After a long layoff, a race

Each fall I demonstrate bowl carving at a local crafts fair, and with this year's fair coming up next week, I spent several hours Monday morning driving around Midtown Memphis in search of material.  When trees are trimmed or cut down in this city, the standard practice is to leave logs on the curb for collection by a city sanitation crew.  That means free wood for resourceful artisans such as I.  It also means backbreaking labor.  Though I tried my best to rely on my logging tools, I managed to tweak my back a bit while lifting a couple of logs into the back of my truck.

By Tuesday morning the back discomfort had eased, but my hamstrings and quad muscles were achy and sore from the work they'd done.  I went down to the river and did one of Maks's "non-continuous endurance" workouts.  It was 3 times (4 minutes on/1 min. off) at 60 strokes per minute; 3 times (3 min. on/1 min. off) at 66 spm; 3 times (2 min. on/1 min. off) at 72 spm; and 3 times (4 min. on/1 min. off) at 60 spm.

My sore leg muscles didn't bother me too badly during this session, and by Wednesday morning they had largely recovered.  I went back to the river for six 3-minute pieces, within each of which I did a minute at 80 spm, a minute at 90 spm, and a minute at 80 spm.  The idea was to carry the technical precision from the lower stroke rate into the higher one, and make a smooth, focused transition back to the lower rate.

Yesterday morning I made the decision to attend my first race in two months: the Landing to Landing canoe and kayak race on the White River at Branson, Missouri.  It's 8 miles (12.8 kilometers), and while I don't feel like I'm anywhere near peak racing form, I hope getting out to a race will help me snap out of the sluggish feeling I've had since returning from my trip out West this summer.

With a race now on the agenda, I departed from Maks's assignments for the rest of the week in favor of rest and (I hope) some polish to my speed.  Yesterday I paddled for 40 minutes and did six 12-stroke sprints at maximum intensity to boost my ATP-CP system and get some start practice, too.

This morning I did almost exactly the same thing, except I did just four 12-stroke sprints.  Then I got in the car and headed across the river and off to the west.  Now I'm in Branson, one of those places I probably wouldn't ever visit if it weren't hosting a canoe and kayak race.  Here's hoping for a good night's sleep and some good racing in the morning.

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