Monday photo feature

I've been to many canoe and kayak racing events, and have seen the full array of "extras" race organizers try to offer for the racers' enjoyment.  Such things include live music, a free beer or two, a post-race meal, and, of course, the old reliable swag bag.

The Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races that I attended this past weekend had something no other event has: the one and only Lower Atchafalaya Queen.  As the awards ceremony concluded, race director Ray Pellerin announced that the Queen (I think her actual name was Mallory) would be available to take photographs with her adoring subjects.  How could I pass up an opportunity like that?  Mallory's mother was handling the photography duties, so I handed her my phone and took up my position alongside Her Majesty.


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

Racing in Bayou Country

I was up bright and early yesterday morning to make the hour-or-so drive down to Morgan City and then a few miles west to Patterson.  Patterson is a town that has seen some hard times but is working to recapture some of its glory, and it sees its location on the south bank of the lower Atchafalaya River as an integral part of that.  Town officials are hoping that the Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races will become one of its cherished annual traditions.

The mayor, a couple of town council members, and several other prominent local figures were on hand to wish us racers well.  Whenever I attend an event like this I am struck by the contrast with my own city, where our "leaders" often seem to think they're doing us some great favor by letting us have a race on its riverfront.

After an opening ceremony and some instructions from race director Ray Pellerin and his assistant Tave Lamperez, we got ourselves ready to race.  We had a gorgeous day for racing: sunny and becoming warm, but not too humid.  It appeared that nature would provide a challenge of a different sort, however: the lower Atchafalaya is plagued by an invasive species of floating water hyacinth, and depending on the wind direction and tidal activity, at times the river surface can become choked with clumps of the stuff.  When I first arrived at the race site there were hyacinth patches littering the entire course, but by the time racing was set to begin the wind had moved most of them out.

The Lower Atchafalaya Sprints is a series of three-mile races done in laps on a one-mile loop that's entirely visible to spectators in Morey Park.  The races are separated by both boat class and gender.  Women's single kayak was the first event of the day, so I got to watch the ladies compete while I warmed up for my first event, men's single kayak.  Savanna Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, took the early lead and methodically increased it for the win.  During this race it became clear that the course was longer than the race organizers had intended--closer to four miles than three.  Savanna's time was 35 minutes, 39 seconds; Kim Schulte of Mandeville, Louisiana, finished two and a half minutes back to claim second place.  Susan Jordan of Lucedale, Mississippi, rounded out the top three in 40:10.  The complete results of this class are posted here.

A pretty stiff wind was blowing upriver by the time I was lining up alongside my fellow men's single kayak racers.  We would paddle into this wind to start each lap, round a buoy and have the wind at our backs as we paddled back past Morey Park to another buoy, then turn back into the wind to finish the lap.  The starting official fired the gun, and into the wind we went.  I was not at all surprised when Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, sprinted into the lead with Christian Massow of Cypress, Texas, right on his heels.  I sprinted as hard as I could to position myself on one of the wakes behind these two K1 paddlers.

We reached the first buoy, which was surrounded by clumps of water hyacinth.  We threaded through the weeds as best we could and headed back the other way.  I'd expected Mike and Christian to push the pace and leave me behind early, but as we made our first pass of the start/finish line back at Morey Park I was still hanging in there on their wakes.

As we made the second buoy turn, Christian ran into some bad luck.  This buoy also had some hyacinth in its orbit, and Christian, whose boat lacked a weed deflector, got a clump stuck on his rudder and slowed to a crawl.  At the same moment Mike threw in a hard surge coming out of the turn and opened several boatlengths on us.  Knowing that Christian was in trouble, and that I would not be able to keep up with Mike, I offered to raft up with Christian and help him get the kelp off his rudder.  But Christian insisted that I continue racing.  Lacking the time to consider the situation in depth, I pressed on.

I spent the remainder of the race looking at a familiar sight: Mike Herbert getting smaller and smaller in the distance ahead of me.  But monotony didn't carry the day.  Mike seemed to pause a bit upon his return to the downstream buoy on the second lap.  I discovered why when I got there myself: the wind had moved the water hyacinth so that the buoy was now enclosed in a thick patch of it.  I tried to pick out the clearest path through it I could find, hoping all the while that my weed deflector would do its job.  Fortunately it did, and I proceeded back upriver.  Back at the upstream buoy I found it difficult to turn with the wind blowing against my surf ski's bow; I really had to crank the strokes on my right to get the boat around.

By the time I was approaching the downstream buoy on the last lap, a race volunteer had gone out in a motorboat and moved it out of the weeds.  I made this turn without incident but was feeling the fatigue as the last lap wore on.  I made the last buoy turn back into the wind and labored back to the finish line in 31:29, a minute and 21 seconds after Mike had finished.  David Dupree of Rayville, Louisiana, overtook Christian for third place overall in 35:25.  I later found out that Christian, who clocked 36:56, had dealt with an ailing back on top of the weeds on his rudder.  When Mike had made his breakaway move after that fateful first-lap buoy turn, Christian had tried to give chase despite the overburdened rudder, and tweaked something in his lower back.

The men's single kayak results are posted here.  I should note that Tave Lamperez was paddling an outrigger canoe (OC1) while the rest of us were in kayaks or surf skis.

With the solo racing in the books the racers began to form tandem teams.  While this was going on the race organizers made some modifications to the course in response to the ever-encroaching masses of hyacinth.  The buoys were moved out of their path, and the number of laps was reduced to two, resulting in a course that was closer to an actual three miles.

The ladies' tandem class was up first, and the team of Kim Schulte and Savanna Herbert squared off against Ryan Gillikin and Susan Jordan.  I don't often talk about the types or brands of boats people are racing in because I generally believe the athletes paddling those boats are what count.  But one simply couldn't ignore the unfairness of this fight.  While Kim and Savanna paddled a sleek tandem surf ski, Ryan and Susan lined up in a much wider, much shorter tandem sea kayak--a fine boat for touring, camping, and similar activities, but not designed for racing.  It really wasn't much of a contest as Kim and Savanna cruised to victory by nearly five minutes.  The results can be found here.

By this time the wind had blown the hyacinth patch against the bank at the foot of Morey Park, making it quite difficult to get back to the dock.  Here's a look at what Ryan and Susan had to deal with:

The final class of the day was a combined men's tandem and mixed tandem affair.  I'm guessing that the rationale for lumping men's and mixed together had something to do with a lack of enough women to go around (a common problem in paddlesport around the world).  The class consisted of five boats--four tandem surf skis and the aforementioned short, fat tandem sea kayak.  Which boat was I in?  You guessed it.  Susan Jordan is the owner of the touring craft, and I had accepted her invitation to be her partner.  Our competition consisted of the father-daughter team of Mike and Savanna Herbert; Lynn Buckalew and Wulf Hirschfield of Waynesboro, Mississippi; Kim Schulte and David Dupree; and Wendell and Wyatt Smith of Seguin, Texas.

The moment I got into our boat I realized how long it had been since I'd paddled anything other than a surf ski.  The sea kayak was much wider--some 30 inches or so, compared with 18 to 20 inches for the surf skis.  So I would have to adjust my stroke radically to work around the boat's girth.  Even worse than that was the position of my feet: the foot pedals were spaced along the hull's outer rails, forcing me to spread my legs to a most unnatural degree.  It was my job to work the rudder, and the pedals were designed in such a way that I had to sort of twist my foot forward to make the boat turn.

When the race got started I tried my best to maneuver our boat onto another boat's wake.  Once we'd executed the first buoy turn, the race wasn't a laugher yet: we were still within several boatlengths of Wulf and Lynn.  "Do you think we can close the gap?" Susan asked, and I replied, "Well... they might be beatable."  As if on cue, Wulf and Lynn put on the prettiest little burst of speed you've ever seen, and we were all alone in last place the rest of the way.  The results are posted here.

A while after finishing this final race I realized I was quite sore in my left lower back from paddling in such a weird position.  As soon as the awards ceremony concluded I eased myself into the car for the long drive home.  About eight hours later I gingerly extracted myself from the driver's seat, went into my house, and drifted off to sleep in my lovely bed.  This morning I was just as stiff and sore as I expected I would be.  I went downtown and paddled easy for 60 minutes.  The weather was beautiful as I began the process of healing and looking ahead to my next race in just over a month.


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

Racing tomorrow; advice for paddlers from the world of music?

I've made something of a spur-of-the-moment decision: I'm going to enter a race on the lower Atchafalaya River down at Patterson, Louisiana, tomorrow.  It's a set of 3-mile races--one for solo boats, one for tandem boats, and one for bigger team boats.  I'll at least do the solo race and then see if anybody wants me to fill a seat in a team boat.

I attended this event back in 2017, and had considered doing it this year before deciding it was "one thing too many" for this phase of the season.  But then the race at Vicksburg got called off, and so here I am in the Bayou country.  I'm spending tonight in a motel up the road at Donaldson, Louisiana.

Before I left home this morning I did a round of the strength routine--just the leg and core exercises.  My arms feel about the same as they felt yesterday.

On the drive down here I heard something interesting on the radio that I should share before I forget about it.  Brian Eno, who has made a successful career making synthesized music and producing records for other artists, was a guest on the "Fresh Air" program on National Public Radio.  Asked by interviewer Terry Gross if he's worried about being bored because he's "too good" at what he does, Eno replied,

...it's not so much the over-proficiency that's a problem. It's the lack of alertness that goes with knowing how to do something well. Once you know how to do something quite well or you're familiar with doing it, a lot of times you automatically are falling into routines. You know exactly how that works. You switch it on. You do this. You do that. You do that. And all of that is sort of done on automatic. And while you're on automatic, you're not listening any longer. 

One of the reasons that people who don't play instruments well are sometimes able to do surprising things with them is that they're listening at a much more basic level than skilled performers are. They start asking questions like, hey, does this sound interesting? Yeah, it does - at quite a different point from where the professional performer would. He's already been through that. He's already working at a level where he considers all those questions have been answered long ago. They're not interesting to him anymore. 

So I think this is the problem. It's not proficiency. It's the switching off of your alertness that goes with thinking you are proficient on something. So the trick is to think of ways of surprising yourself back into hearing freshly again. And that's something that really requires thinking and techniques of thinking. It's something you can do quite consciously. You can set yourself exercises that trick you into hearing something differently.

Do we paddlers do something like this too--stop paying attention to what we're doing at a basic level once we think we have the basics mastered?  Consider the simple act of getting in the boat: I've done it so many times that I rarely think about it anymore; I just hop in the boat and go.  But when I'm teaching a beginner how to get in the boat, I'm reminded that there are in fact several steps: put your feet in first, put one hand on the back of the cockpit and the other on the dock, slide your rear end into the seat, and so on.  This is as basic an example as there is, but I have a feeling we tend to get complacent about some of the more important things, too.  I get to feeling really good about my forward stroke, but every time I have a more elite-level athlete or coach look at it, he or she always sees something I could be doing better.  I think occasionally breaking your technique down to its component parts, analyzing each one, and putting it all back together is a worthwhile thing to do.


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

Soreness persists; race schedule adjustment necessary

I got the bad news Tuesday that the Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race, an event I've been participating in for years on the Mississippi River down at Vicksburg, has been called off due to floodstage river levels there.  It was supposed to take place on May 11 this year, and was going to be my next race.

On Monday I ventured back into strength work, doing just the leg and core exercises in the current routine.  There's still some stubborn soreness in the biceps areas.

On Tuesday Joe and I did a loop of the harbor.  One of the things we talked about is a paddling presentation I'm scheduled to give at one of his Outdoors, Inc., stores two weeks from Wednesday.  More on that later.

Yesterday I did another round of the strength routine.  This time I very gingerly did a few reps of the dips and pullups, just to stimulate those areas and get some blood flowing there.

By this morning the muscle soreness was down to just one spot in my right biceps area.  I went downtown and paddled in the harbor as a strong south wind blew.  I slogged into the wind until I was at the harbor's mouth, then did a set of six 12-stroke sprints back to the north with the wind at my back.  It was the first hard sprinting I'd done in a couple of weeks, and my body seemed to respond pretty well.


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

Monday photo feature

I've always liked this photo because it looks like I'm paddling out in the middle of the ocean.  In fact, I'm just a short distance off the beach at Pass Christian, Mississippi.  The main thing I remember about this day is that it was very, very hot.  The year is 2010.

I regret that I can't remember who the photographer was.  Somebody standing on the beach, I'm guessing.


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

Still trying to recover my vim

My arm, shoulder, and abdominal muscles felt slightly better yesterday morning, but they were still sore and my range of motion still limited.  I continued to be taken aback by the extent to which Wednesday's activities had done me in.  Soreness is normal anytime I start a new strength routine, but this was ridiculous.  (Again, I think cleaning those gutters did a lot to exacerbate the problem.  The glum truth is that my body doesn't withstand such chores quite like it used to.)  In the back of my mind I wondered if I'd done irreparable damage and will never be free of pain in these areas again.

I tried to push such thoughts aside as I headed down to the river.  The weather was helping to lift my spirits: after miserable rainy days Thursday and Friday, the sun was out at last, albeit with a stiff northwest wind blowing.

I wasn't ready to do a serious workout, but I was determined to paddle with something closer to my usual gusto no matter how my muscles were feeling.  I headed out of the harbor and up the Mississippi.  Progress upriver was slow as I paddled into the teeth of that wind, and I tried to stay relaxed and not fight it.  There was much discomfort in the area around my biceps, and I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't the paddling that was causing it.

This morning, once again, I detected a slight abatement of the soreness, but it was still around.  So it was another day of nursing myself and being patient in the boat.  At this time of year I'm wanting to get in some good workouts, but today I still wasn't ready.  But I did spend a good 70 minutes out on the Mississippi, where aggressive paddling is required just to get around.

It was sunny again today, and warmer and less windy than yesterday.  With the river on another rise from all the recent rain in the watershed, I paddled to the outflow channel from Dacus Lake to see what was going on there.  A road crosses the channel and with the river at 30.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, it was just barely underwater.  So I didn't paddle onto Dacus Lake.  But the water flowing over the road formed a nice riffly little rapid, and I hung out for a minute and savored the sound of the rushing water along with the chatter of birds and the breeze in the trees.  We've got some peaceful outdoor spots within sight of the downtown Memphis skyline.

I guess you could say I've been in a holding pattern this weekend, able to paddle but trying to let all this soreness run its course.  How I feel in the next few days will determine what I'll do in the strength department and in the boat.


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

I abuse myself in the darnedest ways

For the most part I kept my promise to myself to go a little easier in the first half of this week.  On Monday my arms and shoulders were still very sore so I only did the leg and core exercises in the strength routine.  On Tuesday I kept the intensity moderate as I paddled for 60 minutes out on the Mississippi.

Then, on Wednesday, I did a full round of the strength routine, and my body did not respond well.  My arms and shoulders were throbbing in protest when it was over.  I probably made matters worse by spending that afternoon on the roof of my rental property cleaning out the gutters.  Maybe that doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's a two-story building whose roof is pitched rather steeply down to each gutter, and I was on my stomach keeping my distance from the edge because I didn't want to fall and be paralyzed the rest of my life, and reaching down into the gutters was an awkward affair.  The gutters were long overdue for cleaning, so it was a long, taxing process.

When I woke up yesterday morning my biceps and deltoids felt like cement, and my range of motion was alarmingly limited.  What I'd planned to be a higher-intensity session in the boat turned out to be another recovery paddle.

I'm a little puzzled by what a number this strength routine has done on me.  Anytime you lift weights you are in fact doing damage to your muscles with the expectation that they will build themselves back stronger than before.  I guess this time I tried to do too much too soon, especially with the pullups.

Today my muscles have felt slightly better but nowhere near healed.  I hated to do it because at this time of year I want to be hitting full stride in training, but I took today completely off except for some slow, patient stretching.  I'm hoping I'll feel like my normal spry, chipper self this weekend.


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

Monday photo feature

That's me on the left, accompanied by Jason Salomon (black & green boat) and Mike Womack.  We got together and paddled around the Loosahatchie Bar in July of 2017.  Photo by Adam Davis.


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

Achey and wet

Yesterday was one rainy day.  By the afternoon the Internet radar was showing a mass of yellow parked over the entire greater Memphis area.  At this time I don't know the inch total, but by the late evening we'd had an impressive amount of rain.

When I went to paddle yesterday morning the rain wasn't that heavy yet, but it came down steadily for almost all of the 120 minutes I was in the boat.  It was on the cool side--just under 60 degrees Fahrenheit--and I was dressed for a dry day at that temperature, not a wet one.  I generated enough body heat to stay comfortable most of the time, but I was feeling chilled for the last 20 minutes or so.

While water was coming down from above, the water beneath me was not quite as abundant as it had been before my trip to the coast.  The Mississippi River spent a couple of months at 36 feet or higher on the Memphis gauge, but by yesterday it had dropped to 29.2 feet.  I normally consider that a good high level, but right now it feels lowish.  The Greenbelt Park is not flooded for the first time in weeks, and the grass is coming right back like it always does.  I paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and paddled up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge.  Just below this bridge there's a railroad trestle, and when the Mississippi was over 40 feet there was no room to paddle under it.  Yesterday there was plenty of room.

I was sore from the new strength routine I'd started on Friday, but it wasn't too bad.  I hoped that the act of paddling might facilitate some healing.  Maybe it did, but this morning I was even more sore, so I guess it's getting worse before getting better.  And on top of that, I've had some tightness in the right side of my neck the last several months, and last night I must have slept on it wrong because it's feeling aggravated today.  It's one of those things that don't affect my paddling directly--I can take my normal strokes in the boat--but affect it indirectly by making it harder to sleep at night and generally making life less pleasant than it ought to be.

So I went down to the river this morning feeling a little beat-up.  But I was determined to get in one more workout before taking it easier for several days.  I warmed up and then did a "pyramid" workout: pieces of 1', 2', 3', 4', 5', 4', 3', 2', and 1' with two minutes recovery in between.  I had my G.P.S. device on board and my target pace for all the pieces was in the 7.2-7.5 mph range.  During the recovery periods I tried to keep the boat moving around 6.0 mph.

The wind wasn't that strong, but it was swirling around in all different directions, and that made it hard to maintain a constant pace.  But I averaged better than 7.2.  The workout felt tough from the first 4-minute piece onward, but I held up well enough and felt good when it was over.  Once I was done paddling I still felt sore and beat-up, but I think getting some blood pumping will pay off in the long run.


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

Embracing life back home

It took me several days to get back fully into my routine here at home.  I don't think I was any more tired when I got home from the Pacific Northwest last summer than I was when I got home Sunday night.

When Joe and I met to paddle Tuesday morning, we talked some about how much a road trip can take out of you.  Some road-tripping is obviously necessary during a season of canoe and kayak racing, but I try to keep it to a minimum because I get in my best training during uninterrupted stretches at home.  I guess I sort of made an exception when I went to Apalachicola last weekend, but in general I try to give priority to events within a radius of six hours or so.

I spent the first half of this week taking "baby steps," getting myself caught up on all kinds of little things I'd neglected while out of town.  This morning I finally started up a new strength routine.  I did a cursory round, just to let my muscles know they've got a new job, and plan to settle into the routine next week.

Joe and I did an easy loop of the harbor on Tuesday.  Yesterday I elected to stay in the harbor again because of a strong wind blowing from the south-southeast, and did ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  I tried to pull hard and fast through each stroke while keeping the stroke rate under control.


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

A new strength routine

A new strength routine is always a big step toward getting settled back at home.  Here's what I plan to do several times a week for the next little while.


1.  Hindu squats, demonstrated in this video

2.  Dips

3.  Stability ball exercise demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:50 of her video on this page

4.  Pullups

5.  Static hanging plank, demonstrated by yours truly in this video

Race schedule update

Now that the 2019 season is underway, let's have a look at what's coming up.

The biggest news, for those who haven't heard: the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, normally held on Father's Day weekend each year, will take place on June 1.  Apparently there was a scheduling conflict for the use of Mississippi River Park next to the finish line.  So make plans to be in my fair city on JUNE 1.


April
13  Perche Creek Gutbuster.  Perche Creek, Columbia, Missouri.  10 miles on a Class I river.

27  Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races.  Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana.  A series of 3-mile races up and down slowly-moving flatwater.  A racer may compete in both solo and team-boat classes.  Register


May
11  Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi.  A 22-mile race down the largest river in North America.  Register

18  Almost Heaven Paddle Battle.  Summersville Reservoir near Summersville, West Virginia.  A 12-mile flatwater race.  Register


June
1  Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee.  The 38th edition of this classic.  A 5000-meter dash down the largest river in North America.  Register

8  Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle.  Taylorsville Reservoir, Taylorsville, Kentucky.  A 10-mile flatwater race.  Register


July
6  The Lovely Laurel River Lake Paddle Blast.  Laurel River Lake, Corbin, Kentucky.  A 10-mile flatwater race.

18-20  Gorge Downwind Championships.  Columbia River, Hood River, Oregon.  A 14-mile race in the epic downwind conditions of the Columbia River Gorge.


August
3  The Paddle Grapple.  Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina.  A 6-mile flatware race.  Register

3  Ohio River Paddlefest.  Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio.  A 9-mile race on this Midwest artery.  Register


September
28  River Rat Paddle Challenge.  Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana.  6.5 miles down a Class I river.


October
5  Big South Fork River Dash.  Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near Whitley City, Kentucky.  A 12-mile mostly-flatwater race.

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

Monday photo feature

This image, generated by the G.P.S. device on board Bob Waters and Bruce Poacher's tandem surf ski, shows the path taken by them, Pete Greene, and I during Saturday's race on the Apalachicola River.  It looks like we were doing just fine until we inexplicably veered off to the left ("Lost").  The other note scrawled in red indicates where we were supposed to make our turn up into Scipio Creek.  As you can see, we ended up way, way off course.

The G.P.S. measured our distance traveled at 8.4 miles.  Scott Cummins, who ended up winning the race, went 7.8 miles.  I often can't beat Scott even when we cover an equal distance.

The "most astute racer of the day" award should go to Lee Droppelman of Louisville.  He and Scott and Ted Burnell were in a pack together and could very easily have made the same mistake my pack did.  But Lee had done his homework before the race and knew that the turn up into Scipio Creek should come somewhere around the four-and-a-half-mile mark.  When he saw that distance registering on his G.P.S. device he alerted his fellow racers to start looking for the turn.  "He saved our pack," Scott said later.

I've always been sort of a Luddite in my training, believing that these G.P.S. devices and stuff aren't quite as indispensable as some racers seem to think they are.  But the next time I go racing in a thick fog I think I'll break my device out.

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

Groping my way to the finish line

I'm trying to get settled in back at home after a long weekend in a place where wifi and cellular telephone service were not so easy to come by.  What follows is a summary of some of the stuff that happened.

Even though my lodging was 35 miles outside the town of Apalachicola, Florida, I sort of got used to it after a while.  Apalachicola is situated at the mouth of a river by the same name, and my main purpose for the weekend was the 8-mile "Oyster City Challenge" race on this river.  The course map looks like this:

The start, which appears in the upper left-hand corner of this image, would be at a boat ramp a few miles upriver at a place called Old Woman's Bluff, and the finish, in the lower right-hand corner, would be right by the town just below the U.S. 98 bridge.  That much is simple enough.  But near the upper end of town we would make a little detour, turning up into Scipio Creek and paddling a mile and a half or so up to a buoy before coming back down.  On Friday I put my boat in at the finish location and paddled up to the mouth of Scipio Creek to get familiar with this part of the course.  There was a lot of shallow water there, especially at low tide, so later I checked with race director Joe Vinson and he assured me there would be a buoy placed where racers could make the turn safely.

So I was all set for some racing the next day.  I got up good and early Saturday morning--5 AM local time, and since this area is just inside the Eastern Time zone it felt like 4 AM to me.  As I made the long drive into town through pine-forested coastal bottomlands, I found myself in a dense fog that required my windshield wipers on an intermittent setting.

Upon arriving in the "Oyster City," I put my boat on the shuttle trailer and caught a ride to Old Woman's Bluff.  Rick Baker, who'd intended to race but had hurt his right arm in an electrical mishap two nights before, assumed the starter's duties.  We lined up, waited for his command, and took off.

Bruce Poacher had made the trip down from Erwin, Tennessee, to team up in a tandem surf ski with Bob Waters of Sanford, Florida, and these two immediately rocketed into the lead.  I sprinted hard in pursuit along with old friend Pete Greene of Beaufort, South Carolina, and Pete managed to catch the tandem's stern wake with me on his stern.

The fog was so thick that visibility was limited to no more than a hundred feet or so.  But I was so focused on maintaining contact with the lead pack, I wasn't really thinking much about it.  I've paddled my share of foggy days at home on the Mississippi, and never had a problem as long as I kept the bank in sight.  I trusted that Bob and Bruce were keeping us on track up front.

And that turned out to be a fatal mistake.  Somewhere around 35 minutes in I began to sense something wasn't right when the tandem ski made an abrupt turn to the right.  I peered through the fog looking for the river-right bank and any buildings or other evidence of the town.  I realized I didn't have any idea where on the river we were.  Then we passed a couple of red channel markers that typically line the river-left side, and my bosom swelled with a feeling of foreboding.  Then the U.S. 98 bridge appeared through the fog, and we knew we were too far downriver.  We took another hard-right turn and started paddling up toward where the mouth of Scipio Creek should be.

There were plenty of good strong racers in the field who were entirely capable of making us pay for such a blunder, and sure enough we found ourselves well back in the pack once we'd made it up into Scipio Creek.

Going astray on a race course, through my own fault or somebody else's, is something that does occasionally happen.  Whenever it does, there's always a moment of uncertainty about what to do.  Should I keep on racing as if nothing has happened, or should I just put down my paddle and stop?  Should I cry out demanding justice?  Back when I was racing whitewater slalom a racer would sometimes be granted a re-run if his run down the course was impeded in some way, but that's just not possible in the kind of racing I'm doing now.

As these thoughts occupied my mind, Bob and Bruce quietly opened up a lead on Pete and me.  I tried to re-focus and reel them back in, but they were moving fast and the wakes coming off all the other boats made it harder for me to give chase.  I realized that my race was now just a private match with Pete, and I settled into the strongest pace I could with Pete back on my stern.

As the last turning buoy came into view we saw the "new" lead pack coming back at us, and it was full of familiar faces: Scott Cummins and Lee Droppelman of Louisville, Kentucky.  Ted Burnell of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Elaine Harold of Louisville.  Jason Hjelseth of Chattanooga.  There were also some folks whose names I didn't know until I saw the results later: Joe Hester, Jim Budi, Larry Dixon.  Pete and I rounded the buoy ourselves and I began to feel a slight resurgence of motivation, even though for me it was all about moral victories now.

As the race moved into its final stages, it looked like the battle for the solo crown would be between Ted and Scott.  Meanwhile, Bob and Bruce had moved methodically up through the pack and appeared to have a shot at the overall win even after their foggy misfortune.  In the end Scott held everybody off to take the overall in one hour, 3 minutes, 21 seconds.  Bob and Bruce edged out Ted for second place overall.

About a minute back, I had my hands full with Pete.  I didn't know the exact location of the finish line--I just knew it was down below the U.S. 98 bridge somewhere--but once I was within about a half-mile of it I began to surge hard, not intending to stop until I'd reached the finish.  I could feel myself opening a gap on Pete and that stoked my motivation to keep it up.  Picking off a couple of other boats along the way, I claimed seventh place overall in 1:04:31.

Believe it or not, my effort was good enough to win a medal, because I was the third person in the Masters age group to finish.  Though we didn't know it at the time, Pete and I had been fighting it out for that medal.  Seeing as how victories over Pete have been extremely rare for me in the many years we've been racing each other, my bronze medal has a glimmer of gold to it.

Elaine Harold claimed the overall women's title with a time of 1:05:07.

The complete results are posted here.  You have to click on the line that says "8 Mile Race (38 results)" to see the results of the race I did.

I'd be lying if I said I was not at all bummed out about what happened Saturday.  It looks like I had an excellent chance to win, at least among solo paddlers.  But I've said many times in this blog that I do this sport because I love it, not to win awards, and if I'm going to talk the talk I must be willing to walk the walk when something like this happens.  And the fact is that I do have things to be happy about.  Besides my rare win over Pete, this race told me that my speed-endurance is in a good place right now.  Just like at Ocean Springs the week before, I was able to sustain a high intensity level over the entire eight miles.

Usually after I've finished a race I consider myself done for the day.  But Scott was going to go paddle a new boat of his in the Gulf off Saint George's Island, and my feeling of unfinished business prompted me to join him.  We paddled for an hour or so and that put the finishing touches on my state of utter exhaustion.

The drive home yesterday took me 12 hours.  I could have stopped for the night along the way, but I'm glad I went ahead and knocked it all out.  There's no place like home.


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

Dealing with the tourist season

The weather turned not so friendly on Sunday: the high was around 52 degrees Fahrenheit, and strong winds from the southeast made it feel ten degrees colder.  There were periods of rain, too.

I said goodbye to Nick and drove up to the Bristol Boulevard access to Old Fort Bayou for a 40-minute recovery paddle.  Once that chore has been crossed off the list I headed east, crossing into Alabama and getting to the east side of Mobile Bay by way of the George C. Wallace Tunnel.

I was tired from my race weekend, and the crummy weather had put me in a glum mood, and by the early afternoon I was ready to stop.  I found a modest motel in Foley, Alabama, waited for the 3 PM check-in time, got myself inside, and took an afternoon nap.

The day got worse before it got better.  In the evening I went online hoping to find a place to camp in one of the state parks along the Florida Gulf Coast, only to find that they were all booked solid.  I expanded my search farther and farther away from the coast until I finally found a lone vacancy in an RV-park-type campground up near Interstate 10.  I booked it for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.  It wasn't ideal, but at least I had a place to land for the week.

Monday dawned chilly and breezy, but sunny.  That alone was enough to brighten my mood.  With only a moderate distance to drive and a day off from paddling, I relaxed and headed east at a leisurely pace along U.S. 98.  I encountered some gridlock in places like Pensacola and the forsaken Destin, but I stayed chill and enjoyed the nice day.  In the late afternoon I arrived at the RV park and found that it was rather nice for such a place--not the camping experience I'd have had in one of the state parks, certainly, but my tent site was nice and flat, there were no jerks blasting their lowest-common-denominator music or revving loud engines, and the bath house was clean and well-maintained.  It was about a half-hour drive down to the beach, so day trips were perfectly feasible.

I spent Tuesday checking out the beachfront communities of Grayton Beach and Seaside.  Seaside in particular was a little too wealthy for my taste, but it was good for a couple of hours of people-watching.  It must be spring break somewhere because there were a lot of teenagers running around.

Yesterday it was time to get back in the boat.  I drove back down to Grayton Beach and carried my boat about a half-mile from the closest public parking space I could find to the water.  Out in the Gulf the wind was blowing from the southeast at around 10 miles per hour, and while the conditions were not that big, I thought they were ideal for practicing some of the basics of downwind paddling: keeping my boat moving, watching the waves in front of me for opportunities to advance, knowing when to paddle hard and when to just hang out... stuff like that.  I spent 90 minutes on the water paddling a couple of miles into the wind, then downwinding back, and repeating.  The conditions got a little bigger as time went on, and by the last lap I was getting some sweet rides.  It was tempting to stay out there another half-hour or more, but I was getting tired and I didn't want to ruin myself completely for this Saturday's race, so I tore myself away.

I broke camp this morning and headed east on Florida 20.  I was feeling stiff and sore from yesterday's paddle and I wanted to do an easy 40 minutes or so to facilitate recovery.  Where the highway crosses the Choctawhatchee River I saw a good public access area, so I stopped and paddled there.  Going upstream from the bridge, I paddled up a couple of tributary creeks that quickly disappeared into dense groves of cypress, and I had to turn around.  I didn't spot any gators but figured there had to be some around.  Whatever the case, it was the sort of paddle that was hard to make myself do because of my achy body, but I think I'll feel a lot better by tomorrow because of it.

I'm now staying in an Air B & B that's some 35 miles away from the town of Apalachicola, where my race is this Saturday.  Finding an affordable vacancy was no easy matter on this part of the coast either, and at the time I was happy to get booked into this place, but now I'm having my doubts.  The race involves a shuttle, so I may be getting up super-early Saturday morning...


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

Monday photo feature

The "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs celebrated its tenth year this past weekend.  I am one of nine people who have participated in all ten races.  When I decided to attend the first one in 2010, it was because it wasn't too bad a drive from Memphis, the course distance suited me okay, and I needed a race to do at that time of year.  I never set any grand goal to make ten of these in a row; it just sort of became a habit, driving down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast each March to open my race season.  Now I have yet another reminder of the relentless march of time.

First row, left to right: Yours truly, Carol Dearing, David Waters, Wayne Berry; Second row, left to right: Nate Payne, Nick Kinderman, John Collins, Doug Heller, Jeb Berry.

Yes, I know I stick out like a sore thumb in this photo.  They gave each of us a special orange shirt to wear, but I'd left mine back at the house.  And to think I'm usually so good at blending into the wallpaper...

Photo by Donna Collins.


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