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.


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