Race schedule update

Here's my revised 2021 race schedule.

There's an omission from this schedule that hits me where it hurts: I learned last week that the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, scheduled for June 19, will not take place this year.  I understand that when Outdoors put on a bike race last November, four of its staff members contracted COVID-19 while working registration and similar duties.  The company has decided not to put its employees at risk like that again.  I am stunned and saddened to learn that this classic Memphis tradition will not be going forward, but I do admire Outdoors for making the welfare of its staff a top priority.

The schedule currently stands as follows:

April

10  The Paddle Bender.  Murray Reservoir, Prosperity, South Carolina.  An 8-mile (12.8-km) flatwater race.  Register

May

15  Chitimacha Race.  Bayou Teche, Jeanerette to Charenton, Louisiana.  A 10-mile (16-km) race on a Class I river.  Part of the Tour du Teche race series.  Register

June

5  Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle.  Taylorsville Reservoir, Mount Eden, Kentucky.  A 10-mile (16-km) flatwater race.  Register

July

15-17  Gorge Downwind Championships.  Columbia River, Stevenson, Washington.  A race (course yet to be determined) in the legendary downwind conditions of the Columbia River Gorge on the border between Oregon and Washington.

August

Ohio River Paddlefest.  Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio.  A 9-mile (14.5-km) race down this major artery of the Midwest United States.  Register

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Monday photo feature

Jana Lucas, a former Memphian now living in Chattanooga, Tennessee, propels her standup paddleboard toward the finish line of the Battle On The Bayou race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, on Saturday.

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A specific pain

I slept like a log at Nick's house last night and woke up this morning feeling surprisingly fresh considering the hard race effort yesterday.  Nick and I hung out and had some breakfast, and then we said goodbye as I departed for home.

But first I had some paddling to do.  I had a hankering to check out a part of the Back Bay of Biloxi that I'd never visited before, so I went to a public access that Nick recommended and put my boat in the water.

Maks had told me to paddle for 90 minutes--"Just a stroll around... just paddle and mind the surroundings."  I aimed to do just that.  But after a few minutes in the boat I realized I had a problem.  During the race yesterday I rubbed a nasty blister where the base of my right thumb contacts the paddle shaft.  I drained the fluid from it last night, but it was still very sensitive today and it was quite painful as I paddled.  It forced me to alter my grip on the paddle, and that in turn put some stress on my right wrist, making me stop paddling to rest it every few minutes.  I tried to grin and bear it, but it made an ordeal out of what was supposed to be carefree relaxation on the water.  I endured it for 75 minutes and then called it quits.

I did learn one useful thing: the Back Bay might be fertile ground for some downwind action.  There was a mild but steady breeze blowing from the west-southwest, maybe 10 knots, and I found some borderline-decent runs out in the middle of the bay.  With some stronger wind I think it might have been very good.  The question is how often there is such wind in that area.  It is, of course, the reliability of the wind that makes places like the Miller's Run and the Columbia River Gorge the downwind destinations that they are.

I made the six-hour drive back to Memphis and am wearily readjusting to life at home.  I have a much-needed day off tomorrow, during which I hope my blister will heal up.  I'll be back at it on Tuesday.

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What I hope will be a fuller race season has begun

The Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race took place today for the eleventh time in 12 years (last year's event was called off due to COVID-19).  Racers gathered on the waterfront down the hill from the Gulf Hills Hotel and received a few instructions from race director Ed Hornsby before getting in their boats.  Here are a few photos I shot of the pre-race activity:

Wayne Berry (left) and Nick Kinderman prepare the tandem surfski that Nick will be paddling with Wayne's son Jeb.

With husband Dan acting as pit crew, Karen Kesselring of Hot Springs, Arkansas, gets ready to race in the fast touring boat class.

Mike Herbert (right) needs no introduction to anybody who has followed canoe and kayak racing at the highest levels over the last several decades.  His 23-year-old daughter Savanna has put his genes to good use, developing into one of the top women to beat in this part of the country.

The race starts in a cove in the eastern reaches of the Back Bay of Biloxi.  Paddlers proceed up into Old Fort Bayou and follow this waterway some six and a half kilometers to an island at Percy Miller Park.  After rounding this island counterclockwise, they come back down the bayou and finish where they had started.  The entire race distance, as measured by my G.P.S. device, is 13.5 kilometers (8.4 miles).

We organized our boats along an imaginary starting line, and at 9:00 AM we were off.  I had a good start and was in the lead as we approached the left turn up into the bayou, but Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, was moving up fast on my left.  I moved onto his starboard wake, then onto his stern wake so as not to interfere with his turn.  In the many times I have raced Mike in the past he has pulled away from me quickly, so it was an unfamiliar sensation for me when my bow bumped up against his stern several times. He barked his displeasure at me, and I had to reassure him that they were merely love taps.

As we moved up the bayou toward the Washington Avenue drawbridge, Mike and I found ourselves in a lead pack that also included Roy Roberts of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a tandem boat paddled by Mississippi Gulf Coast residents Jeb Berry and Nick Kinderman.  I had moved onto Mike's port-side wake, and then moved into the lead.  The 60-year-old Mike might not be the same athlete he was 30 years ago, when he was winning medals at the world championships, but he's still a formidable paddler, and I pondered this unfamiliar position in which I found myself.  Has my new training program already made me that much better?  Is Mike not feeling well?  Or is he just toying with me?

For most of the first half of the race I stayed in first place.  I backed off the pace several times to see if Mike would move up, but for the most part he seemed content to let me lead.  I was feeling good but was wary of working too hard too soon.

There are a couple of spots in the bayou where it's not so obvious which way to go, and the locals Nick and Jeb had to save Mike and me from going the wrong way.   Finally we reached the narrow channel that runs by Percy Miller Park, and Mike sprinted into the lead.  "Here we go," I thought.  I sprinted hard to stay on his stern wake.  He surged a couple more times, and I managed to cover each move, hoping that maybe we could open a gap on the other two boats.

By the time we'd rounded the island and were heading back toward Gulf Hills, I was feeling some fatigue working its way into my body.  It was also a lot warmer because the breeze that had kept us cool in the first half of the race was now at our backs.  I stayed laser-focused on Mike's wake.  We did manage to put some distance on our pursuers, but not enough to give me much of a cushion if Mike dropped me.  As we approached the drawbridge we navigated several tight meanders, and somehow Jeb and Nick managed to pull even with Mike and me in spite of their boat's length.  As we passed beneath the bridge Mike and the tandem threw in a surge and dropped me.

We were now in the race's final 2000 meters, and I was feeling some considerable agony.  It was now a race between Roy and me for third place, and as Old Fort Bayou opened up into the Back Bay, Roy worked his way in front of me.  There was a pesky crosswind blowing and I could feel the last of my energy being sucked away.  Some self-pity creeped in and I had visions of the other three boats pulling farther and farther ahead over the last kilometer.  At the same time, I held out some hope that if I could just survive until the last couple of hundred meters, maybe I could dig deep and surprise myself.  All I could do was take the best strokes I could, and keep the boat moving.

We made the right turn into the final 400-meter stretch.  Mike and the tandem were in a fight for the overall win, while Roy had about a boatlength lead on me.  Somehow I managed to suck up the pain and mount a final attempt to beat Roy.

I thought Mike's world-class background would be enough to carry him to victory, but Jeb and Nick stayed strong and pulled away from Mike at the end.  Their time of one hour, 11 minutes, 6 seconds was six seconds faster than the three-time Olympian's.

Meanwhile, though I knew overtaking Roy was a long shot, I gave it my best.  Inch by painful inch, I moved from a boatlength back to a half-boatlength back to a quarter-boatlength back.  Our battle was exciting enough to elicit a few cheers from the onlookers on the bank, but in the end Roy prevailed, crossing the line less than a full second before I did.  The official times were 1:11:37.4 for Roy and 1:11:38.0 for me.  I take that six tenths of a second with a grain of salt because the finish line wasn't equipped with an electronic eye or anything like that, but suffice it to say it was a close one.

Mike's daughter Savanna Herbert was the fastest female finisher, clocking 1:21:09.  That was good enough for sixth place overall.  The complete results are posted here.

My time was about 13 seconds faster than my previous best time on this course.  My coach has told me that it's not useful to compare times from different days, but considering the wind we had on the course today, I'm pleased with my time.  I'm also pleased with myself for pushing through the pain to finish strong.  That took a lot of the sting out of being fourth-best out of the four boats in the lead pack.  Considering that I'm training through races in this early part of the season, I think I did okay today and hope I can build on this effort as the season moves along.

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Getting ready to race

My week began with a significant personal event: I received my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine Monday morning.  I now have to wait three weeks to get the second dose, so with any luck I'll be checking off that milestone the week of April 12.  I'm getting the Pfizer vaccine, for those of you keeping score on that.

For this first race week of the year, Maks has drawn up a plan that's a little heavy early in the week but then tapers off as Saturday morning approaches.  At this early stage of the year I'm training through the races but I'd still like to be reasonably rested on race day, and hopefully this week's slate of workouts will allow for that.

Some heavy rain moved through early Tuesday morning, behind which there were some strong winds, but when I got to the river the rain was almost over and the wind wasn't too crazy.  I did a set of eight 4-minute pieces at 60-64 strokes per minute with 1 minute recovery in between.  I had some extra weight (5 kg) in the boat to put some emphasis on glide.  I tried to put a lot of power into every stroke, and by the eighth piece I could feel the power fading.

The week's hardest workout was set for Wednesday: eight to ten 250-meter pieces around 85 spm with "a little resistance" (I made it one golf whiffle ball) on the boat.  Maks said "when the power gets smaller/runs out, end the workout," adding that I should only do all ten pieces "if feeling extra great."

I was to start a piece every fifth minute.  My times for the pieces were all between 75 and 80 seconds, so I had about 3:40 to recover.  I actually felt better in the middle pieces than I had in the first several; maybe I needed a bit more warmup, or maybe I was just finding my groove.  After the eighth piece I don't know if I was feeling "extra great," but I felt like I had one more good effort in me, so I went ahead and did the ninth piece before heading back to the dock.

Yesterday morning was another soggy one.  Looking at the Internet radar, I saw very little chance of not paddling in the rain.  And yet chance there was: besides a brief sprinkle I didn't get rained at all.  The weather is funny around here.  The session was a simple one: a strong 50-minute paddle at 68-72 spm.

This morning it was time to head south.  I loaded up the car and took Interstate 55 out of Memphis and down into the state of Mississippi.  After driving for a little over an hour I stopped at Enid Reservoir, which was formed by the construction of a dam on the Yocona River in Yalobusha County.

Why did I stop there?  Because I had paddling to do: Maks had assigned a pre-race workout.  I got in the boat and warmed up, and did three 4-minute pieces around 66 spm with 1 minute recovery; two sets of three 1-minute pieces at 80 spm with 1 minute recovery; and three 30-second pieces at 90-94 spm with 90 seconds recovery.  There was some high intensity, but the pieces were short and the rest intervals were long, so I could rev the engines without wearing myself out.

After a quick lunch at a picnic table by the reservoir, I drove through the afternoon and now I'm staying with my friend Nick in Ocean Springs.  We'll be up bright and early for the race on Old Fort Bayou in the morning.

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Monday photo feature

The kind of weather we had over the weekend just makes you want to have a picnic.

That's what I did with my friend Meghan back in 2008.  The Mississippi River was at flood stage, and the bottomland on the Arkansas side across from downtown Memphis was mostly underwater.  But there was a spot of high ground over there, and--if I didn't have this photographic proof you'd think I'm making it up--it had a picnic table on it!  So we paddled our boats over there and savored all the usual picnic delicacies.

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Winter says so long

Earlier in the week we'd had a nice run of unseasonably warm weather, but by the end of the week it was clear that winter wasn't quite done yet.  When I got to the river Friday morning it was 46 degrees Fahrenheit with overcast skies, a chilly north breeze, and occasional drizzle.  When the weather gets nice this time of year I'm always tempted to give my pogies and pullover tops and stuff a good washing and put them away for the year, but in fact it won't really be safe to do that for another few weeks, and this was a reminder of that.

As for Friday's workout, Maks hadn't sugarcoated it: "It is supposed to be hard, it is supposed to hurt!"  It was an early-season lactic session: three sets of (6 times 30 seconds on/30 seconds off).  Maks said to take a longer break between sets, so I made that 3 minutes.  The prescribed stroke rate was 90-ish, but I ended up paddling more in the 95-105 range because that's what it takes to make me go lactic.  Maks also reminded me to maintain good technique and mechanics to "stay powerful for as long as possible."  I think I succeeded in that--I was starting to struggle a little bit by the last couple of sprints but I was still taking solid strokes.

While the workout did indeed hurt, it was over quickly and I felt good in the aftermath.  It reminded me of the most intense workout we did at the training camp I attended in Florida in January: my fellow campers gave me some funny looks afterward when I remarked that I was feeling good, and I had to explain that the workout was as painful for me as it was for them, but it didn't last long and it got the endorphins flowing.  In general, a taut, intense workout appeals to me a lot more than a long, drawn-out slogfest.

Spring officially began with the vernal equinox yesterday.  The rumor I'd heard was that there'd be some sunshine, but I sure didn't see any when I went down to the river yesterday morning.  It was cloudy and 48 degrees.  I got in the boat and warmed up, and then did three 5-minute pieces at a "calm" 60 strokes per minute with 1 minute recovery.  Then I did two sets of two 1-minute pieces at 72-76 spm, with a minute recovery.

As I was wrapping up my morning paddle the clouds were finally moving out, and by the time I returned to the river for the afternoon session it was a lovely sunny day with a temperature of 66 degrees.  I did five sets of (2 minutes at 62 spm/1 minute at 80 spm/2 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute at 80 spm/2 minutes at 60 spm/1 minute at 80 spm/2 minutes rest).  It was a chance to sprinkle some explosiveness among lower-intensity endurance efforts.  It wasn't a particularly hard workout but I felt very tired by the end.  I think just getting myself to the river and in the boat twice in one day wears me out.

I still felt a bit weary this morning, but beautiful sunny weather helped motivate me to dive into my last session before a day off tomorrow.  Like most Sundays, today called for a longer endurance paddle: four sets of 6 minutes/4 minutes/3 minutes/2 minutes at 60-62 spm, with a minute rest between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.

Maybe an obvious question is why break an endurance session into pieces like this, as opposed to just doing a 90-minute distance paddle.  My guess is that it's to help me stay focused throughout the session--during a long unstructured paddle it's easy to get distracted and let the intensity and the technique lapse.

I did a loop out on the Mississippi to enjoy the beautiful day at the current high river level (28.3 feet on the Memphis gauge).  The river is of course a less stable environment than the harbor, and it takes some extra concentration and discipline to maintain 60-62 spm and not quicken the stroke rate out there.  The long pauses between strokes adds a balance element to the workout, and I hope that'll pay off when I'm doing some downwind paddling later this year.

Once again I'm grateful to have a break scheduled for tomorrow.  And my first race of the year is next weekend!  I'm not expecting any miracles, but I hope I'll at least get a hint of some gains made as a result of my new training program.

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The power-building continues

On Tuesday I got in the boat and did some more varied-pace work.  It was 3 times 6 minutes on/1 minute off at 60 strokes per minute; 4 times 3 minutes on/2 minutes off at 72 spm; and 3 times 1 minute on/2 minutes off at 85 spm.

I felt like I was moving the boat well at 60 spm, though measuring that has been tricky.  Since I got my Vaaka Cadence Sensor, which communicates with my G.P.S. device via an ANT signal, my speed display has been acting funny: it seems to jump around from 6.7 miles per hour to 7.2 mph to 6.4 mph, stuff like that.  I wonder if the ANT signal is interfering with the communication between the G.P.S. device and the satellite.  Anyway, as I paddled at 60 spm, my speed display went as high as 7.0 or 7.1 mph, which I think is pretty good for me at that stroke rate, but I'm not sure how accurate those speed readings are.  At least I can check my stroke rate readings by counting strokes against the clock, and they do seem accurate.

Anyway, I worked to put a lot of power into every stroke during Tuesday's session, and the pieces felt good.  It wasn't a terribly exhausting workout but it was a solid hard one that made me go home feeling like I'd done some good work that'll pay off down the road.

The biggest challenge of yesterday's session was simply getting it in.  A system of strong thunderstorms was moving across the Mid South with the potential for damaging winds and tornadoes, and I had to watch the Internet radar closely to identify a window for paddling.  I thought I saw one around 9 AM and quickly went down to the river.  There were some lightning flashes as I warmed up, and I eyed my watch closely; it seemed that all the lightning was at least a couple of miles away.  The storms were moving from southwest to northeast, and at that time they were missing the city to the north.  The northern sky was ominously dark while the sky was much brighter to the south and east, and I stayed in the south end of the harbor, as far from the storms as I could get.  As it turned out, I got rained on just a little bit even though it was clearly pouring down rain up north.

The workout was three sets of (3 times 200 meters/2-minute rest/10-second sprint with a flying start/2-minute rest).  Within each set, the 200-meter pieces were to be done at 60 spm, then 70 spm, then 80 spm. Once again the workout turned out to be hard but not super-exhausting.  My 200 times were just over a minute at 60 and 70 spm, while at 80 spm I managed to dip just under a minute.  My 10-second sprints felt a lot smoother than the ones I did last Saturday, but that was partly because of the flying starts.

There was some cooler air behind the storm system, and today's high temperature was only around 51 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was mostly cloudy with the wind blowing hard from the west, making it awfully blustery and cold down on the riverfront.  As I paddled this morning there were patches of blue sky overhead, but the horizon in every direction was lined with dark rain clouds.  Today's workout was a simple one: paddle for 70 minutes at a "moderate to strong" 64-68 spm.

It's definitely a higher training load this week than last, and my body is starting to feel it with a substantial weekend schedule still to come.

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Monday photo feature

It was August of 2016, and it was a good day for sailing and paddling on the Ohio River!  I was on my way home from New England, and I stopped in Louisville to paddle on a breezy day under a partly-cloudy sky.

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Welcome back, DST

Most of my weekends this year have featured a pretty heavy training load, but since this past week was intended as an easy one, I got a break this weekend.  All I did on Friday was a gym session, and yesterday I had just one in-the-boat session rather than the usual two.

Yesterday's workout was a short-sprint session: three sets of four 10-second sprints, starting from rest at 2-minute intervals.  Paddling for 10 seconds at all-out intensity is a big test of motor skills, balance, and control.  Once in a while everything seems to fall into place and I feel smooth, all my muscles firing in unison and each phase of my stroke making a fluid transition into the next.  But more often it feels like I'm just flailing around.  I hope that at least looking for perfection in these short, intense pieces will help me come closer to achieving it over longer distances at lower intensity.

Daylight Saving Time began early this morning.  In general I like being on DST, but moving the clock forward an hour always throws my body out of whack for a few days.  For a while my body will think it's getting up at 5 AM even though the clock says it's 6 AM.

The workout today was another variable-pace exercise: three sets of (4 minutes at 60 spm/2 minutes at 68 spm/3 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute at 72 spm).  There was a minute of rest between pieces within each set, and 2 minutes between sets.  As usual, I tried to maintain consistent stroke quality at all the different rates.

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Learning some new science and navigating an easier week

In last Thursday's post I mentioned that I was a bit frustrated with my 2000-meter results relative to a 5000-meter piece I did last summer.  A day or two later I got an e-mail from my coach, Maks Frančeškin, reminding me that it's not useful to compare times from one session to those from another, especially if the sessions occur at different times of year.  He mentioned how much difference the wind can make, and I was quite aware of that already.  But he also mentioned a factor that had never occurred to me:

The weirdest/most jaw dropping one is the difference in water temperature.  The Germans are saying that 1 degree Celsius higher temperature of the water gives you 0.5 s on 1000m. Slovenian study is 1 degree=1s.

The Mississippi River gets pretty frigid in the wintertime and doesn't really warm up until late May or June.  Each March for years, I've tried to break 50 minutes for a lap of the harbor--a distance of not quite 6 miles.  I've never managed to do it, even though I've done 6-mile/10-kilometer races later in the year (i.e., the summertime, when water is warm) in which I've clocked faster than 48 minutes.  I'd always chalked it up to not being in peak form in March and the fact that it's typically windy in the late winter and early spring.  Now I know another factor that's worked against me.

On Tuesday I did a calm 50-minute paddle.  It was a chance for me to "put back together" some of the technical components that I'd been addressing one by one in painstaking fashion.  Maks told me to look for what I "know and feel is the most effective stroke," and it reaffirmed something I mentioned a week or two ago--that my natural "cruising" stroke rate has dropped a bit since I started this training program.  Two months ago it felt awkward to paddle at 60 strokes per minute, but now it feels quite natural.  When I bothered to look at my cadence sensor's readout on Tuesday, I was paddling mostly at 60-64 spm in the harbor; out on the Mississippi that went up a bit, 64-68 or so.

Yesterday I did a "variable pace" workout: two sets of (3 times 2 minutes on/1 minute off at 66 spm; 3 times 1 minute on/1 minute off at 80 spm; 3 times 30 seconds on/90 seconds off at 90 spm).  I worked to keep my stroke quality the same throughout the different stroke rates.

Today I did three sets of (3 times 3 minutes on/1 minute off at 50 spm and 6 times 30 seconds on/30 seconds off at 76 spm).  My instructions were to do the 50-spm pieces at high power, and then try to bring that power to the short bursts at the higher stroke rate.  I felt like I was doing a good job of that, though as with most of these power-building workouts my power supply ran dry toward the end.

This is an easier week than the last couple, and my body is appreciating that.

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A very tentative 2021 race schedule

In the past I've enthusiastically posted my race schedule for the year in January or February.  But we all know what happened very shortly after I put last year's schedule up.  For that reason I've been hesitant up until now to post a 2021 schedule, and a number of events that have been staples of my schedule in the past have yet to announce their intentions for this year.

However, this year it seems pretty likely that the races listed below will go forward on some level.  To be clear, the threat of COVID-19 is not yet over, but with vaccine distribution underway the future is looking brighter than it has in many, many months.  What's more, race organizers now have a much better idea of what they're dealing with than they did a year ago.  I've heard many of them say that in retrospect they wish they'd gone forward last year, but there was so much uncertainty swirling around that it just didn't seem possible at the time.

It'll probably be another month or two from now that I and my fellow generally-healthy quinquagenarians will be eligible to receive a vaccine in my community.  Regardless of that status, I intend to wear a mask and practice social distancing pre- and post-race for all the events I attend this year, and I encourage all other participants to do the same.

For each event whose registration is live, I have included the link.

Finally, the usual disclaimer: this schedule is a work in progress, even in non-Pandemic Times.  I might not make it to every event that's listed here, and there are events not yet listed here that I might end up going to.

March

27  Battle On The Bayou.  Old Fort Bayou, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  An 8.5-mile (13-km) race on a flatwater coastal bayou.  Register

April

10  The Paddle Bender.  Murray Reservoir, Prosperity, South Carolina.  An 8-mile (12-km) flatwater race.  Register

June

19  Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee.  A 5-kilometer race down the largest river in North America.

July

15-17  Gorge Downwind Championships.  Columbia River, Stevenson, Washington.  A race (course yet to be determined) in the legendary downwind conditions of the Columbia River Gorge on the border between Oregon and Washington.

August

Ohio River Paddlefest.  Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio.  A 9-mile (13.5-km) race down this major artery of the Midwest United States.  Register

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Monday photo feature

It's the summer of 2017, and I find myself in a tight race with Scott Cummins of Louisville, Kentucky.  The venue is Percy Priest Reservoir, which was created by the construction of a dam on the Stones River at Nashville, Tennessee.

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Another weekend of hard work

I started Friday with a gym session and then headed down to the river.

This is the time of year when Mother Nature teases out spring-like weather a little bit at a time.  After gorgeous sunny days Wednesday and Thursday, we were back to the depressing stuff on Friday.  It was around 52 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to the river, and that's not really that cold, but overcast skies and a chilly north breeze made it feel a lot worse.

In the boat I had a sprint-endurance workout to do: three sets of six (10 seconds on, 50 seconds off), all-out with flying starts.  Maks told me to rest longer between the sets, so I started a new set every tenth minute, giving me 4 minutes and 50 seconds between the last sprint of one set and the first sprint of the next set.  I aimed for a stroke rate that was high but controlled, and strove to get all my muscles--arms, legs, torso--firing in unison.  Most of the sprints felt reasonably smooth, but with all kinds of tiny imperfections.

I did my sprints in the northern half of the harbor, and the two pelicans were nowhere to be seen.  I hope they're in good health and they've simply resumed their northward migration.

Yesterday morning it was cool and breezy again, but the sun was out.  Since I began Maks's program the usual pattern has been to have an easy session Saturday morning and a harder one Saturday afternoon, and that was the case once more yesterday.  In the morning I paddled a "calm" 40 minutes.  I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and then up the Mississippi most of the way to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge before coming back.  As always I tried to take good strokes, and I also tried to savor the chance to paddle without a lot of technical stuff to think about.

By yesterday afternoon it had warmed up to around 60 degrees.  The wind was still blowing, but after giving it a minute of thought on the dock I decided to ditch my pogies.  Once I was in the boat, it was time to get down to business.  The workout was two sets of (8 times 1 minute on/1 minute off at 60 strokes per minute and 8 times 1 minute on/2 minutes off at 80 spm).  All pieces were to be done with "high power" on each stroke.  Maks described it as "a technical albeit hard workout designed to make you feel the stroke power more and more."  A few pieces in I was breathing somewhat hard, but it was more a muscle exercise.  I held up pretty well but could feel my power fading by the last two 80 spm pieces.  It was a long session--the workout took 80 minutes, plus 10 minutes for warm-up and 10 minutes for cool-down.  I went home dead-dog tired, and as I fixed supper and wound down for the evening I was feeling huge fatigue in my upper torso.

Mother Nature teased out a little bit more nice weather today with sunshine, a light southerly wind, and a high in the 60s.  This morning I did a "calm" 90-minute paddle during which I visited some parts of the Mississippi River I hadn't been to in a while.  At 27.9 feet on the Memphis gauge the river is the highest it's been since last summer, and over on the Arkansas side it's possible to paddle in areas that were dry for most of the fall and winter.  I crossed the river and paddled up into the lower reaches of the Loosahatchie Chute before heading back.

Maks told me to paddle at 60ish spm, and "just glide and make sure you don't forget about the technical aspects of paddling."  Maintaining a stroke rate around 60 has become easy for me in the harbor, but paddling up the Mississippi I had to concentrate more because I tend to want to up the rate when paddling against the current.  The same was true as I ferried across the river.  In these places those "technical aspects of paddling" were more important than ever to keep the boat gliding and overcome the river's desire to carry me away to the south.

Over on the Arkansas side I was paddling flooded bottomland with less current to fight, but there were areas of squirrelly water where the river flowed over submerged wing dams.  Balance was tricky there during the long pauses between strokes, and I had to draw on my whitewater experience to position my boat so that every stroke counted.

I returned to the harbor and paddled the last 15 minutes back to the dock feeling a deep fatigue from another fairly hefty week of training.  I'm grateful for a day off tomorrow.  Maks promises an easier plan for this coming week.

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A progress check

On Tuesday I did another variable stroke rate workout in the harbor: four sets of (5 minutes at 64 strokes per minute/4 minutes at 68 spm/3 minutes at 72 spm).  There was a 1-minute break between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  As usual, I tried to make every stroke a solid one with good mechanics.

The week got off to a chilly start to follow the rainy weekend, with overcast skies and Fahrenheit highs in the 40s.  By Tuesday I was plenty weary of the dreariness.  I was very happy to see the return of some sunshine yesterday.  It's remarkable how big a difference it makes in my enthusiasm for getting down to the river.

Yesterday's workout was eight sets of (250 meters at 80-84 spm with resistance on the boat/2-minute rest/50 meters at a flying start without resistance/2-minute rest).  This was "contrast" training, and Maks told me to strive for the same grip and power without the resistance as with it.  While the workout was a hard one, it wasn't the kind that left me exhausted when it was over.

Once I'd finished the workout I went looking for a pair of North American white pelicans I've seen hanging out in the north end of the harbor for the last week.  My friend Joe, who enjoys studying birds as a hobby, tells me this is the largest bird species on this continent, with a wingspan that can reach 9.5 feet.  My Go Pro camera isn't the best for telephoto shots, but with some cropping I have arrived at a low-res photo that at least shows what they look like:

If a super-exhausting workout was what I wanted, then Maks delivered for today with a time-trial session.  One thing I've learned over the years is that time trials always hurt.

At least I had beautiful weather to do it in: sunny and calm with the temperature on its way to a high in the 70s.  Unfortunately, the harbor was sort of a mess: with the Mississippi River rising fast, the harbor had picked up all kinds of sticks, soda bottles, and other debris that had been on the banks.  All this stuff was now floating in the middle, providing me with an obstacle course.

I did a long warmup, including several 8-stroke sprints, from the marina to the harbor's mouth.  The workout was a pair of timed 2000-meter pieces, and once my boat was pointed back north I was off.  Maks had said the pieces should be done in the "A2" (75-90 spm) range.  At first I aimed for 86-88 spm, but after a minute or so I realized that 80-84 spm was more the kind of intensity I could handle for 2000 meters.  I was breathing hard in no time.  As I passed the 1000-meter mark in 5:06, I wondered how anybody in this world is able to cover that distance a minute and a half faster.

I spent the second half of the piece, and especially the last 500 meters, struggling to keep my form together.  I figured I had to be slowing down some, but as it turned out I completed the second half almost exactly as fast as the first: my time was 10:13.  I was in some considerable agony and I wondered if I had a second 2000 meters in me at all.  My instructions were to start the second piece 18 minutes after starting the first, so I had almost eight minutes to settle myself down and wrap my mind around the task in front of me.

During the break I decided to lower my stroke rate a little more, into 76-78 spm territory.  As I started the second piece I resolved to stay relaxed and not try to be a superhero.  It was clear that this second 2000 would be slower when I passed 500 meters in about 2:45, but rather than let it rattle me I tried to stay on the target stroke rate and produce a nice even-paced effort.  My split at 1000 meters was 5:18.  As the piece wore on I was definitely holding up better than I had in the first one, and finished with a time of 10:36.

I guess here in the first week of March I shouldn't be surprised that I have more work to do in the fitness department.  But I was a little disappointed that I couldn't even break 5 minutes per 1000 meters.  Last summer I timed myself over 5000 meters for the "virtual" OICK race, and my time that day was 25:12--just over 5:02 per kilometer.  Even then I was thinking I should have averaged under 5:00.

But there will be more opportunities to chase times later.  For now I'll keep doing my workouts and try to get my body ready for when those opportunities come.

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Monday photo feature

Richard Savoie of Bayou Des Allemands, Louisiana, competes in the C1 class at the 2011 "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  Photo by Robbie Capel.

The 2021 edition of this event is scheduled for March 27, if pandemic circumstances permit it.  That's just three weeks from this Saturday, and it'll be my first race of the season and a welcome diversion after all the solitary training through the winter months.

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