Keeping at it as winter slowly gives way

Yesterday morning I pored over the Internet radar, trying to predict the best "window" for paddling amid waves of severe weather.  In the end I got rained on some but otherwise timed it pretty well: it was pouring down rain as I drove down to the river, and more heavy rain was starting up as I arrived back home.

There was no escaping the wind, however.  It was blowing hard out of the south.  I stayed in the harbor and paddled for just 60 minutes, doing several 8-stroke sprints and then doing a few surges both with and against the wind.

We had a couple of hard thunderstorms, but by late afternoon it had all moved out and the skies began to clear.  At this time of year a front like this usually has some colder air behind it, and this one was no exception.  But this time the "colder" air was not really that cold--it went from the mid 60s Fahrenheit yesterday to the low 50s this morning, nowhere near as bad as the sub-freezing temperatures of a week ago.  So once again I'm feeling optimistic that spring is almost here.

Even though the river crested in the middle of last week, it's still plenty high right now--it was at 40.0 feet on the Memphis gauge this morning.  When the river is dropping slowly like it is now there's a noticeable improvement in the water quality because all the debris has been flushed out or has been redeposited on solid ground as the water recedes.

That plus calmer conditions meant that today I was eager to leave the harbor for the first time in eight days.  I paddled to the harbor's mouth and then went up the Mississippi until I was about halfway up the Greenbelt Park; then I ferried across the main channel and found the narrow passage into Dacus Lake.  I paddled about three-fourths of the way up this oxbow before looping around through some flooded bottomland and rejoining the main Mississippi near the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I returned to the harbor and the dock to complete a 120-minute session.  Much of this time was spent paddling at a two-hour race pace, and I felt good about my aerobic capacity and overall stamina.


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