While driving through the Florida Panhandle back in 2005, I stopped and paddled on the St. Marks River. The river and its namesake town are situated south of Tallahassee.
Later this week I'll be driving through this area en route to the town of Dunnellon, site of my training camp on the Rainbow River.
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Following a round of my gym routine, I went downtown and paddled with Joe on a lovely Tuesday morning--the fourth or fifth Tuesday in a row with sunny, mild weather.
Much colder air was in the forecast for Thursday and Friday, so I returned to the river Wednesday. There was a stiff south wind blowing and rain was on its way, but the temperature was warm, headed for a high around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Out on the Mississippi there were some small waves that I tried to ride, and I was reminded that paddling out there in the wind means getting very wet. After being splashed with frigid water a few times I was disinclined to stay out there more than 15 minutes or so. I returned to the harbor and paddled a strong aerobic pace for the remainder of the hour.
Thursday and Friday were indeed unpleasantly cold, the temperature barely exceeding the freezing point. Though the skies were sunny, a howling north wind discouraged me from leaving the house. I filled my days with indoor activities, including a gym session Friday morning.
By yesterday the wind had shifted to the south and the high was supposed to be around 50 degrees. It had warmed up to 41 degrees by the time I got to the dock a little before ten o'clock. But that south wind made it feel quite a bit colder, and once again I got soaking wet in a hurry.
This morning I did another gym session and then headed out to paddle on yet another windy day. At least the warming trend was continuing, nearing 60 degrees by the time my 60 minutes in the boat was finished.
By the end of the week I plan to be paddling on the Rainbow River in Florida, and I expect I won't be quite so exposed to the wind there. As for the forecast, it looks just fine, though maybe not quite as warm as I tend to imagine when I think of sunny Florida. Right now the daytime highs are predicted to be in the 60s and low 70s, with overnight lows dipping below 40 a few times. Oh well, it's not like this is supposed to be a vacation--I'm going there to WORK!!!!
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Looks like I've got a halo in the sun-dappled environs of a mangrove tunnel along the southeastern edge of Everglades National Park. The year is 2005.
In less than two weeks I'll be back in the state of Florida, albeit much farther north. My training camp there will take place on the Rainbow River at the town of Dunellon, southwest of Ocala.
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I'm starting to get myself moving again with an eye toward 2021. One reason is the training camp in Florida that I mentioned last week: I've reserved lodging down there for January 1-10, and I need to get a bit of paddling under my belt between now and then so I'll be ready for the workouts that Chris has in store.
Another reason is that I've been watching the "Training for Surfski" video course that the Mocke brothers released this year, and I'm drawing some inspiration from that. While the course doesn't present too many ideas that I wasn't already aware of on some level--I've been doing athletic stuff for 40 years now, after all--I'm always interested in getting somebody's unique take on one topic or another. For instance, there are certain things I haven't really emphasized in my own training practices that I now believe deserve more of my attention after hearing the Mockes talk about it.
The weather hasn't been offering much motivational help lately: much of this past week has been overcast, wet, and cold. It would have been very tempting to skip paddling last Tuesday if I hadn't been committed to meeting Joe: skies were grey and a breeze was blowing while the Fahrenheit temperature hovered in the mid 30s. Once we were in our boats paddling it wasn't bad at all, but the time on the dock before and after wasn't fun.
The temperature was much the same on Thursday, but the sun was penetrating a partly cloudy sky, and it's remarkable how much difference that makes in my mood. I paddled for a relaxed 70 minutes both in the harbor and on the Mississippi.
I returned to the riverfront on Friday because Saturday was forecast to be a rainy, miserable day. This time I stayed in the harbor and did a brisk 60-minute aerobic paddle. For the "middle" 40 minutes (i.e., from 0:10 until 0:50), I aimed for a pace of 6.5 miles per hour. That made the session rather fatiguing, not because 6.5 mph is all that hard for me, but because of the extra concentration required when you're watching your G.P.S. device and constantly making little adjustments to stay at a certain speed.
The forecast didn't lie: yesterday was soggy and cold. I was happy to spend almost all day indoors. By this morning the rain had moved out, leaving behind a thick fog that hung low enough over the city that I couldn't see the tops of the tallest buildings downtown. The temperature was in the mid 40s. When I got to the dock I discovered that I'd forgotten to bring my watch with me, so I paddled "blind" in that respect. I wanted to paddle for 60 minutes, so I did a loop that I typically complete in that length of time.
I did rounds of my strength routine (which I think I'm going to start calling my "gym"--that's what the Mocke brothers call it and it's pleasantly concise) on Tuesday, Friday, and today.
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Sartorially, I've always been an earth-tones kind of guy. The main reason is that I don't care to draw a lot of attention to myself.
That was long the case when I dressed to go paddling, too. I preferred a dark PFD (black, usually), along with muted hues in my clothing.
In the summer of 2018, I realized that my traditional fashion sense presented a problem. That was my first summer to attend the Gorge Downwind race on the Columbia River at Hood River, Oregon, and during my first day on the water there, a friend "dressed me down," as it were. He exclaimed something to the effect of "Dude! I can barely see you!"
You see, the wind that blows through the Columbia Gorge attracts not only surfski racers but also windsurfers and kiteboarders. With such craft flying over your head as you paddle, it quickly becomes obvious why you want those folks to see you so they can avoid taking your head off.
And so, I invested in some brighter-colored gear while I was out there in 2018, including one of those neon-orange lifejackets offered by the Mocke Paddling Company. Since then I have acquired other hard-to-miss items, such as the Outdoors, Inc., shirt pictured above. The photo doesn't entirely do it justice, but that shirt is bright. When I wore it on very sunny days this past Thursday and Saturday, the glare off my sleeves was intense enough to be an annoyance. But I guess it's worth it if it saves me from being struck by a kiteboard or a windsurfer or some motorized craft.
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Paddling twice a week has been my routine in recent weeks. But a run of really nice weather lured me to the river three times this past week.
Joe and I did our regular loop of the harbor on Tuesday. Skies were clear and the temperature was in the mid 50s Fahrenheit. One might question how much training I get during these Tuesday sessions, but I consider them very important. They give me a chance to practice my strokes at a leisurely pace, and converse with a friend who knows the sport well, with whom I can discuss ideas for training and racing. It's also a chance for me to behold the many aspects of the harbor's environs that I might overlook during a harder workout.
By Thursday the weather was still sunny and had warmed up into the 60s, so I went downtown for a 60-minute paddle. A front came through Friday and yesterday morning it was some ten degrees cooler, but it was sunny and beautiful again, and I enjoyed another hour in the boat.
Both Thursday and yesterday there were barge rigs moving up the Mississippi just outside the harbor entrance, so I went out and surfed. As I've said before, towboat wakes aren't a perfect simulation of downwind conditions, but I think they're useful for working on a lot of skills. In these latest sessions I worked on prolonging each ride as long as possible by following the wandering "hole," keeping an eye out for a new run to link to. Even if there turned out not to be a new run, at least I reinforced the right habits.
I've been keeping up some strength work during this lull in "serious" training. After wrapping up the old routine Tuesday, I started a new routine Friday and did it again this morning.
As for the future, I have a training opportunity coming up in several weeks: long-time racing friend Chris Hipgrave is organizing a training camp on the Rainbow River at Dunellon, Florida, to which he's invited racers from primarily the southeastern U.S. Chris plans to be down there from December 29 through January 11, and athletes will be coming in and out during that period, depending on what their schedules will allow. I'm still pondering how long I can be away from home, but I hope to make it for most of that period. Updates to come...
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I've changed up my strength exercises again. Here's what I plan to do for the next little while.
1. Front and lat raises
2. Ab-wheel exercise (demonstrated in this video)
3. Bent-over rows
4. Walking up stairs with dumbbells
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Joe and I met to paddle on a cool but lovely morning last Tuesday. Joe liked the way the light was playing off the water, and paused to take a photo.
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I've been getting in the boat just a couple of times per week for the last couple of weeks. I've been attending to some things in my non-athletic life, and I'm also just ready for a break.
Taking a training break sort of rubs up against my regimented nature. When I allow myself to think about it too long, I'm tormented by ideas of deteriorating skills and lost muscle tone and the specter of "lagging behind everybody else." But the fact is that the body just can't perform at a high level every day for years on end.
I've come back from every break I've taken in years past, and I need to relax and be confident that I will again this year. Next year's race season looks to be somewhat busier than this past year's, but probably not back to a full slate of events--even if the coming vaccines are every bit as good as advertised, it will take the better part of 2021 for them to be administered to the general population and for true "herd immunity" to develop. And so, it's not like there's anything right around the corner that I have to be in top form for. Really, it won't be until June that I'd really like to be rounding into shape, with the hope that the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race and the Gorge Downwind Championships will be able to happen again.
So there's plenty of time. And I have no shortage of activities--some vocational, some purely hobby--to fill it.
This past Tuesday I did a round of my strength routine. Then went to the river to join Joe for a loop of the harbor, and I felt as tired in the boat as I can ever remember. What's usually a relaxed session felt like a chore from start to finish. The strength work I'd just done was part of the reason, but there was also a general weariness in my bones.
On Friday I did another round of the strength routine and then got back in the boat down on the riverfront. I felt a bit more energetic this time, and did a steady loop out on the Mississippi.
Sooner or later I'll be champing at the bit to get back at it for real, but until then, I hope I can savor the lighter load. One thing I plan to do this offseason is check out the Mocke brothers' new video course on surfski training; I purchased it last summer but haven't gotten around to watching it yet. I hope it'll give me some fun new ideas when the time comes to ramp up a new season.
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I've been doing this routine for the last couple of weeks, and will probably continue it for a couple more.
1. Front and lat raises with dumbbells
2. Leg kicks and leg kicks swim (demonstrated at 3:33 of this video)
3. Bicep curls with dumbbells
4. Lunges
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I've been visiting this lady a lot lately. Dr. Lindsey Carr of Midtown Chiropractic has been treating my neck ailment both with skeletomuscular adjustments and with tools like the scraper she wields in this photo. It looks harmless enough, but she manages to inflict plenty of pain with it. She used it for deep scraping of muscle tissue when she treated my plantar fasciitis a couple of years ago, and now she's using it on my neck.
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My main focus this past week has been nursing my neck back to health. This bit of literature, courtesy of my chiropractor, offers the most likely explanation of what's going on:
My chiropractor also showed me a few exercises I can do to work on the area. She'd actually promised to e-mail them to me a couple of weeks earlier, but she forgot, and I kept forgetting to remind her. But we finally got that straightened out this past week and I've been doing the exercises every day since then. And I think they're having an effect. My neck pain isn't gone yet--there's still a lot of tightness--but I'm not wincing every time I turn my head to the left. If nothing else, I'm getting a psychological boost from actually doing something myself to address the problem in between visits to the chiropractor's office.
Aside from an easy paddle with Joe on Tuesday, I spent most of last week out of the boat. Simply put, I was ready for a break. I very well might have continued that break through the weekend, except that a run of exceptionally nice weather had moved in. With sunny skies and temperatures in the mid to high 70s Fahrenheit, I simply couldn't stay away from the river entirely.
On Friday I went down to the dock and spent some time stretching, doing a round of my strength routine, and doing my neck rehab exercises. Then I got in the boat and set out with the intention of doing what I felt like doing--nothing more, nothing less.
When I reached the mouth of the harbor I saw a barge rig heading upriver from beneath the Harahan Bridge. I headed straight for it, for I certainly couldn't let a surfing opportunity go by in such warm weather. The waves weren't the most ideal I've ever seen, but they were playful. I had great fun just working the boat to prolong each run, and each time a run ended there was another good wave right behind it for me to catch. The few days of rest seemed to have done me good: I was able to sprint hard again and again with no debilitating fatigue.
As I glided along, I wondered if the morning could possibly be any more perfect. The weather was gorgeous, I'd done some good work on the dock, and now here I was enjoying the most pleasing sensation a paddler can experience. Life was good indeed.
Then, just like that, my morning became slightly less perfect. I needed to turn the boat to the right to keep my "nose in the hole" (as the Mocke brothers like to say), so I pressed on my right foot pedal... and the boat didn't respond. I pushed the pedal all the way down. Nothing. My boat continued moving off to the left, off the wave. My rudder had inexplicably quit on me.
I muscled the boat over to the Arkansas bank, paddling mostly on my left side because my inert rudder was turning the boat to the left. I found a place to hop out and see what the deal was. In short, the little bracket that attaches to the top of the rudder post was no longer gripping the post. Tightening it required an Allen wrench, and I didn't have one with me (note to self: start keeping one in a life jacket pocket from now on).
I did everything I could to remedy the problem with just my fingers, but I couldn't get the rudder functioning again. I did at least get it fixed in the center position so it would act as a skeg as I made my way back toward the harbor. I was now sullen because a lousy equipment failure had yanked a really fun surf session out from under me. And there probably aren't many days left this year when it's not too cold for such activity.
Yesterday morning I replaced my rudder with a different one with a slightly longer post that I hope the bracket will keep its grip on. According to the forecast we still had several more balmy days, so both yesterday and today I paddled with the hope of finding some more barge wakes to surf. Alas, commercial traffic was nowhere to be found. The environmentalist nature-loving side of me should have been happy to enjoy a river free of the air and noise pollution those beasts create, and in fact I did have good hour-long sessions both days. But the feeling of being robbed on Friday continued to gnaw at me.
Oh well... I'll get over it. There ought to be plenty more surfing in my future. For now my training break will continue and with any luck I'll get this neck ailment under control.
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Joe Royer shot this photo of me in January of 2010. Frigid weather in Missouri and Illinois had sent a whole series of ice floes downstream to us. I can't remember exactly how cold it was in Memphis that day, but my guess is around 25 or 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
Here in 2020 it's not that cold yet, but it seems we're headed in that direction. The temperature dropped into the mid 30s early this morning.
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Wellllll...
I didn't race this weekend.
My plan had been to spend Friday night at my partner Susan Jordan's farmstead home in southern Mississippi, and then travel with Susan to the race at Orange Beach, Alabama, yesterday.
But "the devil fools with the best-laid plans," or "man plans, God laughs," or whatever other adage you prefer. In this case, Hurricane Zeta was the culprit: Susan's property sustained quite a bit of damage, including the guest house where I was supposed to stay. The storm knocked out the electricity there, and on Thursday evening it didn't seem likely that power would be restored before the end of the weekend. So, Susan decided she would not be able to host me and that she could not attend the race.
Upon learning this news, I pondered my options. I was already registered for the event, of course, and when I asked the director if I could switch to the single surfski class, he assured me that would be no problem.
The trouble was, the field as it appeared on the event's registration web page offered no competition for me at all. It had already looked thin when I was expecting to race tandem with Susan: in the long-course race there was only one other tandem surfski entered, along with some kind of non-surfski tandem kayak. Single surfskis in the long-course race? Zippo.
So, I was looking at a sevenish-hour drive and motel expenses just to race against nobody. I pulled the plug instead.
It's a little disappointing, but it's okay. If I've learned anything in Pandemic Times, it's not to get all upset when a race gets called off or otherwise doesn't work out for me.
And right now, my body is tired. I'm ready for a break. I've got a lot of other things on my plate--some are there because they have to be, others because I want them to be--and I want to give them more attention. One of them is healing this neck pain, which continues to make my days much less pleasant than they ought to be.
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I went back to the chiropractor Monday afternoon and she worked on my neck some more. This time I think I'm detecting some slight improvement. The discomfort is still there but it's not quite as intense as it was all last week.
There's no question that stress is a factor. The medical field is learning more and more about the mental health toll perpetrated on Americans this year by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic downturn, and the nightmare of an election season (for which next Tuesday might be nothing more than a segue into a new nightmare). I've been hanging in there, and I'd like to tell you I'm above all the chaos and woe, but the truth is that I'm just as susceptible to feelings of gloom and doom as anybody. It's taking some real willpower and concentration to make myself relax and not brood over it all. I have the added concern of my mother's health: though she had a successful surgery a few weeks ago, she still needs several months of chemotherapy, and she's starting that today.
At the moment I'm not feeling particularly motivated to go race this weekend, but that's actually probably the best thing I could do. And I'm pretty confident that once I'm out of town I'll get myself focused. Racing among distractions is a skill that you can improve with experience. All those hundreds of times I've gotten out and raced or done a hard workout when I wasn't feeling a hundred percent rarin' to go have prepared me for just this kind of weekend.
On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe down at the dock. Joe was having a busy day at work so we just paddled to the north end of the harbor and back. Today I went back to the river and paddled for 50 minutes, doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.
I haven't seen any sunshine here in just about a week. This week started with overcast skies, and yesterday the outer bands of Hurricane Zeta dumped quite a bit of rain on the Mid South. This morning I paddled in a sloppy drizzle driven by a stiff south wind. The rain is supposed to move out and the temperature is supposed to drop.
Meanwhile Susan Jordan, my partner in a tandem surfski this weekend, tells me the hurricane gave sort of a beating to her property in southern Mississippi, and I don't know just yet what impact that'll have on our weekend plans. The good news is that the current forecast calls for mostly-sunny skies and a high of 73 degrees Fahrenheit down at Orange Beach, Alabama, on Saturday. If Susan and I do in fact make the trip, I hope it'll be a welcome break from thinking about my mother's health, the greater public health, and the fate of my nation.
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My plan is to be a few miles to the east of here, across Mobile Bay, this Saturday. I'm signed up to participate in the Skull Harbor Canoe and Kayak Race at Orange Beach.
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Long-time readers who have paid close attention know that Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are my normal paddling days. Yes, I am stubbornly regimented.
But I made an alteration this weekend. On Friday we were still having that balmy weather that we'd had all week here, but a cold front was scheduled to come through overnight and make things chilly for the weekend. So, after doing a round of the strength routine Friday morning, I headed for the river. The air was muggy and the temperature was headed above 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
I was hoping to find some barge traffic out on the Mississippi since it was possibly the last day of the year warm enough for aggressive surfing. But when I reached the mouth of the harbor, all I saw was an upstream-moving rig well above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and another rig drifting downriver with its engines barely running at all. I pursued the southbound tow hoping it might eventually fire up its engines, and in fact it did, but the waves were confused and my arms, tired from the strength work, didn't have a lot of punch in them. Soon I was heading back to the dock to complete a 60-minute paddle.
The front came through late Friday night with some stiff winds, and yesterday was drizzly and bleak with a high of no more than 55 degrees. I gave myself some much needed rest. The weather wasn't much better today, but I felt a whole lot fresher. With a race coming up next weekend, I wanted to do some short fast stuff in the boat. I did eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals, and then paddled a strong tempo for the rest of the hour.
My neck-muscle woes continue. I'll be picking back up with the chiropractor tomorrow.
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This week the weather is unseasonably warm, the temperature rising above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. But the forecast is showing much cooler weather by the weekend.
It's hard to describe my reflections on this year. I've heard many people talk about how 2020 feels like it's dragging on forever, and there are moments when I feel that way too. And yet it seems like the summer just sort of came and went right under my nose. I engaged in none of the usual travel or adventure, and the lonely days became lonely weeks and... here I am, watching the weather get cooler and cooler and the daylight hours get shorter and shorter.
I mentioned over the weekend that it's about time to break out the cold-weather paddling clothes. The days of shorts and short sleeves are about over. So are the days of going out and surfing barge wakes: I'm much less willing to do that in the wintertime because of the hypothermia risk.
It's a little depressing, to be honest. I suppose I could fly back to South Africa and have fun there while the northern hemisphere shivers, but I'm afraid it's going to be at least another year before I feel comfortable cramming myself onto an airplane with a hundred or more other people. Maybe I'll find time for a trip to Florida sometime this winter.
Adding to my glum feeling is this pain in my neck that I can't seem to get rid of. I saw my chiropractor Monday afternoon and she made some adjustments and did some deep massage, but so far there has been no improvement. I'm scheduled to go back once a week for the next while, and I hope she can work the same magic she did with the plantar fasciitis I had for several years.
Yesterday morning I did a round of the strength routine before joining Joe for a loop of the harbor. I felt tired and our pace was even more leisurely than usual, and it took us a full 80 minutes to make the circuit.
This morning I went back to the river to do my last hard workout before I race on the Alabama Gulf Coast a week from this Saturday. My plan was to do some intervals of 75 seconds on, 45 seconds off, paddling each "on" period at sub-maximal intensity.
Meanwhile, the current balmy weather also had me longing for a last bit of surfing before winter settles in. So I made a deal with myself: if I found some barge traffic on the river, I would do eight of these intervals, and take a "break" from the workout to do some surfing; if the river was empty, then I would do ten intervals.
After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I headed out onto the Mississippi and saw a barge rig coming down from far upriver. So I started my workout while paddling upstream along the Tennessee bank. This 75/45 workout is an exhausting lactic-tolerance sort of affair, but I attacked it with gusto knowing I would have a "play workout" respite. By the time the barge rig reached me, I'd done six intervals.
Alas, my surf session turned out to be a dud. The waves behind the towboat were small, fast-moving, and wandering all over the place. And while my lungs were up to the hard sprints that surfing requires, my arm muscles were not because of the lactic acid I'd built up in them.
After a few minutes of trying my best, I headed back to the harbor. There I did four more of my 75/45 intervals. So I ended up doing ten of them after all. As hard as that workout is, it's also over quickly. After finishing the last one I paddled back to the dock with my mood elevated from the endorphin therapy.
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Yesterday was a textbook brisk fall day. The sun shone bright all day, but the Fahrenheit temperature started in the mid 40s and hadn't reached 60 yet when I went down to paddle.
I got down to the dock and realized that my summertime in-the-boat attire of swim trunks and a short-sleeve shirt weren't going to be adequate. But it was all I had, so I grinned and bore it for 60 minutes. There was a chilly breeze blowing and I was never entirely comfortable out there.
Today dawned quite a bit warmer and cloudy, with occasional light showers. Once in the boat I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi for my workout. I did twelve two-minute pieces in which I paddled a moderate pace (about 6.5 miles per hour on flatwater) for 60 seconds, a faster pace (7.0-7.5 mph) for 30 seconds, and a sub-maximal pace (over 8.0 mph) for 30 seconds. I did the pieces back-to-back--in other words, that moderate-paced first 60 seconds counted as my recovery interval. I did five of them while paddling upriver along the Tennessee bank, four of them coming back downriver, and the last three on the flatwater of the harbor.
The workout went reasonably well and I felt strong throughout. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling so hot out of the boat. That soreness and tightness in the right side of my neck continues and it's making me somewhat miserable as I go about my day. I think I'm going to have to step up the frequency of my visits to the chiropractor and see if we get whatever this is ironed out.
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On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe for a loop of the harbor. Both Tuesday and Wednesday were gorgeous fall days: sunny skies with a Fahrenheit temperature rising from the mid 50s at sunrise to the mid 70s by the afternoon.
Yesterday morning the sky was clear as the sun rose, but it quickly clouded up and the day had a gloomy feel by the time I was heading for the river in the mid morning. When I raced on the Ohio River several weeks earlier I seemed to lack a higher gear, and when I got in the boat yesterday I intended to do a workout to address that. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did four bridge-to-bridge sprints.
I've come to dread this workout a little bit because, well, it hurts. And I also tend to beat myself up if I don't achieve my fastest times in the sprints. I keep having to remind myself that consistency is what really matters. And yesterday's sprints were consistent, or at least the first three of them were: 2:04, 2:05, 2:07. By the fourth one I was starting to fall apart and could manage only 2:11. It felt like both the third and fourth were done into a stronger headwind, though it's possible that was just my imagination.
I didn't adhere to a strict recovery interval. In the past I've made it five minutes, and that required me to waste little time getting back to the monorail bridge to start the next sprint. Yesterday I didn't dawdle, but my recovery interval was probably more like six or seven minutes.
Today it is sunny once more but quite cool: the high temperature isn't expected to be above 63 or 64. I did another round of the strength routine this morning.
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It's been a strange race season, if you can even call it a race season. For me it began on another continent back in February: the "Sea Dog" race at Fish Hoek Beach in South Africa.
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I'm signed up for what will probably be my last race of 2020. My friend Susan Jordan of Lucedale, Mississippi, asked if I would join her in a tandem surfski for the Skull Harbor Canoe and Kayak Race at Orange Beach, Alabama, on October 31. I saw no reason not to, and so it's now on my schedule.
Meanwhile, here in the Memphis area the outer bands of Hurricane Delta moved in Friday, with the heavy precipitation arriving in the early hours of Saturday morning. I woke up to sloppy, wet, blustery conditions. The rain had abated by the time I was heading for the river around 9:30 AM, but the Internet radar indicated it would be back.
As I walked down the ramp to the marina, I saw Joe and his wife Carol Lee paddling their tandem boat toward the north end of the harbor. So when I got my boat in the water I headed north too so I would meet them on their way back south. After a 10-minute warmup I did a set of three 8-stroke sprints. I also spent some time picking up litter: the rain had washed a whole bunch of garbage into the harbor, and I focused on aluminum cans because the grocery store near the marina has a collection bin for cans. Whatever pennies the recycler pays for them goes to the Humane Society.
So I had a footwell full of cans by the time I saw Joe and Carol Lee coming back down. I turned and fell in alongside them. We paddled down to the mouth of the harbor and headed up the Mississippi River along the Tennessee bank. A barge rig was coming downriver and we decided to continue upstream until the vessel had passed us, and then head back downstream.
I headed for the towboat's wake and found some interesting conditions: not exactly easy to ride, but rideable nevertheless. The waves were changing rapidly and I had to be on my toes to prolong each ride as much as possible. My footwell full of cans gave me some extra motivation to keep the boat upright.
I kept thinking about what Dawid Mocke had told me in South Africa last February: "Put your nose in the hole (the trough), and then try to keep it in the hole as the hole moves around." I had some success doing that in this particular set of barge waves.
I reunited with Joe and Carol Lee at the mouth of the harbor, and we headed back toward the dock. The rain was picking up, and the gusty north wind was blowing it at an angle of maybe 50 degrees with the horizontal.
All told, I paddled for just shy of two hours, during which I visited with a couple of friends, gathered a footwell-load of aluminum cans, did a few hard sprints, and got some practice with balance, control, and mobility in the waves. If that's not a successful morning of paddling, I'd like to know what is.
The rain really began to pour as I put my boat away and changed into dry clothes. By the time I got up to my car in the parking lot, my clothes weren't dry anymore. I drove home and changed clothes again.
The rain had mostly moved out by the end of the day yesterday. This morning there was just a fine drizzle falling, and that was gone by the time I was in my boat. I warmed up and did another three 8-strokers, and then commenced a pace workout: four 2000-meter pieces with 500 meters recovery in between. My target pace was 7.0 miles per hour for each piece. There was enough wind blowing to make that difficult at times, but I maintained it without much trouble for most of the workout. My remaining workouts between now and October 31 will likely be shorter and faster.
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On Tuesday I did a round of my new strength routine and then headed downtown to paddle a loop of the harbor with Joe.
I'd visited my chiropractor on Monday and she did some work on my neck area, where I'd been experiencing discomfort all weekend. But the pain has continued--it's not as intense as before, but it still nags at me.
Nevertheless, by yesterday I was feeling energetic enough for some greater intensity in the boat, and what ensued was the most enjoyable and satisfying paddling session I've had in a while.
I warmed up and did a set of three 8-stroke sprints, and then paddled out of the harbor hoping to find some wavy fun on the Mississippi. What I found was an upstream-moving barge rig that was passing beneath the Hernando DeSoto Bridge. I surged hard upriver for maybe 1000 meters along the Tennessee bank to gain as much ground on it as I could. Once I was a short distance above the bridge I ferried out to catch as much of the towboat's wake as possible. I was a couple of hundred meters behind the barge by the time I got out there, and the waves were beginning to diminish, but I managed to get a few brief rides. As the commercial vessel moved more and more distant, I hung out to see what might develop. Barge wakes do some funny things: they'll die down to nothing but then rally with a set of well-defined waves; or they'll wander back and forth across the river so that one moment they're on your left, and the next they're on your right. I've learned to hang tight and see what "comes to me," and a couple of times something good did come.
Meanwhile, there was another barge rig coming downriver. So I waited and then fell in behind it. The water was boily and confused, partly because the pilot was sweeping out an arc as he maneuvered beneath the HDB, and my challenge was to react to the rapidly-changing conditions beneath my boat.
As I played around with that I looked downriver and saw yet another rig coming upstream. So I rode the conditions behind the down-bound vessel just below the HDB and then paddled over to see what I get from this newcomer. Here I found the morning's best conditions by far. I was able to link runs together several times and watch my speed increase with each successful attempt. And so once again I made the best of things even though I don't have a Miller's Run or a Columbia Gorge in my backyard.
I returned to the harbor and paddled back to the dock with a pleasant fatigue seasoned with endorphins and a bit of adrenaline. Moments like that are a huge part of why I paddle.
Today I did another round of the strength routine. It seems likely that at least some of my weekend paddling will take place in the rain, as the remnants of Hurricane Delta are headed this way as I type.
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1. Pushups
2. Plank crunches (demonstrated at 4:03 of this video)
3. Rubber band exercises: flies and reverse flies
4. Hindu squats (demonstrated in this video)
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I've continued to lack much get-up-and-go this weekend. I guess I'm just tired, or maybe I have an extremely mild cold or something. (I have not had any of the common COVID-19 symptoms--dry cough, numb tastebuds, anything like that.) My neck discomfort has improved slightly, perhaps, but it's still unpleasant.
Oh well... slow periods like this do happen. I'm responding to it with unstructured 60-minute sessions on the river. No 8-stroke sprints or drills or anything; I'm just going out there and doing whatever I feel like.
I would have liked to do some wake surfing this week, but the river was free of commercial traffic every time I went out. Finally today there was a barge rig moving upstream as I paddled out of the harbor. It had an odd set of waves trailing behind it: the first few off the towboat's stern had such low amplitude the they weren't really surfable at all. Then I found some nice ones a bit farther back, and got a couple of fun rides. After that the waves died quickly as the rig moved farther and farther upriver. It was nice to get a little bit of something, and by the time I was back on the dock I felt more upbeat and energetic than before.
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I've spent this week feeling really lethargic and out of sorts. A notable symptom is sort of a foggy, scatterbrained feeling. Normally I wake up a little before 6 AM, but a couple of times this week I've slept almost a half-hour later. I'm usually tired at the end of a race weekend, but I can't believe my trip up to the Ohio River did such a number on me that I'm still recovering five days later. Maybe my body is fighting off some kind of bug... hopefully not the one that's hogged the headlines for the last ten months.
On Monday I did very little besides finish unpacking my stuff from the trip and put it away. I had to miss my usual Tuesday paddle with Joe to drive my mother to the doctor for some followup to her surgery. She seems to be doing quite well, for you thoughtful folks who are wondering about that.
Mom's appointment wasn't until late morning, so I took the opportunity to start easing into a new strength routine. I haven't drawn up a complete routine yet, but I did a couple of sets of pushups and Hindu squats.
Not having done any leg work for quite a while, I felt the impact of those Hindu squats the rest of the day Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning my thighs were wicked sore. I got in the boat for the first time since Sunday and did a fairly easy paddle out on the Mississippi, which has dropped below zero on the Memphis gauge as it typically does in the late summer and fall.
The thigh soreness continued through yesterday. This morning there was still some soreness, but it had eased enough for me to do another round of work. I did the same things I did Tuesday plus some rubber band exercises. I'll share my routine here once I get it fleshed out.
After the strength work I got back in the boat and paddled steady for 60 minutes. My torpid feelings persist today, but I will say that both Wednesday and today I felt better after paddling than before.
In the latter half of the week a new malady asserted itself: a bad crick in the right side of my neck. I have a routine appointment with my chiropractor scheduled for next Thursday, but if this neck pain isn't gone by Monday morning I might have to call and see if I can get that moved up.
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I departed around 9 AM Central Time Friday and by late afternoon had reached my home for the next two nights in Charlestown State Park on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. Before making camp I went to the river access for a short paddle. I did four 12-stroke sprints and otherwise unwound from the six-plus-hour drive.
The campground was the kind that caters primarily to RVs and similar "industrial tourists." I heard loud music and plenty of noisy kids running around as I pitched my tent and made a quick supper, and as I settled down for the night I wondered how well people there abided by the quiet hours. Eventually I dozed off, and when I woke up at one point in the early morning hours all was peaceful.
I got up around 5:30 and made some breakfast in the dark. The greater Louisville area sits near the western edge of the Eastern Time zone, and it was nearly 7 o'clock before some daylight finally began to appear in the eastern sky. A fog was descending on the landscape, prolonging the darkness.
The race site was only eight or ten miles upriver at Westport, Kentucky, but it took me nearly an hour to get there because I had to drive downriver via a network of roads to cross the Lewis & Clark Bridge and then navigate another network of roads back upriver on the Kentucky side to reach the tiny hamlet. Once there it was simple enough to find the racers congregated in Schamback Park.
Fist bumps and waves replaced the usual handshakes and hugs, and everybody wore a mask, but otherwise it was the usual pre-race buzz. Athletes checked in and taped their numbers to their boats. Race directors Elaine Harold and Lee Droppelman greeted visitors and disseminated information while keeping an eye on the food preparation for after the race. Little by little the nearly two dozen racers made their way down the boat ramp and onto the water.
The course for the Ohio River Invitational was two laps of a loop that measured a hair over 4.5 miles (about 7300 meters). We would start alongside Schamback Park, proceed downriver to Eighteen Mile Island, round the lower end of the island in counterclockwise direction, and paddle back upriver to a buoy where we'd started.
We lined up, listened as Lee counted down the seconds from the deck of his motorboat, and got to work as he shouted "Go!" Though I feel like I've done more than my share of short sprints this summer, that didn't translate into blazing speed off the line. In the blink of an eye I was chasing five or six other racers and frantically trying to put my boat in a desirable position.
Fast-improving Chattanoogan Roy Roberts rocketed into the lead. Scott Cummins of Louisville did the best job of keeping Roy within reach in the first few hundred meters. West Virginian Gregg Peters and Michael Alexeev of Columbus, Ohio, charged hard to stay in contact with the two leaders while I dug deep to stay with them. By the end of three minutes we had formed a fragile single-file string: Roy, then Scott, then Gregg, then Michael, then me. We were flying along at 8.5 miles per hour, and as I strained to stay on Michael's stern wake, my challenge wasn't so much the physical toll as simply keeping my boat moving fast enough to hold that position. I would slip off the wake and sprint hard to get back on; but after several rounds of that, I decided there had to be a better use of my energy, and I let the lead pack go.
Just like that, I was where nobody likes to be: all alone. The lead pack quickly increased its lead on me, while my nearest pursuers appeared to be 20 or 30 seconds back. As I chugged along I realized my only choice was to maintain the fastest pace I could and hope that the guys up ahead would eventually slow a bit so I could reel them in.
That possibility wasn't farfetched, really. Roy and Scott had separated themselves from Gregg and Michael, but by the 3000-meter mark Roy had dropped Scott and Scott was fading back toward Gregg and Michael. Maybe my old friend Scott would be ripe for the plucking, I thought.
But the early quick pace had done a number on me, too. As we rounded the lower end of Eighteen Mile Island for the first time, the shallow water there felt like a cinder block tethered to my boat. As we headed up the narrow channel between the island and the Kentucky bank, I struggled to move at 6.8 mph. Lee had told us before the race that the river had virtually no current, that we were basically paddling on a lake. Was this slow pace really all I had left in me for the rest of the way?
As we lumbered up the chute, I calculated that the Scott/Gregg/Michael trio was about 55 seconds ahead of me. The only way I was going to catch any of those guys was if he died completely, or flipped, or broke his rudder. The chances of this vampire getting his blood meal seemed slim.
It was maybe 1500 meters from the top of the island back to where we'd started, and I tried to push my doubts aside and keep going. Once in a while my favorite baseball team falls behind by a gaudy number of runs, and the radio announcers always say "At this point, the guys just need to keep playing. Keep taking good at-bats, and stick to the fundamentals they practice every day... they've got an uphill climb, but comebacks do happen!"
Fundamentals. I've worked on them for years, and now they were all I could count on to take care of me. I tried to relax my body, take solid strokes, use the power of my legs and lower abdominals. As I rounded the buoy and headed back downstream for the second lap, I got a mental boost as my speed shot up to around 7.5 mph. Apparently there was some current of at least a half-mile-per-hour or so, and my slow progress in the chute wasn't entirely my fault.
Lee had been tooling around the course in his boat, and as I made my way downriver toward Eighteen Mile Island he came up alongside me trailing an inviting wake. I hopped on and rode it while first mate Cindy Massa stood on deck and shot video, and I couldn't help smiling as my speed leapt up near 9 mph. But of course, it wouldn't be fair for me to let them pull me all the way up to where I could rejoin Scott and Gregg and Michael, so I gave up my surf after maybe ten seconds. Lee then zipped over to Scott and Gregg and Michael and offered them a ride; Scott got the best ride and opened a several-boatlength gap on the other two. But then he voluntarily backed off the speed so that the pack could re-form.
If only we could count on such selfless sportsmanship in the upcoming presidential election.
I reached the bottom of Eighteen Mile Island with my spirit uplifted by the aid of both the current and Lee's motor. But once I was plodding up the chute I again calculated about a 55-second gap between me and the pack up ahead. By this time I didn't seem to have any close pursuers, so it looked like a fifth-place finish was my destiny unless one of the top-four guys had the mother of all collapses.
Roy Roberts had taken his training up a notch this year, and that was evident from the start of the race to the finish. Once he'd dropped Scott he cruised along unchallenged to take first place in one hour, 12 minutes, 31 seconds. The chase pack finally began to string out a bit as the three athletes made their final charge toward the finish line. Scott claimed second overall nearly two minutes behind Roy. Gregg was third five seconds back, with Michael fourth ten seconds later.
I made up my mind to surge as hard as I could over the final kilometer to the finish, but I was unable to nudge my speed much above 6.9 or so. I crossed the line more than a minute after Michael and more than four minutes ahead of the sixth-place finisher, Gregg's son Corbin Peters. At 15 years old, Corbin has a future that promises faster and faster times while quinquagenarians like me get slower and slower.
Elaine Harold of Louisville was the lone female surfski racer in the field, and she acquitted herself nicely five seconds behind Corbin. Here are the complete results:
I've spent all summer looking for towboat wakes to play around on. So even though I was beat to the socks when the race was over, my reaction was automatic when I saw a barge rig moving up the river. I paddled out to it and found a very nice set of waves trailing behind. Once I got myself situated I was gliding along between 7 and 8 mph, and it wasn't long before at least a half-dozen other boats were paddling out to join me. There was a pattern to the waves not unlike a downwind run and we had a blast moving back and forth linking rides together.
I for one could have spent the next several hours out there, but doing so would have carried me miles away from the barbecue luncheon, generously prepared by members of Elaine's family, that awaited back at the park. The others realized the same thing, so before long we were all paddling back to get in the chow line.
After some great food and the usual rituals of awards, raffle prizes, and swag handouts, we all headed our separate ways. I returned to my campsite in Charlestown State Park for an afternoon nap. There's nothing like the exhaustion of a canoe and kayak race to help you doze off in a noisy RV compound.
I ventured into the nearby town of Charlestown, Indiana, for supper. The choices were few, and I opted for the local pizza joint. Due to COVID-19 restrictions the place offered carry-out only, so I took my 10-inch pie across the street to a picnic table in the city park. The pizza wasn't great, but it was good, especially at the end of a physically-demanding day.
I was in my sleeping bag by 9 PM. Scott and I had agreed to get together the next morning for a Sunday paddle, so once we were both awake yesterday morning we reached a text-message agreement to meet at the Harrods Creek boathouse upriver from downtown Louisville.
We were both tired and sore, but we knew a good 90- or 100-minute session would help us on the road to recovery. We paddled up the Ohio, looped around Twelve Mile Island, and came back to where we'd started. There was a steady wind blowing and we almost had some downwind conditions to play in... almost. But that was nothing to fret about. I had fun paddling along and catching up with my friend whom I hadn't seen face-to-face in over a year. On the way back toward Louisville several big pleasure craft cruised by us and we had some fun trying to surf their wakes as they moved against the wind-driven swells. We didn't get any sweet rides but it was a good way to practice some skills in confused water.
We got back to the boathouse, changed into dry clothes, and drove farther into Louisville to have coffee at a shop owned and operated by members of the local paddleboard element. After some conversation and relaxation there, it was 2 PM Eastern Time and I had to head home. I got in the car and headed south on Interstate 65, happy to have seen some friendly faces and raced semi-respectably in this oddest of years.
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The remnants of Tropical Storm Beta passed through the Mid South this week, bringing weather that felt like a mild stretch of our winter. Tuesday was cool and overcast with occasional sprinkles, and yesterday it rained all day while the temperature stayed below 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe for a loop of the harbor. I was hoping some cheerier weather might return today, but this morning I paddled in a stubborn drizzle and the sky remained cloudy all day. I did a set of six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals during a session of 40 minutes overall.
Aside from a quick trip to Little Rock in June, I haven't left the Memphis area since February. That will change tomorrow when I head for a weekend race on the Ohio River a few miles upstream of Louisville. The race is Saturday morning, and I'll be camping in a state park across the river in Indiana.
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Yesterday was the first truly fall-like day we've had this season. It was almost chilly outside when I got up in the morning, and it remained brisk and a bit breezy for the rest of the day. In the boat I did three 8-stroke sprints and otherwise paddled steady and relaxed for 60 minutes.
The weather was much the same today. This morning I did a round of the strength routine before heading to the river. In the boat I paddled out of the harbor and up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and then returned to the harbor, where I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.
The news is good in the aftermath of my mother's surgery. The doctor said the procedure went extremely well and that he doesn't believe any cancer is present.
This positive outlook for my mom's health makes me more confident that I can travel to a race or two this fall. The first is coming up next weekend; I'll provide more information soon.
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On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe. Temperatures this week are still quite warm--mid to high 80s Fahrenheit--but not unpleasantly hot. It's looking like this weekend will be much more fall-like.
I wasn't expecting to paddle today. My mother had surgery this morning to remove a tumor from her colon, and my plan was to spend the day at the hospital with her. But we found out just yesterday that COVID-19 restrictions allow a patient to have only one companion in the waiting room, and since my sister had come into town for the surgery, we agreed to let her be that person. So I was able to paddle today after all, although needless to say my mind wasn't entirely on the river.
After another round of strength work, I went downtown and got in the boat with the intention of doing a workout. I've been favoring "play" workouts in this unorthodox year, but with two or three possible races of 8-12 miles coming up this fall, I could use to do some pace work, and it takes more of a "work" workout to accomplish that. I made a deal with myself: if there was some barge traffic out on the river, I'd go out and try to surf; if not, I'd do three one-mile pieces in the harbor.
I did three 8-stroke sprints on the way to the harbor's mouth, and when I got there I found the river deserted. So, one-mile pieces it would be.
I was hoping to maintain around 7.5 miles per hour for each piece, but there was a pretty good northwest wind blowing that forced me to adjust my expectations. I did the first piece going north from the mouth of the harbor, and with the headwind I could only manage around 6.9 mph. My elapsed time was 8:31. After a five-minute recovery I did the second piece, still headed north. By this time I was in the upper half of the harbor and I thought I might have more shelter from the wind because the banks are more forested there. But this time I struggled to keep it above 6.7. And I ground to a complete stop at one point because of some ropes tethering something beneath the surface to the bank. I saw the first one just in time to avoid being decapitated.
I finished that second piece with a time of 9:07. I recovered for another five minutes, and then turned back south to do the last piece with the wind at my back. The difference was stark as I averaged 7.6ish in speed. Of course, there's a downside to having the wind at my back: I get sweat in my eyes and they sting badly. I had to stop once and wipe my eyes with my hat, losing a couple of strokes. I finished with a time of 7:56.
I can't say that the workout was much fun, but hopefully it'll pay off if I make it to a race or two. Whether I do depends on my mom's health in the coming weeks. I spoke to her this afternoon and it sounds like her surgery went well. She'll be in the hospital over the weekend, and I hope we'll know soon what further treatment she'll need.
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The next OICK race is scheduled for June 19, 2021.
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I felt sluggish and unmotivated as I headed down to the river yesterday. The weather, overcast and muggy, wasn't helping.
I stretched slowly on the dock, eased myself into the boat, and headed south toward the mouth of the harbor. I could see it raining down on the South Bluffs, and eventually the rain moved up to where I was. That was okay with me: if it's going to be humid anyway, why not push it up to a hundred percent?
After a set of 8-stroke sprints, I headed out onto the Mississippi, and through the rain I could make out a barge rig moving upstream beneath the Harahan Bridge. I headed for it with the hope that some surfing could get my juices flowing. But the waves were a weird shape and proved very difficult to catch. I never did get a full blown ride where I could stop paddling, but several times when I kept sprinting hard I got some aid from the waves, even hitting 6 miles per hour a couple of times (going against the current on the Mississippi River, that's pretty fast).
Eventually the waves died down and I headed back to the harbor. By now I was feeling much more energetic in the boat. It's remarkable how good a remedy some hard sprints can be for lethargic feelings. You could say they jump-started my engine, or primed my pump, or whatever other silly metaphor you prefer.
Some heavy showers had moved through while I was out on the river, and as I paddled back toward the dock water was gushing from the storm drain outfalls along the bank. I could see many plastic soda bottles and other floatable trash tumbling into the harbor. Anything we leave on the ground will find its way to the river eventually.
Shortly after I'd reached the dock, the heavens really opened up. The rain on the marina's steel roof made a deafening roar. By this time I'd changed into my dry clothes, and I now stood there waiting for a break in the rain so I could run up to the car without getting drenched. I cooled my heels for close to a half hour before it let up enough for me to make a run for it, and I still got pretty wet.
By this morning the precipitation had moved out, but the sky remained overcast. I did a round of the strength routine at the house, then went to the riverfront and warmed up and did another three 8-strokers, and then paddled out onto the river to see what was going on. There was no barge traffic in sight, and I decided to do an up-tempo paddle for an hour or so. I ferried over to the Arkansas side and paddled up into the Loosahatchie Chute, whose surface is more sand than water at this morning's level of 1.5 feet on the Memphis gauge.
I paddled up the channel of water near the west side of the Chute, thinking at some point I'd find a route through the sandbars to the east side and get back over to the main river. But it had been a long time since I'd been up here at such a low water level, and apparently the sandbar configuration had changed or my memory was faulty, or both. Finding no water on which to work my way eastward, I finally got out of the boat and started hiking across the sand. What I found was that while there is still a deeper channel on the east side of the Chute, there was not enough water today for it to be paddleable. So I had to trudge southward toward the lower end of the Loosahatchie Bar, and there I finally found deep water connected to the main channel.
By now there was a barge rig coming down the river, so I paddled onto its wake to see what I could get. The towboat was following an arcing path through the eastern span of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and because of that the waves had a lot of lateral movement to them and it was hard to keep track of the sweet spots. But I did manage to get several decent rides, and I tried hard to keep my "nose in the hole," as Dawid Mocke likes to say, and sustain each one as long as I could.
When I reached the mouth of the harbor I said goodbye to the waves and headed back toward the dock. My unplanned portage across the sandbars had added at least a half hour to my intended time in the boat, but I had nothing pressing scheduled for the rest of the day and was glad to add a bit of surfing to the strong-paced paddling I'd already done. I drove home feeling pleasantly tired and pleased with the pretty good weekend of paddling I'd put together.
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Just in case anybody's curious about the goings-on at Casa de Elmore... I've just wrapped up another big round of masonry work and am taking it easy for a couple of days to admire the results. I spent most of this morning doing some serious housecleaning because of all the dust that project produced. Previously the mortar between the bricks was crumbling and raining sand all over everything, and I hope this work I've done has fixed that problem. Even in the Before Times I was sort of a homebody, and now in Pandemic Times I'm spending more time at home than ever, so I think it's worth a few rounds of hard work to make my home as pleasing as it can be.
On Tuesday I did a relaxed loop of the harbor with Joe. That felt good after the fairly strenuous paddling I'd done on Monday.
Yesterday I did a round of the new strength routine and then headed back to the river. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I went out on the Mississippi and did a workout that I first did under Dawid Mocke's watch back in February as we paddled from Muizenberg Beach to Fish Hoek Beach in South Africa. I did ten strokes on, ten strokes off, twenty strokes on, ten strokes off, thirty strokes on, ten strokes off, forty strokes on, ten strokes off... and so on, all the way to a hundred strokes on. Once I'm up over fifty strokes on, I'm really feeling this workout--ten strokes off seems like a very meager rest interval at this point.
After completing this workout, I paddled easy back to the harbor and up to the monorail bridge. Then I timed myself in a bridge-to-bridge sprint. I didn't have a particularly crisp start, and by the time I reached the halfway mark I could tell I wasn't on pace for a fast time. I was tired from my workout on the river, and it felt like every time I bore down I was actually slowing down a little. My thighs were throbbing big-time in the last hundred meters. I broke the southern plane of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge with a time of 2 minutes, 7 seconds. Not terrible, but not really that good either.
The Fahrenheit highs have been in the 90s most of the week, but this might be our last hot stretch: the extended forecast is showing highs in the 80s with some rain this weekend, and then highs in the lower 80s and even the 70s for the next couple of weeks. And of course, the official end of summer is less than two weeks away.
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I'm finally back at it in the strength department. Here's a routine I plan to do for the next little while:
1. Power plank-ups (demonstrated at 1:16 of this video)
2. Pullups
3. The "achy-arm" exercises my chiropractor showed me
4. Pullups
5. Super crunches (demonstrated at 3:09 of this video)
6. Pullups
7. Leg swing (demonstrated at 4:28 of this video)
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My buddy Rob, a native of New York State, was living in Colorado when I made a trip out there in the summer of 1999. A good amateur photographer, Rob shot a bunch of slides of me paddling in various locales. He sent me prints of several of them back then, but I never saw most of them until just this past month, when Rob scanned the slides and sent me a disc with the digital images.
In the photo above I'm paddling on the Cache la Poudre River near the community of Mishawaka in the northern part of the state.
*Edited to add: I think Rob may have scanned this slide backwards, because I'm a lefty paddler in a C1.
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That muggy weather we'd had for a week finally gave way to some cooler, drier air Friday evening, and by the time I was heading to the river Saturday morning it was sunny and beautiful with a Fahrenheit temperature in the low 70s. I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi with the intention of doing some kind of "play" workout that pushed the intensity.
A barge rig was coming downriver with some nice waves trailing behind it, and I peeled out to see what kind of surfing I could get. A couple of waves passed beneath me as I searched for my balance; then I threw in a good sprint and seemed on the verge of catching a ride when CRACK!!!! My right pedal broke free from the footboard. Just like that, my surf session was over and I ferried over to the bank to inspect the damage. The little eyes on which the pedal swivels had worn through--not really such a big surprise on a boat that's more than a decade old. But it was disheartening to have to abandon my fun on the river on such a beautiful morning. It's about 2000 meters from the mouth of the harbor back to the dock, and paddling this stretch was a chore with a compromised steering system. Any time I needed the boat to turn right I had to reach down and pull on the starboard rudder line with my hand.
I finally made it, and I carried the boat up to my car to take it home for repairs. I was annoyed to have such a project added to my to-do list, but if you use something long and hard enough it's eventually going to break, and any paddler worth his salt must be willing to fix his boat.
I spent time Saturday afternoon and yesterday doing the repair. I unmounted the footboard from the footwell, but I didn't disconnect it from the rudder lines because reconnecting the lines is always a royal hassle, and I thought I could make the repair without disconnecting them. Basically, I rebuilt the eyes on the pedal with Kevlar, fiberglass, and marine-grade epoxy resin, like this:
Once I had the fiber pieces glued on, I inserted some thickened epoxy inside each eye to make it more substantial and replace the plastic that had broken away. That brown stuff that looks like it's dripping is the thickened epoxy; I used wood dust from one of my electric sanders as the thickening agent. A woodworking background doesn't hurt when there's a boat that needs fixing.
Once the epoxy had hardened, I trimmed away as much of the messy stuff as I could, drilled out the eye holes, and put it all back together:
One can quibble with the cosmetics; in addition to the patches on the pedals, you can see previous repair work where the rudder lines emerge from inside the boat. But I'd rather paddle an ugly surfski whose steering system works than a pretty surfski with no steering.
I took the boat back to the river this morning and met Adam for a brisk paddle of about 70 minutes. My pedals weren't moving as freely as I would have liked, and I may have to tweak them a bit, but otherwise I had no trouble steering.
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