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.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.