On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then headed to the river to paddle for an easy 60 minutes.
The current strength routine is one of my lighter ones, but my body wouldn't know it right now. I mentioned last weekend that I've been doing some landscaping at my house: to be specific, I'm sprucing up what had been a gravel driveway/parking area in the back. First came a lot of digging in rocky, rooty soil, busting it up with a pick axe before moving it with a shovel. Then I poured a couple of concrete drainage channels for the downspouts to flow into. In all I used thirty 80-pound (36.3-kilogram) bags of concrete. That's 2400 pounds (1.2 tons!) that I moved from a pallet to a dolly down at the store, moved from the dolly into the back of my truck, and moved from the truck into a wheelbarrow at the work site for mixing and pouring. Now I'm paving the area over with bricks.
How has my body responded to all this activity? Certainly with a lot of muscle fatigue, especially in my legs, shoulders, and back. The heaviest work days left me sacked out and falling asleep my nine o'clock in the evening. And the work has been murder on my hands. The skin on my fingers is raw and cracked, and for a couple of days I was having spells of no feeling or poor circulation from my forearms down. I've had some off-and-on soreness in my right wrist since last summer, and all the digging seems to have exacerbated that.
The upshot of all this is that I wasn't exactly feeling sharp yesterday for what is probably the most dreaded day on my training calendar: the annual harbor time trial. On top of that, there was a south breeze blowing when I got down to the riverfront just after 9 AM. It didn't seem too fierce as I stood on the dock, but I knew it was enough to slow me down significantly during the first half (the north-to-south leg) of the trial. The outlook wasn't good for my long-held desire to break 50 minutes for this lap of the harbor.
I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints as I paddled from the marina to the harbor's north end. I settled into the usual starting gate between two submerged tree trunks, started the watch on my G.P.S. device, and was off.
To break 50 minutes for a lap of the harbor, one must maintain an average speed of about 7.2 miles per hour. There are several stretches in the harbor where wind exposure is at its greatest, and in the first of these I found myself struggling to maintain 6.5 mph. In the second such stretch, I saw my speed plunge to around 6.1. Slowly but surely, I began to accept the reality that a sub-50 day was probably not going to happen. I tried to keep my chin up and produce the best effort I could.
But as I passed the marina a new problem emerged: the pain in my right wrist became excruciating. I tried to work it out as I paddled, but to no avail. Just south of the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge I had to stop.
Having to abandon my time trial was disheartening, but that was the least of my concerns. Suddenly this injury was getting severe enough to disrupt my paddling. Was this something that could interfere with my race season?
Dejectedly I continued south, thinking I would paddle another couple hundred meters before turning around and calling it quits back at the marina. But as I moved along my wrist started to feel better and I kept paddling south, toward what would have been my turnaround point next to Beale Street Landing. I began to entertain thoughts of resuming my time trial there and seeing how I could do for the half of it with the wind at my back. By the time I got there my enthusiasm for the idea had begun to blossom. I reset my watch and took off back toward the north end.
What a difference a tailwind makes. Now I was cruising along at 7.5 mph, occasionally even 7.6. Energized by this chance to salvage my workout, I followed the tangent line to every curve and kept the intensity as high as I dared.
Fatigue started creeping in as I passed the marina. I tried to lower the stroke rate while keeping as much power in each stroke as possible. I reminded myself I was well ahead of the pace and could drop down into the low 7s if I needed to, but for the most part I stayed in 7.4-7.5 territory.
The finish line finally came into view, and I bore down even though I was hurting pretty bad by this time. I hit 8.0 mph in the last hundred meters and crossed the line with a time of 23 minutes, 33 seconds for the 2.96-mile length of the harbor.
Could I ever put two such efforts together for a 47:06 full lap of the harbor? Probably not, considering how wind-aided my time was. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to think I can put together a pair of 24:59.5 halves for a 49:59 whole. I expect it would take a perfect day with no wind for me to do that.
Utterly spent, I slowly paddled back toward the marina. I was pleased with myself for squeezing something positive out of a tough morning, and I was relieved that my wrist hadn't been an issue during that second half. For now I'll just have to keep an eye on it and seek some help if it keeps bothering me.
This morning I did another round of the strength routine and did some lighter chores out back. Fortunately the heaviest portion of that landscaping job is behind me.
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