A hard day and a day spent guiding a friend

Friday morning was another rainy one, and I spent the first part of it indoors doing another round of the new strength routine.  I went easy on the Hindu squats because my quad muscles were still quite sore.

By the time I got down to the river around 10 AM, the rain had moved out, and I would be paddling under overcast skies with the temperature around 55 degrees Fahrenheit.  I warmed up and did another round of that backpaddling-then-forward-paddling drill, and then moved on to my main workout.  I did eight 4-minute pieces; each piece broke down like this:

(a) 2 minutes paddling at 6.2 miles per hour on my G.P.S. device
(b) 45 seconds at 6.8 mph
(c) 45 seconds at 7.2 mph
(d) 30 seconds at a sub-maximal intensity--worked out to around 7.8 mph

The two minutes at 6.2 mph served as my recovery interval--in other words, I did the 4-minute pieces back-to-back without any additional recovery in between.  The workout was pretty taxing--in particular, my already-sore thighs were protesting loudly during the last several pieces--but not to the point that my form was breaking down.

By lunchtime on Friday, I was one tired guy, but it was a good tired.

Yesterday I got a message from a friend that she was passing through town and would like to paddle with me on the Mississippi today.  Amelia lives in east Tennessee and has been paddling whitewater for a few years, but is less familiar with navigating big rivers like the Mississippi in longer boats; so it was my duty to help her through this rite of passage.  I retrieved my rarely-used plastic touring boat from its storage spot up under my back deck (I found an abandoned bird's nest in the cockpit), scared up a spare paddle and PFD, and took it all down to the river this morning for Amelia to use.

We paddled for about 100 minutes.  We didn't venture far from downtown Memphis, but after climbing up along the Tennessee bank to the foot of the Greenbelt Park we ferried out to the middle of the river for the trip back down, where Amelia could experience the mighty river in all its glory.  She seemed suitably appreciative.


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