This new training week started with a calm 60-minute paddle. Maks thought I needed another day to work out the fatigue and stiffness from that brutal lactic workout I'd done last Saturday. I had no argument against that. I tried to take the best strokes I could and otherwise enjoyed the pleasant (albeit hot) morning out on the river.
It was hot and humid again Wednesday morning, and I went out and did an anaerobic threshold workout. It was two sets of three (2 min. on/2 min. off), where within each set I paddled the pieces at 80 strokes per minute, 86 spm, and 80 spm. Part of the idea was to practice good technique at these higher stroke rates. I thought the session was fairly taxing, and I was breathing hard by the end of each piece.
Yesterday morning I hit the road! I spent some eight hours driving from Memphis to Harry S. Truman State Park near Warsaw, Missouri, during which I stopped at Hardy, Arkansas, to do a light gym session in Loberg Park and an easy paddle on the Spring River. The day was warm and muggy, and I drove through quite a bit of rain.
I slept quite well last night in the state park campground. The place was surprisingly quiet and uncrowded for the Thursday evening leading into the Independence Day weekend. Maybe the onslaught is arriving there this evening.
The rain had moved out by the time I made camp last night, and this morning the air was cooler and pleasant. My campsite was just up the hill from an access to Harry S. Truman Reservoir (this Truman fellow must have been awfully important to have all this stuff named after him). So I had no trouble getting in today's workout. I did a variable-pace session: four sets of (6 min. at 55 spm/3 min. at 65 spm/1 min. at 75 spm), with a minute break between pieces within each set and 2 minutes between sets. It felt good to do a relaxing paddle before embarking on my longest day of driving on the trip out West.
And a long drive it was. I made it all the way to the town of Ogallala in western Nebraska. Google told me the trip would take 8 hours 45 minutes, but it took me more than ten hours. Google must think I drive a lot faster than I do.
I'm staying in motels tonight and tomorrow night, and it'll be nice to sleep in a bed. Tomorrow's workout, which I think I'll be doing on the North Platte River just north of Ogallala, looks like a tough one. Tomorrow's drive shouldn't be quite as long as today's, but there's a long way still to go before I arrive in the Columbia River Gorge.
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