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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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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.


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Lethargic

With Joe away on vacation, I was on my own for paddling Tuesday morning, and I was very tempted to skip it.  My body was still not recovered from Sunday's sufferfest, and getting myself to do much of anything other than lounge around and stare into space was a challenge.

My motivation for training activities seemed to have hit rock bottom at that moment.  Having spent two hours withering in the heat on Sunday, immersing myself in it again was the last thing I felt like doing.  I love to train and race, but I can do without the survival aspect of the sport.

In the end, I willed myself into the boat for an easy 40-minute paddle.  I felt better after paddling than I'd felt before, and that's not unusual on such a day: I think there's a physical benefit when I get some blood flowing in fatigued muscles, and a psychological one when I make myself go out and do even the tiniest something when it would be so very easy to blow it off.

I did a round of the strength routine Wednesday morning.  It was my first time doing strength work since the previous Thursday, and I think that break did me some good.  I felt stronger and more energized as I did the exercises, especially the pullups.

By yesterday I was definitely feeling back to normal, more or less.  With no racing scheduled for a few weeks, I got in the boat intending to do whatever I felt like, and nothing more.  I paddled at a solid pace for 50 minutes.

I did another round of the strength routine today.  It looks like we have another hot weekend ahead.  Those dog days are persistent some years.


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Monday photo feature

I shot this photo of Memphian Sonny Salomon as he surfed a lovely wave on the Caney Fork River at Rock Island State Park near McMinnville, Tennessee.  The year is 1998 or thereabouts.

A short distance downstream of here the Caney Fork disappears into the impoundment of Center Hill Reservoir, on which I raced yesterday.  We made a buoy turn less than a mile below this wave.


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Racing in the brutal Southern summertime

I was up a couple of hours before dawn yesterday, giving myself what I hoped would be ample time to make the noon start of the Rock Island Rampage race on Center Hill Reservoir in middle Tennessee.  I'd hoped I could make the drive in four or four and a half hours, but it took me five, thanks to the congested suburbia of Murfreesboro and the abundant traffic lights and low speed limits on U.S. 70S through towns like Woodbury and McMinnville.

I arrived at the race site about 75 minutes before the start, and one thing was immediately clear: it was going to be a hot one.  The late-morning sun beat down, breezes were scarce, and the humidity smothered the body's sweat-cooling abilities.

I greeted the familiar faces I saw and readied my equipment and myself.  I warmed up on the lake and made the conversion from driving mode to paddling mode.  High noon arrived, the start command was issued, and we were off.

Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina, laid down a quick sprint into the lead, but immediately backed off so that a big group of competitors could join him to form the lead pack.  Paddles and boats banged against one another as each of us tried to grab what he thought was the best wake.  As things settled down I found myself in the "diamond" position, riding Chris's stern wake and the side wakes thrown off by Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Cameron Thacker of Asheville, North Carolina.  Several times my bow bumped against Chris's stern, prompting him to bark his displeasure.  I retorted, "You're too slow, Chris!"  I'm pretty sure he knew I was kidding, but that didn't stop him from throwing in a quick sprint and shouting "Howzat?"

We were racing on a 14-mile layout.  From the start we headed "down" the Caney Fork River (buried beneath the reservoir).  We were to continue for five miles to a buoy, and then retrace the course back to the start.  Then we would continue "upriver" for two miles, almost to the top of the lake where the river current hits the impoundment, round another buoy, and return to finish where we'd started.  The heat was already starting to bother me by the end of the first mile, and I wondered how competitive I could be for the remaining 13.  I seriously doubted I could maintain the current pace of the lead pack.  Having raced Chris and Terry many times before, I knew they were holding back, trying to shorten the distance as much as possible before fighting in earnest for the win.

For several miles the lead pack seemed to consist of just Chris, Terry, Cameron, and me.  But then other boats moved up into my peripheral vision.  There was John Wellens of Chapin, South Carolina; Alessia Faverio of Asheville, North Carolina; and Bruce Poacher of Erwin, Tennessee.

We rounded a bend to the left and the first buoy turn came into view.  When we reached it I noticed we had traveled only four and a half miles according to my G.P.S. device.  Assuming the second buoy was positioned correctly, we'd be racing a mile shorter than intended.  Given the oppressive heat, I was perfectly okay with that.

I had a lousy turn at the buoy and found myself a couple of boatlengths off the back of the lead pack.  I worked my way back into contact and intended to stay there in seventh place a good long while, conserving energy as much as I could.  I was laboring considerably, and I could hear a taunting voice in my head saying, "Welcome to Bonksville!  Population: YOU."

Around Mile 6 Chris and Terry threw in a big surge and separated themselves from the pack.  That left Cameron, Bruce, Alessia, John, and me in a chase pack vying for third place.  I drank deeply from the secret concoction in my camelback (okay, it's no big secret: Gatorade mixed about 50/50 with water).  Now and then I could feel a little energy lift from those calories.  Somewhere around Mile 7 I amassed enough gumption to move from the back of the pack to the front.  By this time Chris and Terry were some 15 seconds ahead and I entertained no serious notion of going after them. I spent several minutes leading the pack before giving it up to John and Alessia.

After what seemed like an eternity, the start/finish buoys came into view.  Upon reaching them we had four miles left: two miles up to the second turn and two miles back.  By this time the chase pack had dwindled to John, Alessia, and me.  I was feeling pretty awful, and in short order I let the other two get away from me.  Now I was all by my lonesome, wondering how many competitors were within striking distance behind me.

On and on and on we went.  Chris and Terry reached the buoy, and we shouted encouragement at one another as they passed me on the way back down.  Moments later John and Alessia came by.  Then I made the turn myself, and I was on the home stretch.  Todd McGinnis of Alpharetta, Georgia, had moved up to become my closest pursuer.  Bruce Poacher hung out a few boatlengths back.  I was moving around 6.5 miles per hour--that's an easy cruising pace for me on a typical day in the harbor at home, but here I was straining to maintain it and keep myself out of Todd and Bruce's reach.

I could see up ahead of me that Chris had opened a gap on Terry, while John seemed to have put a boatlength or two on Alessia.  And that pattern held to become the final finish order.  Chris claimed the victory in one hour, 53 minutes, 13 seconds.  Terry took second 15 seconds back.  John pulled away from Alessia to complete the men's medal podium with his time of 1:54:53.  Just over a half-minute later Alessia finished fourth overall and first among all women.  I limped across the line in 1:56:34.  Todd took sixth overall in 1:58:23, and Mark Kieran of Chattanooga edged out Bruce for seventh.

The complete results are posted here.  (Click on "14 Mile (29 Results).")  According to my G.P.S. device, we had indeed traveled only 13 miles.  I didn't miss that 14th mile even one tiny bit.

I flipped my boat and spent at least five minutes letting my PFD float me in the water.  The race had been all about managing the heat, and I'd done neither the best nor the worst job of doing that.  Whatever the case, it had sapped my body to the core.  After a while I climbed back in the boat and tried to muster the energy to do a brief cool-down paddle.  Then it took all the motor skill I had left to lift my boat up out of the water and carry it back to the car.  I spent the next hour in a lightheaded fog as I reorganized my gear, changed into dry clothes, drank some water and munched on a snack, and wandered down to a shady spot where some other racers were engaged in post-race conversation.

I socialized for a while and then tore myself away to begin the long journey home.  The parking area was out in the sun and I thought I might combust as I settled in behind the wheel of my car.  The air conditioner ran full-blast as I followed the winding roads back out to U.S. 70S and headed westward into the afternoon blaze toward Murfreesboro.  By the time I reached that town I was beyond famished and I stopped at an Indian restaurant I spotted in a strip mall.  It wasn't as good as my favorite Indian cuisine in Memphis, but it was plenty sufficient.  I wolfed down some curry chicken and Paratha flatbread and then tapped right into those calories to survive a few boring hours on the Interstate highway system.  I arrived home just after ten o'clock to complete my most exhausting day trip in recent memory.


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