By Monday evening I was almost to the Columbia River Gorge: I checked into a motel in Boardman, Oregon, a town on the Columbia an hour and a half or so shy of my destination.
Tuesday morning I paddled on the Columbia at Boardman. I did one of Maks's variable-pace workouts: three sets of (5 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/4 min. at 64 spm/3 min. at 68 spm/2 min. at 72 spm/1 min. at 76 spm). I took a minute rest between pieces and three minutes between sets. The top stroke rates took me up around anaerobic threshold.
I continued west from there and arrived in the Gorge around lunchtime. My accommodations until Sunday morning are in a campground on the Washington side near the Hood River Bridge, and I got myself settled in. Then, after some textual communication, I met up with Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina, and Greg Barton of Seattle, Washington, for some downwind laps near the Spring Creek Fish Hatchery, where there's an area of the river known as Swell City--not because the place is really swell (it is) but because the wind generates particularly juicy swells there.
The wind was somewhat mild on Tuesday and the conditions were on the small side, but that was okay with me--I'm a dip-your-toes-in-gingerly kind of guy. I paddled aggressively and chased every run that seemed remotely within reach. It felt great to be doing what I had driven such a long way to do.
My lower abdominals were sore Tuesday evening and yesterday morning. I did some full-body stretching after breakfast to try to get those muscles relaxed. Yesterday morning's session was supposed to be pretty hard and I worried a bit over whether I could find calm enough water to do the workout justice (see my discussion of this issue in my last post). Eventually I decided to put at the fish hatchery and then paddle over to the Oregon side of the river, where the water isn't as raucous as in Swell City, especially on the lee side of Wells Island.
Chris had told me that the wind forecast indicated that the conditions would be "nuking" yesterday, and as I did my warmup paddle over toward the Oregon side, I could tell that they were on their way toward that state. I let the swells carry me whenever they would, but didn't pursue them hard because my priority was to do the workout that Maks had assigned.
The workout was three sets of (4 minutes on/6 minutes off) at a high stroke rate (90 spm or thereabouts). Maks described it as an "anaerobic VO2 Max" workout, with long hard pieces and just enough rest in between to do three of them at a high intensity. I did them into the wind over along the Oregon side; there was a lot of chop but I was able to put nearly all my energy into forward propulsion. In the end, I think I'd gotten what I was supposed to get from the session.
By the time I was finished I was some distance upwind of where I'd parked, so once I'd worked my way back to the Washington side I allowed myself a short downwind run back to the parking area. The swells were definitely bigger than they'd been the previous afternoon.
I returned to the hatchery in the late afternoon for a few more laps (the locals call them "hatch laps"). The conditions might have been "nuking" during the day, but as I paddled from the bank I sensed that they were coming down from their peak. I had sort of an "empty arms" feeling from the morning workout and decided to do just a couple of laps. I caught a couple of decent runs on the first lap, but nothing to write home about. The highlight of the afternoon came on the second lap: I linked five or six good runs together and was flying. I'm not sure I can write anything here to convey the excitement I felt at that moment, but suffice it to say that I was super stoked. All I have to do is put together a couple hundred such moments on race day, and I'll be in the medals.
This morning I struck out to the east on Washington Highway 14. After a few miles I came upon Rowland Lake, which I think originally was a cove of the Columbia River but now is separated from the main channel by the roadbeds for Highway 14 and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. The lake has maybe a quarter of the acreage of the harbor back home, but it was perfectly adequate for this morning's assigned workout. It was my last lactic capacity session before race day: four sets of (30 seconds on/15 seconds off/30 seconds on), with a "long break" between sets (I made it 5 minutes). The pieces were to be done "all-out" and I had to dig deep on the last couple, but it was over quickly.
It was still rather hot when I arrived in the Gorge Tuesday--the last vestiges of the big heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, I guess. Yesterday morning it was chilly with a few raindrops; then the sun came out and it was noticeably cooler than Tuesday had been. This morning was downright brisk and now it's blossoming into a delightful day. I harbor no delusions of this area being perfect, but on a good day it's as beautiful as anyplace I've been. The forecast for the next week is looking good, and it feels great to be back here doing some great paddling and soaking it all in.
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