socializing and drinking beer and so on, and I simply forgot. And so that event is not included here, and I’m sorry about that. There certainly were racers there I would have liked to include here, and if I dream up a new project in the future I’ll go the extra mile to write them into the script. Just so you know: a couple of the still photos displayed in the film are from the 2019 season, but most of them aren’t. They’re just a bunch of shots I’ve accumulated on my hard drive over the years and I decided this was a good place to share them with a wider audience. I can speak for nobody but myself, but they certainly make ME want to start cheering. Anyway… thanks to everybody who watches all 27 and a half minutes of this production. For best results, watch it in full-screen mode! Turn on those surround-sound speakers!!


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Perched on a stand-up paddleboard, John Ruskey shot this photo on Saturday as Scott Shirey and Robert Cheek approached the finish line to take third place overall in the first annual Buck Island River Race on the Mississippi River at Helena, Arkansas.  The finish was located in the protected water of Helena Harbor, which is actually the mouth of a small creek known as Porter Bayou.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

I wrap up my season here in the good old Mid South

I was up before dawn yesterday and after a quick breakfast I embarked on the 90-minute-or-so journey down to Helena, Arkansas.

Getting there involved driving across a swath of the fabled Mississippi Delta.  I rarely venture into the Delta because I don't patronize the casinos in Tunica County and most other southward passages through Mississippi are accomplished much more quickly on Interstate 55.  So it was a rather novel experience for me, gazing out over the flat-as-a-board landscape as the sun came up.  The region is among the most impoverished in the United States, and its denizens probably don't see many cars cruising through with surf skis on top.  When I stopped for gasoline in the town of Tunica, the kid ringing the cash register asked me if I was going fishing.  I didn't want to get bogged down in a lengthy conversation because I wasn't sure of how much more time I needed to reach the race site, and I replied, "Um, yeah... actually, I'm just going out on the Mississippi River."

"You doin' that by yourself?"  he asked.

"I'm meeting some people," I replied as I headed out the door.

Back on the road, I followed that 61 Highway down to Lula before turning westward on U.S. 49.  I crossed the Mississippi on the Helena Bridge and glanced upriver at what I figured was the entrance to Helena Harbor, where the race would be finishing.

The First Annual Buck Island River Race was conceived as a fundraiser for the Lower Mississippi River Foundation, a Helena-based organization "dedicated to promoting stewardship of the lower and middle Mississippi River through deep engagement."  The main way it actually does that is by offering opportunities for area youth to experience the outdoors on the river and in its corridor.  I dropped by the LMRF headquarters for the race check-in.  The organizers seemed happy to keep things small in the event's inaugural year: the sign-up list was very brief.

Getting to the start involved following a network of gravel roads up into the Saint Francis National Forest.  As I mentioned last Monday, the race would start at the confluence of "The Saint" and the Mississippi River, and the Forest Service had very helpfully placed a sign with that exact bit of information so that I could find my way:

I followed the increasingly rough road to the sandy beach where the two rivers meet.  After a quick meeting with LMRF executive director Shannon McMulkin and LMRF founder John Ruskey, ten other boats joined mine on the starting line.  On command, we churned through a big patch of squirrelly water out into the main flow of the Mississippi.

By this time I knew my main competition would come from fellow Memphian Adam Davis.  Though he'd never beaten me in a race before, I knew better than to take him lightly.  Adam has improved steadily over the last several seasons and he raced extremely well in the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race earlier this year.  He took the overall win just a week ago in a race on the Ouachita River down at West Monroe, Louisiana.  On top of that, I still wasn't entirely over the bug I'd been dealing with all week, so I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Adam and I put some distance on the rest of the pack and settled into our mid-race pace.  I let Adam take the lead, falling back onto his stern wake, and I hoped to hang out there for a while, conserving energy as much as possible before attempting some kind of move in the second half of the race.  Adam was paddling a strong pace and it took some work on my part to hold my position.  I wasn't feeling terrible but I was clearly not a hundred percent, and I knew that if Adam didn't eventually tire I would have real difficulty going for the win.

At Mile 5 I threw in a surge and took the lead.  I kept the pressure on for some 30 seconds to see if I could open a gap, but Adam was sticking right there with me.  So I settled down and cruised along with him on my stern, only fair since he'd pulled me for almost a half-hour.  We rounded the broad rightward bend of the river with Buck Island to our right and the state of Mississippi to our left, and paddled toward the industrial facilities that sit on the outskirts of Helena.

From our position the entrance to Helena Harbor was not easy to spot, and we ended up paddling side-by-side wondering aloud: "Is that it?  No... is that it?  No..."  I finally managed to make out the near "corner" of the riverbank where the harbor began, standing out ever so subtly against the wooded backdrop.  I picked up the pace a little, but Adam stayed right with me.  I knew what I had to do: stay on Adam's side wake as long as I could so I'd be in position to take the lead should the race come down to a final sprint.  I couldn't tell if Adam was feeling any better than I was, but if he were to throw in a hard surge with a kilometer or more to go, he would drop me.

He didn't do that.  As the orange finish buoys came into view several hundred meters up into the harbor, I hung on his right-side wake until I was sure we'd reduced the distance to a sprint I could handle.  I began to hammer, and so did Adam.  For several seconds I thought he was going to hold me off, but then I realized I was gaining, centimeter by centimeter.  My confidence grew as my bow edged into the lead.  A hundred meters became fifty, fifty became twenty, twenty became ten, and at last I crossed the line no more than a third of a boatlength ahead of Adam.

At this time I haven't yet seen the official results, but I know our time was a little under 55 minutes.  The race had been billed as a 9-miler, but my G.P.S. device measured the course at about 9.73 miles.  With the river flowing at a medium-low level of 17.7 feet on the Helena gauge, I think a sub-one-hour finish is not bad.

A 23-foot-long Kevlar touring canoe paddled by Robert Cheek and Scott Shirey took third place overall in one hour, three minutes and change.

I'd paid an extra fee for a race volunteer to drive my car back down from the start, and I availed myself of the dry clothes and water and other essentials that awaited within.  We enjoyed a post-race lunch and a brief awards ceremony, and it was time to head home.  Since I'd driven down to Helena on the Mississippi side of the river, I elected to make the trip back on the Arkansas side.  The Arkansas Delta looks very much like the Mississippi Delta, but the latter seems to get all the attention because it's where Robert Johnson went to the crossroads and traded his soul to the Devil for some wicked guitar skills.

This morning I'm feeling not any worse than I had before, but not any better, either.  Lots of coughing and sinus congestion are carrying the day, and now I seem to have lost my voice, too.  Please don't call me up on the telephone.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Illness is never timely

The top story this week is that I've come down with a pretty bad cold.  My throat started feeling sore on Sunday, and that's the typical sign that I've got one coming on.  Since then my condition has followed the familiar trajectory.  My sinuses are swollen and clogged, and my energy level is low as my body has had to fight off this crud.

I've mainly spent this week trying to get as much rest as I possibly can, hoping that maybe I'll be through the worst of this by the time I line up to race tomorrow.  On Tuesday Joe and I paddled a half-lap of the harbor, and that was it.  Today I went back downtown and paddled for 50 minutes, doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals midway through.  Once I was warmed up I actually felt okay in the boat.  Probably my biggest impediment was my body's current achey state, and I may just have to accept that tomorrow's race may involve a bit more discomfort than usual.  In any case, this is my last race of the year and I expect it'll take a triple-digit fever to stop me from going.

One bit of good news: I'm pleased to report that my eye exam revealed nothing out of the ordinary on Monday.  The doctor updated my glasses prescription, but said everything otherwise looks good.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Here's the section of the Mississippi River I'll be racing on this Saturday.  The start will be at the mouth of the Saint Francis River, which you can see flowing into the Mississippi in the upper left corner of this photo.  The race will end in the little harbor (Porter Bayou) just below the words "Helena-West Helena."  The total distance is reported to be nine miles or about 15 kilometers.

The name of the event is the Buck Island River Race.  That big island in the middle of the river is Buck Island.  I read somewhere that the race course will go down the west side of Buck Island if the river is above a certain level and down the east side if the river is below that level.  I can't remember where I read that or what the specified level was, but since the river is pretty low these days (9.6 feet here at Memphis), my guess is that we'll be racing down the east side, the main shipping channel.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

My season enters its last week

Yesterday morning I did the strength routine for the last time before I race next Saturday.  I think I've made some nice gains in the strength department in the last month, but my arms are feeling stressed and I hope they'll have a chance to heal up a little ahead of race day.

After that I headed down to the river and did a relaxed, mostly-easy 50-minute paddle.  There was no barge traffic and the river was calm.

Today I went out and did eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  I did them out on the Mississippi, since that's where I'll be racing Saturday.

I'm feeling a little bit better than I did late last week.  The allergies continue to annoy a little, but the vision issues seem to have abated.  Hopefully my trip to the eye doctor tomorrow will involve nothing more than a routine exam.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Wave therapy

This has been one of those weeks in which I've struggled with motivation.  It happens.

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then went down to the river, where I felt really tired in the boat.  The strength work was part of the reason, of course, but I also was feeling tired in a more general sense.

I didn't do anything on Wednesday.  Yesterday I still felt tired and lacking in energy, but I made myself do another round of the strength routine.  Doing so elevated my mood some: I was pleased with myself for doing something that would have been easy to blow off, and of course studies have shown that exercise is beneficial at the biochemical level as well (endorphins).

By this morning I was feeling not only tired and sluggish, but a little weird in the head, too.  I'm not sure how to describe it except to say that my eyes are watery and seem more sensitive to bright light than usual.  I decided to book an appointment with my eye doctor for Monday.  I'm not sure anything is really wrong with my eyes--I think it's more likely that this is just some allergies acting up--but I'm long overdue for a routine eye exam and I'm using this motivation to take care of that.

I went back downtown this morning and got in the boat.  A cool south breeze on top of the lovely sunny day countered my feelings of sluggishness.  I warmed up and labored through three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, then headed out to see what was happening on the Mississippi.  There were waves crashing against the tip of Mud Island, so I expected to see an upstream-moving barge rig once I rounded the point.  Eventually I did see it, but it was up above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and moving fast, and I entertained no big hopes of good waves to surf.  I paddled up along the bank until I was just above the bridge myself, and then ferried out into mid-river.  Even though the barge rig was at least a mile upriver now, there was some interesting stuff going on.  Barge wakes are not typically a good simulation of downwind conditions because they sort of wander back and forth across the river and don't follow the pattern of wind-driven waves, but today the south wind was strong enough to take what the towboat had created and generate some small runs.  Whenever I saw swells forming in front of me I aligned myself with them and tried to do all the things I'd learned from Dawid Mocke back in July--"nose in the hole" and "small runs lead to big runs" and stuff like that.  The swells were nowhere near the size of what I see out in the Columbia Gorge each summer, but darn if I didn't get a pretty good run, reaching about 5.8 miles per hour on my G.P.S. device--that's not bad when you're paddling against the mighty Mississippi.

Eventually the waves petered out and I figured the fun was over, and I was ready to call it a morning and go back to the dock.  But then I looked downriver and saw another tow heading up from beneath the Harahan Bridge.  My arms were tired but I hate to pass up good surfing when it's available.  Down the river I went, meeting up with the barge rig alongside Tom Lee Park.  At first I struggled to do much of anything because the waves were huge and moving fast, but as the towboat distanced itself the conditions moderated in size and I was able to get one really sweet ride and a couple of off-balance but decent ones.  The water is a nice temperature at this time of year and the spray felt good whenever my bow flirted with the trough of a wave.  I returned to the harbor feeling good about what I'd managed to do.

For my money, there's just nothing more fun in this world than getting out and surfing waves, whether they're generated by the energy of water moving down a riverbed, the thousands of horsepower of commercial towboat engines, or the wind blowing just the right way over open water.  I've continued to feel tired and out of sorts the rest of today--my current condition feels a bit like a head cold without the actual cold symptoms.  But if some surfing can't lift my spirits at least a little, I reckon nothing can.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Here's the briefest of sneak-peeks at the video project I've been working on all season.  The release date will be shortly after the conclusion of my 2019 race season.  As I said a couple of posts ago, the last race I intend to do this year is a week from this Saturday.  That means it won't be long before you all get to see this film.  Stay tuned.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Playing around in the autumn breeze

It's been quite warm this weekend--highs around 90 degrees Fahrenheit--but some less-humid air has moved in and that's brightened my mood.  Both yesterday and today there was a refreshing cool breeze blowing from the south.

Yesterday morning I followed a round of the strength routine with a good energetic 70 minutes in the boat.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I paddled out onto the river and saw a barge rig approaching from the south.  I paddled down below the trio of old bridges and back up along the Arkansas bank until the rig had attained to Tom Lee Park, and then I ferried out to try my luck on the waves.  The waves were a bit shallow and broad from crest to crest, meaning I had to sprint hard to achieve any kind of surfing action.  In the end I got one pretty good ride, and considering the effort required I was satisfied with that.

I went back downtown this morning and did another 70-minute paddle.  The wind today was rather strong, but since the air temperature was warm I felt great out there.  After warming up and doing another three 8-strokers, I headed out onto the river to find a barge rig screaming downriver.  The downstream-moving rigs often don't produce much in the way of surfable waves, but this pilot must have been in a hurry because his engines were going full-throttle and churning up some tall haystacks.  Once I got into the midst of it all, it was hard to achieve much surfing because with the south wind blowing against the waves, it was all kind of a sloppy mess in there.  I tried my best, getting soaking wet more than anything else, and then peeled off to spend the rest of the session paddling at a medium-hard pace.

The extended forecast is still showing lots of highs in the 90s--as high as 99, even, a week from tomorrow.  But at least we got our first hint of fall this weekend.  And in fact fall begins tomorrow, so surely there can't be too many oppressively hot days left.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Still trying to outlast the summer

This week I learned of this race on the Mississippi River down at Helena, Arkansas, on October 5.  Not only is it a short drive (Helena is some 80 miles from Memphis), but also the race distance, 9 miles or 15 kilometers, is up my alley--I should be able to do that in less than an hour with help from the big river's current.

So, I'm thinking this is how I'll wrap up the 2019 race season.  I certainly hope the temperature will have moderated by then, but I'd better not count on it: the extended forecast on the Weather Channel's website is showing Fahrenheit highs mostly in the 90s through October 4.  Sigh.  I apologize to those readers who are tired of my complaints about the weather, but the fact is that this summer heat has persisted beyond all reason.

In spite of the heat, I've managed some training activities that I feel good about this week.  I've been hitting the strength routine hard and am pleased with the results.  I've mentioned here many times that strength work is my least-favorite part of training, but this routine is short and sweet (it's taking me around 20 minutes to do two rounds of it) while putting me through some good substantial exercise.  This week I did it Tuesday and yesterday and plan to do it again tomorrow.

I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday, and then returned to the river yesterday with a workout in mind.  With the not-so-long race coming up in just over two weeks, I'm back to focusing on shorter, faster stuff.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I did a set of ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  I did about half of them out on the river since the race will be on it.  I'd done the strength routine before leaving the house yesterday morning, but even with my arms tired I felt strong throughout the workout.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

This is the view of downtown Memphis from the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River.  I paddle along here quite often, including yesterday.  I took this photo maybe a year ago; yesterday there was not a cloud in the sky and the scorching sun baked me to a crisp.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

I'm so over summer

With my last race of the year coming up in several weeks, the next ten or twelve days is my last chance to get in two or three workouts that will make a difference.  The race is a longish one, so I went downtown today planning to do a 120-minute paddle.  I didn't want it to be a slow-and-steady sort of thing, and I pondered the best way to work in some higher-intensity pieces.

The most fun way would be to surf some barge wakes.  But when I reached the mouth of the harbor, I found no commercial traffic whatsoever out on the Mississippi.  So it was on to Plan B: throw in a strong surge from time to time.  The most fun way I could think of to do that was to pick some object off in the distance and paddle hard to it.

So that's what I did.  I headed downriver toward Presidents Island, doing my first surge for about a minute until I reached the Harahan Bridge.  After a few minutes at a normal cruising pace, I did another surge until I'd passed a barge moored along the Tennessee bank.  I backed off the pace for another few minutes, and then did another surge until I'd passed a channel marker near Engineers Beach.

And on it went, likewise and so forth.  The workout went pretty well for 45 minutes or so.  Then the heat began to take its toll, as the temperature rose above 90 degrees Fahrenheit while I was out there.  When I was paddling downstream I got a bit of relief from a south breeze, but once I was climbing back upriver with the wind at my back, I labored under the full force of a Mid South late-summer day.  There's practically no shade out on the Mississippi, and I lingered under the trio of old bridges for a brief respite from the relentless sunshine.

As I continued upriver along the Arkansas bank from the old bridges up to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, I struggled but didn't die completely.  I continued to throw in occasional surges, albeit shorter and meeker ones.  When I reached the HDB I ferried back and forth in its shade a few times before doing one last good surge back to the harbor.

I probably would have gotten a better workout on a milder day that wouldn't have required my body to expend so much of its energy fending off the heat.  But hopefully when I'm racing in several weeks I'll get a mental boost from knowing I was able to push through the discomfort today.

I'll say this: it left me basically ruined for the rest of the day.  I came home and had lunch, and since then I haven't done much but lie around the house.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

High heat and a paucity of surfing opportunities

Work continues on my beastly qualities: I did the strength routine Tuesday and yesterday and plan to do it again tomorrow morning.

Summer wears on: the forecast calls for Fahrenheit highs in the 90s for at least another week.  The heat wasn't too bad when I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe Tuesday morning.  But I knew it would be tougher Wednesday when, for a variety of reasons, I waited until the afternoon to paddle.  A nice breeze from the south gave some relief during my 60 minutes out there as long as I was paddling into it, but when it was at my back, as it was in the last 15 minutes when I paddled up the harbor back to the dock, there was nothing I could do but sweat and long for the cold drinking water and refreshing hose bath that awaited there.

My surfing attempts have been a struggle since I got home from the Columbia River Gorge in July.  For starters, I haven't had many opportunities; barge traffic has been light most of the times I've paddled in the last two months.  My own boat here at home is a bit tippier than the boat I used out West, and I've had a hard time getting used to that during the handful of times I've tried to surf.  And finally, the explosive power I'd built before my trip has waned as the oppressive weather and the lack of medium-distance races to do has dampened my motivation to keep working on it.

But when I saw a barge rig hurrying downriver Wednesday afternoon, producing some of the biggest waves I've seen from a downstream-moving vessel, I had to get out there and see what I could do.  Solid balance and explosive speed were indeed hard to find each time I found myself in the "zone of uncertainty" atop a wave, but I dug deep and found just enough of it to get one pretty good ride.  The rig steamed quickly into the distance and the waves didn't linger, so I was happy to get what little I got.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Racers fire off the starting line at the 2007 Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race at North Little Rock.  Leading the charge are Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas; Andy Balogh of Memphis, Tennessee; and Joe Royer of Memphis, Tennessee.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

A break from the solitude

I had some company on the river this weekend: my friend Heather, a fellow racer and all-around lovely person who lives in the Lake Lanier area of Georgia, was in town for her high school reunion.  She brought her boat and we paddled for around 100 minutes both yesterday and today.

I tried to give her a nice little tour of my training grounds out on the Mississippi.  Yesterday we paddled out of the harbor and upriver to the mouth of the Wolf River, and then over to the area between the Arkansas bank and the lower end of the Loosahatchie Bar.  With the river flowing around 10 feet on the Memphis gauge, the water was shallow there with hazards presented by the rocks dumped there by the Corps of Engineers.  So we didn't linger long before returning to the harbor and the dock.

Today we headed downriver toward Presidents Island and checked out a few of the points of interest: the Big River Crossing over the Harahan Bridge; Engineers Beach on the Arkansas shore; and the many jetties that require a little extra oomph from the paddler making his or her way upriver along the Arkansas bank.

The weather has been quite warm as predicted this weekend, but not horrifically so.  Breezes both days made the river not a bad place to be at all.


For more information on what this blog is about, click here.