A solid weekend of work

The weather this weekend has been warm and muggy, but nowhere near as bad as Memphis summer weather can be.  Thunderstorms in the area have kept the temperature at a tolerable level.

Yesterday I went down to the riverfront with the intention of doing a "work" workout.  The smarter readers among you might infer that I consider "play" workouts more fun than "work" workouts, and they would be correct.  But I feel a need to get in a few "work" workouts just to stay honest... something to do with my Calvinist work ethic.

Anyway, I warmed up by paddling down to the mouth of the harbor, and that's where I had not one, but two, klutzy moments.  I was doing the first of three 8-stroke sprints across the squirrelly water where the harbor meets the Mississippi, and I was even congratulating myself on how well I was keeping the boat moving, when ker-PLUNK!  I flipped to my right.

I did the quickest, snappiest remount I could, hoping to save face in front of whatever pedestrians in Tom Lee Park had witnessed my gaffe.  I opened the drain valve in the footwell so the water would drain out, and paddled the two-minute recovery interval before the next sprint.  As the start time approached I reached down to close the drain valve, and the left blade of my paddle "caught a crab" in the water, and over I went to my left side.  Wow.  I hope this means I'm done flipping for the rest of the year.

With that silliness out of the way, I headed back north in the harbor and commenced my workout.  I did a set of 12 three-minute pieces.  For the first two minutes of each piece I kept the speed above 6.0 miles per hour on my G.P.S. device; then I took it up to around 7.5 mph for the next 40 seconds, and over 8.0 mph for the last 20 seconds.  The toughest mental moments of the workout, especially in the second half, occurred at the end of each sprint, when my body really wanted to stop but I had to keep paddling hard enough to keep the speed over 6 mph.

The last several pieces were tough but overall I held up well.  I hope a workout like this will pay off in my downwind race next month, where I can expect to be doing solid aerobic paddling with a lot of intermittent hard sprinting.

I was up bright and early this morning.  I'd agreed to meet another local racer, Adam Davis, on the riverfront at 8:30 AM.  Most mornings I go paddle between 9:30 and 10:30, and it takes an extra bit of gumption to get myself down there much earlier than that.  But I never regret it when I do, and it was nice to beat the heat of the day today.

We did a loop around the Loosahatchie Bar.  I may or may not have ever posted a map of this route in the past, but here's the one Adam's G.P.S. device generated today:

The Mississippi was flowing at 35.3 feet on the Memphis gauge this morning.  At this level most of the Greenbelt Park is flooded, so we were able to avoid paddling against the stronger current as we passed through points 2 and 3.  There was a barge rig headed upriver, and even though its waves were starting to peter out by the time we were ferrying across the main channel after point 4, we both managed to get a couple of brief rides.  As usual, the hardest stretch was the slog against the brunt of the river's force though point 5.  I was feeling some fatigue as we came back downriver, but we kept up a good, solid pace.

Between yesterday's workout and today's strong distance paddle with a few sprints thrown in, I'd say this has been a weekend I can feel good about.


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Hard at play

I usually paddle with Joe on Tuesdays, but this week Joe wasn't feeling well, so I was on my own.  When I got down to the dock, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to paddle a V10 Sport surf ski of Joe's that he told me I'm welcome to borrow.  This boat is a bit more stable than the ones I usually paddle, and in fact I've rented one to use in the Gorge Downwind race next month.  The boat's hull speed is slower, but I'm hoping that a bit of extra stability will help me produce a net gain in speed in a downwind setting.

When I reached the mouth of the harbor I saw a barge rig heading upriver from below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.  Having paddled pretty hard on Sunday, I'd planned to go a little easier Tuesday; but I decided I had to see how the V10 Sport performed in those waves.  The towboat was producing nice ones and I got three or four really sweet rides.  The boat is definitely not touring-boat stable; its initial stability might even be less solid than what I'm used to.  But I think overall I was in better control on the waves.

I should note that barge wakes aren't really an ideal simulation of downwind conditions.  The wave trains sort of wander back and forth across the river, so that after you've surfed one wave, the next wave might be way off to your right or to your left.  And you can't really work your way forward in the waves like you can in a true downwind setting.  But it is a good chance to work on balance and control while surfing, along with the intense sprinting required to catch a wave.  I definitely got a hard workout on what was supposed to be an easy day.

I started a new strength routine Monday and did another round of it Wednesday.  This new demand on my muscles, combined with the hard paddling of Sunday and Tuesday, resulted in one dead-dog-tired human being here at my house.  By Wednesday evening my energy level was over toward the catatonic end of the spectrum.

I planned to go back to the river yesterday morning, but it was pouring down rain.  Rain alone isn't enough to stop me from paddling, but this storm was accompanied by some pretty spectacular lightning.  So I didn't get in the boat until the afternoon.  I got the recovery session I'd been needing, paddling very easy for 50 minutes.

Today I did another round of the strength routine.  My muscles seemed to be more comfortable with their new job.


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A new strength routine

I've started up a new strength routine to carry me though these several weeks leading up to the Gorge Downwind Championships.  It's my "Smart Bell" workout, which I demonstrate in this video:






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Monday photo feature

On the downtown Memphis riverfront, there's no surer sign of spring and early summer than the purple martins.  Most of the residential property down there was developed by one of our local real estate tycoons, and perhaps the best thing he did was place purple martin houses all up and down the riverfront.  There's one at the marina where I keep my boat.  Joe Royer took this photo outside his home on the South Bluffs.

The birds start showing up around April each year.  I think the males come first to scout out good breeding territory.  Soon the females show up and the mating takes place.  Once the young are able to take flight, they'll be out of here until next season.


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Feeling the heat

Summer has arrived in Memphis and the Mid South.  That amazing weather we had seems something of the more distant past than the week before last.  Now the humidity is up and the overnight temperature barely dips below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  The solstice occurred on Friday and with it came a weekend forecast featuring a triple-digit heat index.

And so, once again I settle in for the duration.  I'll have a break or two along the way, including my trip to the Pacific Northwest next month, but around here I'll be paddling in sweltering heat and taking hose baths on the dock afterward.

When I paddled yesterday I was reminded that the river is often the best place to be on a hot summer day here.  There's almost always some kind of a breeze, and yesterday we had a good one from the south.  I was still feeling the effects of Thursday's workout and I just did a steady paddle for 80 minutes.  The Mississippi has come up in the last several weeks--it was 32.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday--and I was able to paddle up onto Dacus Lake for a few minutes before heading back toward the Tennessee side.

Today we had an even stronger south breeze on the river.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then went out onto the river looking to do some kind of "play" workout.  There was no barge traffic in the area, so surfing was out; but a northbound rig had passed through some 20 minutes earlier, so I had small seas driven by the south wind.  I paddled up to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and did a few fast ferries across the river there.  The river is typically a bit rougher near the bridge because of the Loosahatchie Chute rejoining the main channel just upstream, and at the current high water level the eddy below the center piling is big and boily with some mondo-size whirlpools exploding along the eddy lines.  My main objectives during the ferries were to keep paddling, keep the boat moving, and ride any bumps that I could.  I wouldn't say it was a pure downwind workout, but it was good practice staying relaxed and in control in decidedly un-placid conditions.


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Eagerly looking ahead

I've bought my plane ticket to Portland, Oregon.  The Gorge Downwind Championships are about an hour east of there at the town of Hood River.  The actual race will be July 18, 19, or 20, depending on which day has the best wind forecast.  I'm scheduled to fly out there on the 13th.  That's just three weeks from tomorrow, so the trip is beginning to feel like a real thing.

I'm feeling more or less back to normal in the health department.  I'm still coughing some, but not having coughing fits like I was a few days ago.  I'm also happy to report that the muscle achiness I was dealing with in my arms and shoulders a month or more ago seems to have run its course.

So, I'm feeling optimistic that I can get myself rounded into good form for the world-class event on the Columbia River.  I hope to put myself on a good diet of both "work" workouts (intervals, hard sprints, and so on) and "play" workouts (surfing towboat wakes and impromptu playing around out on the Mississippi) during the next three weeks.

My non-athletic life (also known as my job) has been rather crazy this week, but I was able to stick to my paddling schedule.  I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday.  I went back to the riverfront yesterday planning to do a good "work" workout.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a set of eight 1-minute pieces with three minutes recovery in between.  My target pace for each sprint was 8.4 miles per hour; that's about the speed required to break two minutes for one of my 450-meter bridge-to-bridge sprints.  So yesterday's workout was sort of a variation on the bridge-to-bridge workouts I've done earlier this season: each sprint was only about half the duration, but I did eight of them rather than four, with a shorter recovery interval.

All told, I'd say the workout went pretty well.  The sprints were definitely taxing, and my speed was falling to 8.2 or even 8.1 in the last several.  But I didn't completely fall apart like I did in those earlier workouts.  My form held up well, and I still had some "fight" in me at the end.  And I recovered quickly during the cool-down paddle.  By the time I was back on the dock I wasn't feeling like I'd ruined myself for the rest of the day.

I did rounds of the strength routine Monday, Wednesday, and today.  I'm thinking I'll start up a new routine next week.


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Improve your skills to improve your racing

After we'd finished the race at Batesville last Saturday, Andy Capel and I spent a few minutes in an eddy catching our breath, and we chatted about how the race had gone.  I remember one observation of Andy's that I thought was interesting: he remarked that whenever we encountered chop or motorboat wakes, I paddled right through it while he had his rhythm interrupted by moments of instability.  "Each time you'd gain a little on me, and I'd have to sprint to catch back up," he said; "Over time, that added up and took a lot out of me."

That kind of insight on Andy's part is exactly why I take him seriously as a competitor.  He recognizes that canoe and kayak racing is full of subtle skills that each racer can practice and improve.  His attitude stands in stark contrast to the one I see way too often in racers who are not getting the results they want: "I need to go get a faster boat."

To me, that's just intellectual laziness.  When I look at the racers who are competing at a higher level than I am, the athletes I see are not just faster and more powerful that I.  They are better paddlers.  There are dozens of little things that they are doing better than I am.  Their boat control over the full range of water conditions is better than mine--sometimes a little better, sometimes a lot better.

To raise my own competitive level, I have to work on all those little things and try to make myself better at them.  I don't know if I'll ever be competing with the world's elite; at 51 years old, I'm thinking that's not likely.  But I can always strive to paddle a little bit better each day than the last, and that's a big reason that I continue to find this sport interesting and fun after all these years.

Based on the few chats I've had with Andy, I sense that he gets it, too.  He's asking the right questions and noticing the right things.  That's why I have a feeling sooner or later he'll be beating me if I don't stay on top of my game... or even if I do.


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Monday photo feature

I snapped this photo moments after the Batesville Canoe and Kayak Race on Saturday.  The man in the red shirt is Dale Burris of Russellville, Arkansas, and he's one of the true pillars of the sport of canoe and kayak racing.

The photo really says it all about the kind of guy Dale is.  The two boys Dale is talking to are members of a scout group he's been coaching for many years, and they have just edged out Dale and his partner for the win in the aluminum canoe class.  But that doesn't stop Dale from going over the race with them and giving them advice on how they could have done better.

Even though Dale is now 64 years old (his birthday was yesterday!), and even though he didn't get the win Saturday, he's an athlete you bet against at your peril.  Few stern paddlers in North American-style marathon canoe racing are as skilled and as tough as Dale.  But don't expect to hear any elaboration on that from Dale himself.  I don't think I've ever heard Dale toot even the meekest of notes on his own horn.


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Racing on the mighty White

I was up before dawn yesterday to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive across the lovely Arkansas Delta to Batesville, Arkansas.  Located about where the White River makes the transition from the Ozark foothills to the Arkansas Delta, Batesville calls itself the "Gateway to the Ozarks."

I drove to where the race would start, just below a dam some eight miles up the White from Batesville.  A small but eager group of racers had congregated, and after a brief meeting with director George Latus we put our boats in the water for the 9:30 AM start.

Andy Capel of Maumelle, Arkansas, sprinted into the lead off the starting line.  This was my third time racing Andy this year, and he has started very fast all three times.  This time I couldn't even hold on to his stern wake for the first couple of minutes, and I just had to let him go and hope he would back off the torrid pace soon.  Eventually he did, and it took several hard sprints for me to move from several boatlengths back to a position on his left-side wake.

That's where I sat for a good long while, recovering from my sprints and sizing up the situation.  This section of the White River meanders quite a bit and finding the fastest current was not always a simple matter.  For once I had my G.P.S. device on board, and our speed seemed to average around 8.5 miles per hour.  At one point we wandered too close to the inside of a bend and the shallow water dragged us down below 7.0 mph; at another moment we cruised through a constricted chute at over 12.0 mph.

Andy was hanging tough.  As the race wore on I took the lead and pushed the pace at times but couldn't open a gap.  A "safety" guy in a speed boat was following along, and a couple of times we both managed to ride his wake a little, but I didn't want something like that to determine the outcome of the race.

About two miles above Batesville the river makes a big bend to the left.  Andy and I had gotten separated a bit so that neither was on the other's wake, and I decided it was time to commit to a move.  I threw in a big surge and opened a bit of a gap, but not an obvious one.  I knew it was too early to blow out everything I had, and I tried to apply consistent hard pressure and build my lead inch by inch.

The U.S. 167 bridge, where the finish line awaited, came into view with a good mile still to go.  I continued to paddle the hardest pace I thought I could sustain for such a distance.  I knew that failing to pull away would mean losing the race because I'd be a sitting duck for Andy to sprint by me in the last 50 meters.  I wasn't seeing much with glances over my shoulder, but it felt like my gap was getting bigger.  Each stroke seemed harder than the last, and I wondered if I was putting my tenuous recovery from the recent health woes in jeopardy.  The dreaded sight of Andy's bow to my left or right never materialized, and with a couple dozen meters left I knew I had it.  I passed beneath the bridge with a time of 58 minutes, 19 seconds.  My G.P.S. device had measured the course at about 8.3 miles.

Andy crossed the finish line less than half a minute later.  The man is getting harder and harder to beat every time I race him.  We congratulated each other on a hard-fought contest and spent the next couple of minutes just gasping for breath.  Eventually I found the energy to paddle back up above the bridge and cheer on folks like Mike Vaughn, Dale Burris, Becky Burris, Doug Pennington, and Phil Capel as they finished their races.

Here are the results:

We made our way up the bank to a pavilion in Kennedy Park, where we enjoyed a hot dog lunch and received wooden trophies made by the shop class at the local high school.  I got a ride up to the start to retrieve my car, loaded up my boat, and headed back to Memphis, arriving home in the mid-afternoon.

I woke up this morning with some slight soreness in my shoulders, but otherwise feeling remarkably fresh.  I went downtown and paddled for 60 minutes.  There was a pretty good south breeze blowing and I found myself bobbing among a bunch of half-foot waves out on the Mississippi.  The idyllic weather of last week is gone and we've got warm moist days ahead.


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Proceeding with caution

By the beginning of this week I was feeling energetic enough to resume most normal activities.  On Monday I did a round of the new strength routine, on Tuesday I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe, and I did another round of strength work Wednesday.

Yesterday I returned to the river and revved the engines for the first time since the Outdoors race back on June 1: in the middle of a 60-minute paddle I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  I felt reasonably okay after it was over.

And yet, I had a nagging feeling that I was not completely well.  Most notably, my bad coughing fits continued.  The whole scenario was reminiscent of an awful experience I had back in June of 2001.  I'd just gotten out to Colorado and done a downriver race on the Animas River at Durango.  Then I came down with a bad cold or flu that forced me to take it easy for several days.  Then I started feeling better, and being on vacation, I told myself that times were a-wastin' and I launched back into all the paddling and racing activities.  After maybe a week or so of this behavior, I relapsed with a vengeance, coming down with a wicked fever and a severe sore throat.  At that time I'd been paddling on the Crystal River and I found a doctor's office in Carbondale that would see me.  It turned out I had either bronchitis or strep throat--I'm not entirely sure which--and I was prescribed a course of antibiotics.  A kind racing friend who was traveling for a few days let me crash at his apartment in Snowmass Village, and there I lay until I was ready to rejoin the living.

Not wanting a repeat of that miserable episode, I decided to go to the minor medical clinic yesterday afternoon.  The nurse practitioner who checked me out thought some bronchial infection was plausible and prescribed me an antibiotic, along with a couple of medications to remedy my coughing.

Today I'm feeling no worse, if not a little better.  I'm at least feeling more upbeat for having been proactive and sought some help.  I went back to the river today and did another 60-minute paddle, this time doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  Once again I felt fine when it was over. I think I will go ahead and attend the race at Batesville, Arkansas, tomorrow.

One bright side of this week is the glorious weather we have had.  It's been mostly sunny and delightfully cool with a nice dry breeze--I doubt any other place on the planet has had nicer weather than the Mid South this week.  I've been trying to savor every minute of it because, of course, all good things must come to an end: our customary oppressive heat and humidity is expected to move back in starting tomorrow.  There are worse places I could be than on the clear, cold water of the White River.

I mentioned before that I'd planned to spend the first half of June keeping the training moderate while racing on three consecutive weekends, and then build from that foundation into a substantial training block, culminating in the big Gorge Downwind event in the Pacific Northwest next month.  My illness forced me to keep things even more moderate than I'd planned, not to mention miss a race.  But as long as I can persuade my body to keep getting better, there's still plenty of time to get some good work done.

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A new strength routine

My health woes have kept me from diving into this routine as vigorously as I would have liked, but I've been doing at least a light version of this routine for the last ten days or so:

1.  Lateral abdominals (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 3:52 of his video on this page)

2.  Front and lat raises with dumbbells

3.  Core exercise: kneeling on a stability ball

4.  Bicep curls with dumbbells


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Monday photo feature

I'm not somebody who posts "memes" on social media, but this one spoke to me.  I fail to understand why some people think it is okay to leave their trash on the ground.  The litter in this photo appears to be right at the water's edge, but I consider it just as bad to litter in the middle of town, because eventually that waste makes it into our waterways as well.


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Groping for better health

By Friday evening it seemed that I might be through the worst of my illness, but yesterday I woke up feeling as grim as ever.  Nevertheless, having spent a couple of days lying around the house, I was determined to have something akin to a normal Saturday morning.  So I went to the farmers' market and then headed down to the river.  On the dock I tried to relax and do a full stretch routine.  My whole body felt achy and tight.  I got in the boat and spent a half-hour paddling to the mouth of the harbor and back.  It wasn't much, but at least I could go back home and collapse in bed feeling like I'd accomplished something.

This morning I felt more energetic.  I went back to the river and paddled for 50 minutes, and even though I had to stop for a coughing fit several times, I generally felt good in the boat.  I came home and took a nap, and then spent the afternoon doing some light chores in the workshop.  I'm definitely not at a hundred percent, but maybe the end of this ordeal is in sight.


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Illin'

Well, my plan to race up in Kentucky this weekend has been scuttled.  I've gone and gotten sick.  It started as sort of a chest cold early in the week and by Wednesday evening it had advanced into flu territory.  I don't have a thermometer to take my temperature but I have felt feverish at times, and my energy has gone missing entirely.  Yesterday I didn't feel like doing much besides lying in bed, though I did have to go over to my rental property and babysit some contractors there for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  I'd reserved a motel room for tonight up in Taylorsville, Kentucky, but I went ahead and canceled it yesterday morning.  I'd held off on registering for the race itself because of those symptoms early in the week.

I guess this isn't the worst time for something like this to happen.  But it would have been fun to go race and see some friends this weekend.  With any luck I'll be mended in time for the race at Batesville, Arkansas, next weekend.

My general plan for this first half of June is to keep the training volume moderate with these races going on.  After the Batesville race I plan to build into a good solid training block for the Gorge Downwind race next month.

This week I started doing a light version of a new strength routine that I'll elaborate on later.  Other than that, I've been in the boat twice this week--Sunday and Tuesday.  I did generic steady paddles both days.


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Race schedule update

Now that racing has resumed, it's time to take a look at what's coming up.  There's a race each of the next two weekends, and I would like to attend them both.  I've heard good things about the event in Kentucky.  And having won the race over in Arkansas last year, I've got the "traveling trophy" and I guess I'm obligated to take it back.


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

15  Batesville Canoe and Kayak Race.  White River, Batesville, Arkansas.  An 8-mile race down a Class I river, starting at Lock 2 near Locust Grove and finishing at the U.S. 167 bridge at Batesville.  No online registration; on-site registration from 8-9 AM on race day.  Race starts at 9:30 AM.


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

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


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

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

7-10  U.S. Flatwater Sprint National Championships.  Lake Lanier, Gainesville, Georgia.  A regatta to determine national champions in numerous boat classes and age groups over 200 meters, 500 meters, 1000 meters, and 5000 meters.  Registration information


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.

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Monday photo feature

No task is too menial for Joe Royer, the founder and director of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Late last week he could be found just down the hill from River Garden Park, in the water up to his armpits at times, pruning brush to provide an easier takeout for the race's finishers.  Such attention to detail helped make Saturday's race as enjoyable as any in the event's 38-year run.


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The OICK race is back

We've had lovely, not-so-humid weather here in the Memphis area for the last couple of days.  The heat and humidity are supposed to be creeping back upward over this weekend, but this morning it was hard to ask for lovelier conditions for a 5000-meter race down the Mississippi River.  There was plenty of sunshine, but a mild west-northwest breeze was keeping things cool.

A couple of hundred registrants assembled at the mouth of the Wolf River for the 38th Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, and after a few instructions from director Joe Royer and a blessing from chaplain Dr. Scott Morris, they got in their boats and positioned themselves in the traditional starting area beneath the power lines.

I was feeling butterflies aplenty as I awaited the starting gun.  I think most athletes feel some version of nervousness in the moments before competition begins, no matter how experienced they are.  There's the anticipation of of the strenuous effort the race will demand, the hope that you will execute all the things well that you've been practicing, even some fear of possibly not performing as well as you think you should.

I didn't have my best start ever.  Four or five boats shot into the lead ahead of me, and the butterflies in my arms that usually disappear once the race is underway persisted for a tense few minutes as I fought my way into some sort of contention.

Three-time Olympian, three-time world championships medalist, and Pan Am Games champion Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, quickly opened a solid gap on the rest of the field.  Nobody was surprised to see that.  A chase pack formed consisting of Christian Massow of Cypress, Texas; Andy Capel of Maumelle, Arkansas; and Adam Davis of Memphis.  I sat a couple of boatlengths behind these guys, trying to settle my nerves and get down to business.  I think I was even talking to myself: "Come on, man.  The race has started.  Stop being such a head case and just paddle!"

We entrants in the race-boat class were all in surf skis except for Christian, a lifelong sprint racer, who'd opted for a flatwater K1.  Even though the Mississippi was about as smooth as it ever gets, I could see that the swirly currents were giving Christian some trouble with his balance.  He'd had a good fast start out of the Wolf, but now he was having to throw down some braces as he dropped back onto Adam's stern wake and did his best to maintain contact with the pack.

I decided to move to the right a bit where the water was undisturbed by the churning paddles.  I began to settle into a fast but comfortable rhythm at last, and over the next few minutes I inched my way up into second place.  I didn't have my G.P.S. device in the boat with me, but with the river registering 28.1 feet on the Memphis gauge, I knew we were getting plenty of help from the current.  I clocked about a 10:22 split at the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, the fastest I can ever remember.

Up front Mike had taken longer than usual to build his lead; for the first third of the race I don't think he was more than maybe 20 seconds ahead of me.  Maybe he was having the same trouble finding his rhythm that I was.  But eventually he began to pull away, and probably had more than a minute on me as he approached the entrance to the harbor.  It certainly was a comfortable enough lead for him to take a safe, conservative line around the southern tip of Mud Island, where there were some patches of very shallow water at the current river level.

By the time I reached the bridge I'd moved far enough ahead of my pursuers that I couldn't see anyone in my peripheral vision.  I told myself to keep paddling hard.  My lousy sprint workouts in recent weeks had shaken my confidence a bit, but I reminded myself that I'd raced well in races of 8 miles or less in March and April and that there was no reason I wouldn't stay strong all the way to the finish today.

I got to the harbor entrance and took a tighter line around the tip of Mud Island than Mike had.  I'd scouted the area yesterday and was confident I'd found a good clear path.  I hit the bottom with my paddle one time but otherwise had no trouble.  As I turned up into the harbor I stole a glance over my left shoulder and saw two boats not far back.  I wondered if one of them was Christian.  Christian is the reigning Masters national champion in the 200-, 500-, and 1000-meter sprints, and if he was anywhere in striking distance he would be able to zoom right past me in the flatwater of the harbor.  And even if Christian wasn't nearby, the boats I'd seen at the turn looked a little too close for comfort.  I would have to lay down the best finishing sprint I could muster to preserve my second-place position.

The finish buoys taunted me as I strove to reduce the distance between them and me to zero.  Those agonizing sprint workouts were on my mind as I pressed on, but no other boats appeared to my left or right and I became ever more confident that second place--my best finish ever in this race--was all mine.  Mike had claimed first place with a time of 15 minutes, 57 seconds, and I pushed myself across the line just 40 seconds later--the closest to Mike I've ever finished in this race.  My tighter line at the harbor entrance paid off, at least in a moral-victory sort of way.

I maneuvered my boat around and learned the identities of the two paddlers I'd seen back at the harbor entrance.  Andy Capel took third place in 16:54, and Adam Davis gave us a second Memphian in the top four with a time of 17:09.  Joseph DiChiacchio of Rising Fawn, Georgia, rounded out the top five in 17:23.  Christian Massow had indeed struggled out on the big river and had to settle for sixth place in 17:46.  If this had been entirely a flatwater race I think Christian would have made a good run at Mike.

Mike's daughter Savanna Herbert was the top female finisher, clocking 18:58.  She'd emerged from a thrilling duel with the race's top tandem kayak paddled by Carol Lee and Joe Royer.  Myrlene Marsa of Rising Fawn, Georgia, was Savanna's nearest solo female competitor, finishing 54 seconds back.  The complete results are posted as follows:

Solo kayak results
Tandem kayak results
Solo canoe results
Tandem canoe results
Standup paddleboard results

We all congratulated one another and made our way up the grassy bank to the post-race festivities in River Garden Park.  It was great to have canoe and kayak racing back here in Memphis, Tennessee.


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