Hoping I'm ready for camp

My mother and I decided to come home Monday, and I'm glad we did.  I've had a bunch of nuisance chores to deal with this week, and with my departure for Florida scheduled for tomorrow, having an extra day to work with has helped a lot.

If we'd waited until Tuesday to drive home I'd have been hard-pressed to get even one paddling session in before leaving, but coming home Monday freed me up to do two.  On Tuesday I paddled for 50 minutes, and did three 5-minute tempo pieces with five minutes recovery in between.  I nudged the stroke rate up a bit with each one, and was pleased with how my body responded.  I was back in the boat this afternoon, paddling for 60 minutes in a steady drizzle, and felt more tired and sluggish.

I did a gym session before both Tuesday and today's paddles.

I've got another crick in my neck, and this one is a lot more stubborn than the one I had a couple of weeks ago.  That first one was in the left side of my neck, and the current one is in the right side.  It's making my everyday existence a lot less pleasant than it should be.  The aches in my left arm muscles continue as well.

But... I'm headed off for training camp anyway.  I hope my body will respond well and it will be a good experience.

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

Monday photo feature

Since I've been in North Carolina this weekend I suppose a paddling photo from that state is appropriate.  This is from 1989, and I'm running a drop on the Cullasaja River near Highlands.  I don't think steep-creek paddlers had really discovered the Cullasaja yet, but my friend Randall and I were exploring the area, spotted this rapid that looked runnable, and grabbed our boats off the car.  Randall shot the photo while I took my run.

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

Holiday down time

The big winter blast arrived right on schedule Thursday afternoon, and the Mid South got quite a bit more snow and ice than I'd expected.  My mom and I had planned to leave Friday morning to spend the holiday weekend with my sister's family in North Carolina, but we decided to push our departure to yesterday.  By yesterday the streets of Memphis were still quite icy but Interstate 40 was totally clear.  The traffic wasn't bad and the trip was about as painless as a nine-hour trek can be.

Today, of course, was designed for a sedentary existence, but in the mid afternoon I managed to shake off the ennui of Christmas brunch and do a gym session.

We'll be heading back to Memphis either tomorrow or Tuesday... I'm not sure which.  If it's Tuesday then I'll spend tomorrow doing some rehab exercises and general self-care.

I guess my biggest news is that I'll be attending a training camp in Florida starting next weekend.  I'd been holding off on committing myself because of all my ailments and lack of any training intensity, but I've decided to give it a try.  It remains to be seen how my body responds, and I'm prepared to beg off certain workouts if I have too, but I hope that being around some fellow paddlers will enhance my enthusiasm and focus for the coming year.

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Paddling and other exercise ahead of the Arctic blast

My left arm continued to hurt as the week got underway, especially the biceps area.  I woke up in the early hours of Tuesday morning and found it particularly painful and throbbing.

Once I was up later that morning, I did a gym session and was very mindful of how the ailing area responded.  The main exercise I'm doing that engages the biceps muscle is the bent-over rows, and I did that slowly with a moderate amount of weight.  I could feel some soreness in the muscle but the pain wasn't unbearable.

After that I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  As I've said before, I can feel the soreness while I paddle but the affected area isn't directly involved in paddling.  I actually pushed the intensity a bit for the first time in months: I did three long surges of some 1500 meters each; I kept the stroke rate low and just tried to put a lot of power into each stroke.  I didn't time myself.  Though I got a bit winded in each piece, I otherwise felt great.  The sun was shining and the temperature was rising toward 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and that added to the positive feelings of the session.

It was a reminder that for all the recent muscular woes I've been dealing with, I generally seem to have a lot more "giddy-up" these days than I had over the last couple of years.  I mentioned a while back that my weight is back up near 160 pounds, and I think that has something to do with my overall energy level.

With a Fahrenheit high in the low 50s, yesterday was the warmest day of the week, so I went out for a bike ride in the afternoon.  I did my usual 34-kilometer ride out the Greenline to Shelby Farms, around the lake there, and back home on the Greenline.  I spent the evening in a pleasantly-tired state.

Today Winter Storm Elliott and its dreaded "bomb cyclone" is exploding upon the entire nation, bringing blizzards and extreme cold to almost every state.  This morning the deep freeze hadn't arrived yet, and I took the opportunity to get in a paddle while the temperature was in the mid 40s.  There was a fine drizzle and a somewhat strong south wind, but it wasn't really a bad morning to paddle.

It's now mid afternoon and it still isn't so bad outside, but any time now the wind will be shifting to the north and the temperature will go into free fall.  By early tomorrow morning it's supposed to be about 4 degrees out there.

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Monday photo feature

Austin Kieffer of Asheville, North Carolina, competes in the 2012 U.S. Olympic trials for whitewater slalom at Charlotte.  Photo by Jon Nelson.

These days Austin, who now lives in southern California, is much better known as an elite-level ocean surfski racer.  And he's part of the "expert panel" interviewed in my film A Paddler's Journey.  The film is available for free viewing for the entire month of December, and you can watch it here.

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

A weekend of struggles

I woke up Friday morning with a painful crick in my neck--the sort of thing you get when you sleep in a bad position, I think.  It sort of set the tone for my entire weekend.  Though the pain has gradually eased, I'm still having some discomfort as I write this, and it has a severe impact on my mood and my attitude toward my athletic pursuits.

Making matters worse is that the muscle ailments in my left arm that flared up badly in the middle of the week have continued through the weekend.  Earlier in the week I'd felt like I was making some real progress in that area of my body, but now it feels as bad as ever.

Friday was the worst day.  Somehow I managed to get through a gym session in the morning, but all day I felt like a hopelessly-falling-apart old man.  It was overcast and chilly most of the day and that added to the gloom.

Yesterday the neck pain had improved somewhat, and the sun was shining bright, so that helped my motivation as I headed down to the riverfront.  I had a reasonably good 60 minutes in the boat, though the arm and neck pain were a burden throughout.

This morning was rather frigid: the temperature dropped below freezing overnight, and according to the temperature display in my car, it was only 38 degrees Fahrenheit when I got down to the river.  In recent years I've gone into winter vowing to find some kind of out-of-the-boat activity for the freezing days, but the truth is that I enjoy paddling more than most other things, even when it's really cold.  It's actually easier to stay warm in my boat than, say, on a bike.  It was sunny again today and not very windy, so it was actually a lovely morning to paddle.

The arm and neck discomfort persisted, however.  As I've noted before, the ailing arm muscles don't seem directly involved in paddling, so they're more of a nuisance discomfort than a real impediment.  I just try my best to do the work with my core muscles and put as little stress on my arms as possible.  This morning's paddle turned out to be the most enjoyable activity of my weekend, so I'm trying to savor some kind of moral victory in that.

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

Lots of rain, a rising river, and persistent arm pain

I started up a new gym routine Tuesday morning.  I replaced the bench press I'd been doing with pushups, and instead of doing dumbbell rowing exercises chest-down on the stability ball, I started doing rows with a hand and knee on a bench.

There was heavy rain in the forecast for later in the day Tuesday--the same system that brought snow to the upper Midwest and some violent storms to Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma.  Ordinarily I'd have paddled in the morning, well before the rain's arrival.  But I had some nuisance bureaucratic stuff to deal with Tuesday morning, so I went out in the afternoon hoping I wouldn't get rained on like I had the previous Saturday.  It turned out I had nothing to worry about: the rain didn't move in until after 7 o'clock in the evening.  I paddled for 60 minutes, trying my best to use good stroke mechanics and get a comfortable cardio workout.  I went home feeling dead tired from all the paddling and lifting.

I believe the low-water woes on the Mississippi River are behind us for this season.  The rain that came through here on Tuesday moved on into the Tennessee River watershed, and now the Mississippi is forecast to reach 10.5 feet on the Memphis gauge about a week from now.

The rain continued through the mid afternoon yesterday before finally moving out.  Today we had our first sunny day in what felt like forever.  The trade-off was a temperature some 20 degrees lower than it had been.  When I went down to paddle this morning it was in the mid 40s Fahrenheit.  It was a little breezy as well, but the sunshine made it not such a bad day to paddle.  Unfortunately my left arm was really bothering me today in the biceps and forearm area.  Just when I think I might be healing at last, I have a really bad day in that department.  I don't know what to do besides keep doing my rehab work and keep moving and have faith that somehow I will get through this.  I certainly want to believe that there is some great paddling still ahead for me.

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

Monday photo feature

When I paddled last Tuesday, this critter was on the bow of my boat when I put in from the dock.  She stayed there as I paddled out of the harbor and did a loop out on the Mississippi, and she was still there when I returned to the dock after an hour of paddling.  So I'd given her an outing, and I walked away from the dock feeling rather good about that.  I hope she was able to settle back into her domestic life once the boat was back on the rack.

Note: I'm merely guessing that this thing is a "she."  I actually have no clue about determining an arachnid's gender.

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

Some soggy weekend training

It's gotten cooler this weekend after a particularly balmy week.  It's not really cold--the Fahrenheit highs both yesterday and today are in the 50s--but it's a noticeable change from the 70s we had back in the middle of the week.

One thing hasn't changed with the temperature drop: it's been raining a lot all week.  The good news is that most of the rain has moved eastward from here into the Tennessee and Cumberland River drainages, where it is having an impact on the level of the Mississippi River at Memphis.  This weekend the river has been flowing right at 3.0 feet on the Memphis gauge, and the latest forecast says it will crest later this week at 5.6 feet.  With more rain in the forecast, I expect that prediction will be revised upward.

When I got up yesterday morning I checked the Internet radar and saw a big mass of rain over to the west of Forrest City, Arkansas, moving in this direction.  I hoped that I could eat breakfast and do my other morning chores quickly enough that I'd be able to paddle before the rain arrived, but it didn't work out that way.  It was starting to drizzle as I left the house, and that built into a hard drizzle by the time I got to the riverfront.  Once I was in the boat, the rain really let loose.  I got poured on pretty good for all but just a few of my 60 minutes of paddling, and during that time the chilly north wind picked up as well.  So I was one cold, wet critter by the time I got back to the dock.  What's that I was saying a few posts back, about immersing yourself?  Yes, that's what I did yesterday.

The rain had pretty much moved out when I got up this morning, but it was still overcast and not expected to be much warmer than 50 degrees.  I pondered whether to paddle today, or ride my bike.  At this point in the year I'm still working on general fitness and not dead set on paddling-specific training, and since it wasn't raining I opted for the ride.  I was afraid conditions would be sloppy after all the rain, but the landscape had dried out some by the time I was on the bike.  The Greater Memphis Greenline drains well because it was built on a railroad bed.  Out at Shelby Farms the trails had some puddles, but they weren't hard to skirt.  So I wasn't badly splattered with muddy water when I got back home, and I had a decent cardio workout under my belt.

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

How I'm feeling as winter approaches

I did a gym session Monday afternoon, and Tuesday morning I was back in the boat.  This has been a rainy week here in the Mid South, and on Tuesday I paddled in some drizzle and mist.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: wet, misty days might be the most beautiful I have experienced out on the Mississippi River.

As for the aches and pains in my left arm, sometimes I think they're doing a lot better and other times they continue to bother me.  My chiropractor recommended some exercises to do, and I think they have helped some.

All told, I've been feeling better about training in general lately.  A few weeks ago I posted here that even when you're feeling at your lowest it's important to do at least a little something--anything--each day, and string together some days and weeks of doing that something.  Now, here I am a few weeks later and I think that advice to myself is paying off.  I've been doing some gym work, some bike riding, some running, and some paddling, and with the exception of the running it's gone well and I'm feeling good about it.

I'll just add that my weight has come up again over the last couple of months: it had fallen into the low 150s and even the high 140s (that's pounds, for you international readers), and I was feeling weak and listless.  Now I'm back up in the high 150s, and feeling more energetic.  This is all anecdotal observation; I haven't kept meticulous records of my weight over many years.  So I don't know for sure that there's a genuine connection between what I weigh and how I feel.  But I do remember that when I was racing really well several years ago my weight was up, and in the last couple of years as I've felt not so in-the-pink, my weight has been down.  Take from that what you will.

Anyway... this morning I did another good gym session, and now I'm feeling good about it.  The endorphins are flowing.

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

Monday photo feature

As I mentioned in a post last week, my film "A Paddler's Journey" is now available for viewing.  This screening will last for the entire month of December.  You can watch the film here.

This past Friday evening I went out to see the guy who played all the music on the film's soundtrack.  Jason Freeman played his guitar and sang some tunes at the B-Side room on Madison Avenue here in Memphis.  Photo by Jonathan Finder.

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

Aches and pains and chilliness and a marathon

I'm encouraged by the progress of my right Achilles tendon since I injured it on Thursday.  As of this writing it's still giving me some pain, but it's improved enough that I can walk more or less normally.  I've been giving it the heat/ice treatment, and I'm pretty sure it'll be fine in a few more days.  So I'm upbeat about that.

Whether I want to keep trying to run and risk more episodes of pain like this is another matter.  Maybe I just need to forget it and spend my time on lower-impact cross-training activities.  I never had any grandiose visions of resurrecting my competitive running career, after all.  But it sure would be nice if I could go out for a run when I feel like it, and look good and feel good while I do it.

On Friday morning I did a gym session at home, and then went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  I could feel my ailing left arm muscles but was able to paddle just fine.  The best news I have on the arm/shoulder front is that my rotator cuff area has been feeling a lot better lately.  Certain movements that had been giving me pain for a long time are happening pain-free now.

When I got up Saturday morning the temperature was a pleasant 62 degrees Fahrenheit, but on the radio they were saying it would be dropping into the 40s as the day went on.  Saturday morning is typically a time for me to paddle, but on this day the big annual marathon here in Memphis had shut down most of the streets between my house and the river, so I decided to ride my bike instead.  I tried my best to get out while the temperature was still warm, but it was already down into the mid 50s by the time I was finally on the bike.  I headed west from my house and rode along segments of the marathon course.  In Overton Park I saw some of the better runners as they passed the 20-mile mark.  I think these people were on pace to finish around 2 hours 40 minutes, meaning that they were running just over 6 minutes per mile.  I can remember a time when I considered such a pace "slow," but those days are long gone.  On a quarter-mile track a 6-minute mile is made up of four 90-second laps, and based on my recent runs I think I would be hard-pressed to run one lap in 90 seconds.

Riding along the marathon course meant that my bike ride had to be a leisurely one.  There were places where I had no choice but to get off my bike and walk in order to stay out of the runners' and spectators' way.  I told myself not to worry about it, that there's nothing wrong with some leisurely exercise.

Yesterday morning the sky was overcast, and as I drove down to the riverfront my car's temperature display yo-yoed between 39 and 41 degrees Fahrenheit.  The bright side was that it wasn't windy.  I got in the boat and paddled for 60 minutes, mostly in the harbor.  My paddling sessions these days are mostly low-intensity, but I try to concentrate hard on good stroke mechanics and keep up some muscle memory.  Lately I've been feeling pretty good in the boat, and I think that if I can just find a solution for these arm muscle woes I could be paddling well again.

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

A wet bike ride and another frustrating run

I started Tuesday with a gym session.  In case you're wondering what I'm doing for a gym session these days, it's bench press with dumbbells (using the stability ball in lieu of a bench), backups on the stability ball, dumbbell rows (chest down on the stability ball), and a lower abdominal exercise on the stability ball.

After that I went for a bike ride.  I usually paddle on Tuesdays, but this Tuesday morning the temperature was pleasant (mid 60s Fahrenheit), and rain was in the forecast for later, with colder temperatures to follow.  So I "let the weather be my coach" and chose the activity I least like to do when it's colder: ride my bike.

My one mistake was failing to check the Internet radar before I left.  I wasn't expecting rain until the afternoon, but in fact it was moving in right as I embarked on the ride.  By the time I was on the Greater Memphis Greenline it was beginning to drizzle, and a heavier cell moved through when I was almost out to Shelby Farms.  By that time there was nothing I could do but bear down and ride through it.  I was wearing just a light sweatshirt rather than something halfway rain-repellent, so I got drenched quickly.  Another heavy shower gave me a good dousing in the last mile before I returned home.

Oh well... no regrets.  I admit I've been a little squeamish about getting out in the cold here in this early stage of the cold-weather season, and in the summertime as well there are moments when I dread stepping out my door into searing heat.  But being an athlete means being willing to immerse yourself.  Even if you're not an athlete, I think some immersion in the cold or heat is part of a healthy life.  Indoor climate control is a very recent development in human history, and we've evolved to handle much harsher conditions than we think.

The good news for the greater Memphis area on Tuesday is that it was spared some severe weather that the same system inflicted farther south.  I understand there were some tornadoes in the corridor from Texas to Alabama.

My left calf muscle was feeling better by the middle of this week, and this morning I went out to try another run.  I still felt some soreness in the muscle, but it was not as bad as it had been a week ago, and running on grass seemed easier on it than the concrete sidewalk, so I ran on grass wherever I could find it.

I was feeling pretty good about my chances of making it the full 20 minutes this time.  But then, about 12 minutes in, another part of me rose up in protest: my right Achilles tendon.  I felt a shot of pain down there, and I stopped to stretch it gingerly for a minute.  Then I resumed running, and I was determined to keep it slow and easy, but my old pal Achilles simply wasn't having it.  He responded with a couple of sharp pops, and I knew right then that I was finished running for the day.  I was about a half-mile from home, and I limped the whole way.

I'm typing this just a short while later.  I've put an ice pack on the tendon, and at the moment it continues to hurt pretty bad.  Sigh... my body is so darn fragile when it comes to running.  Maybe I should let go of this idea of incorporating running into my routine... after all, a favorite saying of canoe & kayak athletes is "Runners don't paddle, so why should paddlers run?"  I'll just have to see how this thing feels over the next few days.

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

Now playing!

For me, 2022 began with the submission of my first feature-length film, "A Paddler's Journey," to the National Paddling Film Festival.  That adventure culminated in a "Viewer's Choice" award.

Now, here in the last month of '22, I'm making the film available for viewing once more.  You can watch it at this link during the entire month of December.

I tried my best to make the film encompass everything this blog is about.  I hope you'll want to have a look!  Thank you and thanks for following this blog.

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

Monday photo feature

"The Doctor," one of the biggest races on the international ocean surfski racing calendar, took place on Saturday at Perth, Western Australia.  Pictured here are the top three men's finishers: Uli Hart (third place), Kenny Rice (first place), and Mark Keeling (second place).  All three are South Africans from the town of Fish Hoek, which I have had the pleasure of visiting twice.

In last week's photo feature I mentioned that Ana Swetish of the United States was favored to claim the women's Under-21 title.  On Saturday, she went out and did that very thing.  What's more, she was the third finisher among all the women in the race.  Danielle McKenzie of New Zealand took first place and Jemma Smith of Australia was second, just five seconds ahead of Ana.

In all, 439 boats finished The Doctor, making it comparable in size to the Gorge Downwind Championships event here in the U.S. that I have entered four times.  But I was struck by how much higher the quality of the field seemed to be at The Doctor: the fact that Ana Swetish was the 14th fastest overall racer in the Gorge last July, but only 60th overall at Perth, is just one piece of evidence.  I'd chalk that up to an ocean-sports-crazy culture in Australia that we just don't have an answer for in my country.

The complete results are posted here.  The summary article from which I lifted the photo (I think the photographer is Shane Myers) is here.

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

Testing what my ailing body will tolerate

I did a gym session Friday morning.  My left biceps and forearm muscles bothered me a lot--not necessarily during the exercises, but just in general as I went through my day.

My arm was still bothering me as I went down to the river to paddle yesterday morning.  I could feel the discomfort in my arm as I paddled, but the ailing muscles were not so directly involved as to impede what I was doing.  They bothered me a little more out on the Mississippi than they did in the harbor, so I probably need to steer clear of paddling in anything rougher than flatwater for a while.

What surprised me yesterday is that I felt as good in the boat as I had in a long time.  I felt energetic and motivated, and that's a feeling that's been elusive for me all year.

It was overcast yesterday morning, with a temperature around 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  In the afternoon a system of rain moved in, and it rained for the better part of the night.  By this morning the rain was gone but it was still cloudy, and it was quite a bit breezier with a temperature not expected to rise above the mid 50s.

For most of this fall Sunday has been a bike riding day for me.  But on a blustery day I would rather paddle than ride, and considering how good I'd felt in the boat yesterday, I decided to go back to the river. Once I was underway I again felt good in terms of energy and mood.  But when I paddled out of the harbor onto the Mississippi, the choppy windblown water there put more stress on my arm, so I retreated to the harbor after just a couple of minutes.

The Mississippi was flowing at -3.0 feet on the Memphis gauge this morning.  The forecast says it will drop to about -5.2 feet by midweek, but then rise back to -3.2 feet halfway through the following week.  So even though the river is still very low these days, there's been enough rain in the watershed lately to keep it from going back toward that record low level of almost -10.9 feet.  I hope this is a trend toward wetter conditions in the Midwest that will return the river to a more bountiful version of itself.

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

More paddling and biking and running

I did a gym session Tuesday morning, and then went downtown and got in the boat to paddle a mostly-easy 60 minutes.  My left biceps area bothered me again, but maybe not quite as much as it had Saturday.  After cresting at 1.48 feet above zero on the Memphis gauge over the weekend, the Mississippi had dropped back to an even zero when I was there Tuesday.  Right now the forecast has it continuing to drop for the foreseeable future, but I hope maybe some rain will fall in the watershed and change that prediction.

I left the river and went and got both a flu shot and a Covid-19 booster shot.  So far I've been lucky enough not to get too sick from the shots, and yesterday morning I had nothing worse than mild head congestion and a swollen gland in my right armpit (I got the shots in my right shoulder because of all the muscle woes I've had in the left).

It was nothing that was going to put me out of action.  My left calf was feeling much better and I considered trying another short run.  But a look at the weather forecast revealed that yesterday afternoon was going to be quite warm (about 65 degrees Fahrenheit) while today was going to be cooler with chances of rain.  I'd rather ride my bike in warmer weather and run in cooler weather, so I "let the weather be my coach," as Greg Barton had suggested, and went out for a bike ride yesterday afternoon.  I did the usual 34-kilometer loop out to Shelby Farms and back.  I'd love to have a couple of other courses to incorporate into my riding routine, but this is the only one easily accessible from my house on which I can get in some good distance with a minimum of motorized traffic to deal with.

It was indeed cooler and sort of rainy this morning.  I set out with the intention of doing a 20-minute run, but a short distance in I realized that my calf muscle wasn't as healed as I'd thought.  I tried my best to go easy on it, stopping a several times to do some light stretching on it or just let it rest for a minute.  In the end I probably didn't spend more than 12 or 13 of my 20 minutes actually running, and the running I did do was tiring--I just don't have the cardiovascular infrastructure I once did for that purpose.

My calf muscle didn't "pop" on me like it did last week, but it's very sore now.  I'm not panicked over it--it is normal, after all, to be sore when you start running again after a long layoff, and the calf muscles are where I've always had a lot of soreness as a runner.  But I'm going to have to proceed with caution.  I think getting back into some running is going to have to be a very slow, gradual process.

I'll just add that my left arm is really hurting these days, mainly in the biceps and forearm areas.  I'm sort of at a loss what to do about it.

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

Monday photo feature

While chilly temperatures are settling in here in North America, spring is blossoming in the southern hemisphere, and in no place is the action hotter than in Western Australia, where a big week of surfski racing is in progress.  It'll culminate this Saturday with "The Doctor," one of the most prestigious events on the international racing calendar.  The Doctor starts at Rottnest Island and finishes on Sorrento Beach at Perth.

Only a handful of U.S. paddlers have made the trip "down under" to participate, and one of them is standing at the right end of this group of ladies.  Ana Swetish of Bellingham, Washington, is a contender for the Under-21 title in The Doctor.

Anybody who has seen my film "A Paddler's Journey" knows that Ana is part of my "panel of experts."  If you have not seen my film, I'm planning to make it available for viewing again very soon.  Stay tuned for further details.

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

Keeping it going

Yesterday morning I went down to the river for the first time in eight days.  On the Mississippi River, a lot can change in that length of time: the river had risen to about a half a foot above zero on the Memphis gauge.  That's a very low level, and yet it's more than 11 feet higher than it was a few weeks ago when the river dropped to the lowest level ever recorded at Memphis.  I found the marina fully afloat:

I could actually put my boat in the water from my own dock again:

(In case you missed it, this post shows what the marina looked like at near-record-low water.)

Such a radically-fluctuating water level is exactly why Memphis riverfront real estate developers hate the Mississippi River.  They look enviously at riverfront cities like Chattanooga (on the Tennessee River), Louisville (the Ohio River) and Little Rock (the Arkansas River): the river levels at those cities are dam-regulated and stay pretty constant.  Here in Memphis developers have resurrected a stupid idea that we though had been put out of its misery 20 years ago: they want to dam up the harbor (at the taxpayers' expense, I'd wager) to create a big lake that they can build high-priced lakefront communities on.  I suppose my marina would be removed, and even if it weren't I'd no longer be able to paddle out onto the river.  I've always believed you should take what nature gives you, but developers just don't think that way.

Anyway... yesterday was supposed to be bright and sunny according to the forecast, but it was overcast and a motivation-suppressing 38 degrees Fahrenheit when I got down to the dock.  The saving grace was that there was almost no wind, and the harbor was as smooth as glass.  As usual, the worst part of paddling on a cold day was the time on the dock; once I was in the boat paddling I became reasonably warm.

My left arm wasn't doing so well, though.  The biceps area in particular bothered me for the entire hour I paddled.  I tried to stay relaxed, keep the intensity moderate, and use the best stroke mechanics I could.

I left the harbor and paddled a mile or so up the Mississippi before turning around and coming back.  The sky was finally clearing by the time I was back in the harbor paddling back toward the marina.  The rest of yesterday was bright and sunny.

It was sunny again this morning, but cold.  It was around 35 degrees when I set out on a bike ride.  I rode the first few miles into a headwind, and I seriously considered doing a shorter ride than usual.  In the end, though, I sucked it up and did my usual 34-kilometer loop.  I had not exactly a tailwind, but at least less of a headwind for the ride back, and I'm sure the temperature had risen a few degrees by then, too.

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More on that winter routine

Three days after my truncated First Run In 20 Years my left calf muscle is still sore, but I think it's definitely improving.  Maybe by next week I'll feel ready to attempt another short run.

The chilly weather (low 40s Fahrenheit) weather we've been having is not fun to go bike riding in, but yesterday afternoon I found it in me to bundle up and ride out the Greater Memphis Greenline to Shelby Farms and back.  I did my usual 34-kilometer loop, riding around Patriot Lake out there before heading back.  The sun was shining, so that helped make it feel not quite so miserable.

Both Wednesday and today I did rounds of the gym routine I started on Monday, and that's starting to feel beneficial.

So, I feel like I've got something started.  I'm still trying to incorporate maybe one more cardiovascular activity: I'm interested in finding a rowing ergometer nearby that I can access without having to pay too exorbitant a membership fee.

Right now I think the most important thing is just to get something--anything--going.  After several months of sort of flailing around, trying to deal with motivation and energy level and aches and pains, I think it's more important than ever to have a solid routine that I can follow each day and feel good about.

In my last post I said that I didn't do anything athletic last weekend.  But by Sunday afternoon I was tired of sitting around feeling like a slug, so I decided to go out and do a little hiking in the Mississippi River bottoms.  I drove across the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and parked in Big River Park, and hiked down to a big expanse of sand that was exposed on the inside of the big bend just downstream of the trio of old bridges.

There were a good dozen other people out on the sandbar, and at first I expected them all to have metal detectors: both our local newspapers had just run stories of interesting artifacts found by treasure hunters.  But as I walked closer I realized they were all just fishing.

Treasure hunters probably had been by in recent days, and I was expecting no miraculous discoveries of my own.  But I did see a couple of interesting things.  One was this scuttled fishing boat:

I think it had been mostly buried in the sand and silt, and then partially excavated by passersby during this current low-water period.

And then there was this thing: part of a winch, maybe?  Or of a towboat's engine apparatus?

These were the only things I saw out of the ordinary.  I can only imagine what artifacts there are buried beneath layers upon layers of mud down there.

The river level on Sunday was about 7.1 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge.  Since then the river has been on a big rise: it's forecast to crest this weekend about a foot above zero on the gauge.  That's still a very low level, but compared to what it's been the last month or so, it's going to look like an ocean of water down there.  I haven't been paying close attention to where it's been raining in the watershed, but my guess is that the remnants of Hurricane Nicole must have dumped enough rain on the west slope of the Appalachians last week to bring about this big rise.

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Trying to get a winter routine going

Knowing it was my last chance to paddle in mild weather before much colder air arrived, I found the gumption to get down to the river Friday afternoon.  My body still feeling the effects of my struggle with the whitewater boat on Tuesday, I opted for the surfski and did a reasonably nice 60-minute paddle.

Friday evening I tuned in to Greg Barton's lecture.  Greg's suggestions for offseason cross-training didn't really include anything I hadn't thought of; he mentioned things like weight training, bike riding, running, and cross-country skiing (sadly not available where I live).  But he did give me some ideas of where to focus my strength training, and maybe the best thing he said was "I let the weather be my coach," meaning that if it's a particularly nice day when he'd planned to do an indoor workout, he'll go paddle instead.  I've behaved similarly myself, of course, but hearing a guy like Greg say it is always reassuring.

As if on cue, the weather turned blustery and much colder over the weekend.  I gave my body a break and spent time on non-athletic things.  Then yesterday I started a new gym routine that includes some arm and core exercises all done on the stability ball.

Also yesterday I took the bold step of buying a new pair of running shoes.  I was quite the serious runner back in high school and college, but up until now I think it had been some 20 years since I'd so much as gone for a run.  That changed today.  This morning I put on my new shoes, stepped out the door, and started to run.  I'd been wondering whether my body would even remember how to run, but I'm happy to say that it does.

I knew the important thing was not to bite off too much on my first time out.  And my body quickly chimed in with its opinion just a couple of minutes in: running was not going to be anywhere near as effortless as I remember it feeling in the prime of my competitive career.  I'd gone out thinking I'd run maybe 30 minutes, but I quickly scaled that ambition back to 20.  All those capillary beds I'd once built up in my running muscles are long gone, I realized.

I was headed back toward home, and then, about 14 minutes into the run, I felt a sharp pain in my left calf muscle.  I knew better than to push through it.  I stopped and walked the rest of the way.

I'm still feeling some pain there now, but it doesn't have the feel of a terribly serious injury.  I was thinking I'd do my next run Thursday or Friday, but now we'll just have to see how soon this thing heals.  Sigh... sometimes it seems like my body doesn't want to let me do anything these days.

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Monday photo feature

Get a load of this old relic.  25 years ago this was a cutting-edge slalom-racing design.  Now it's just my old beat-up slalom boat that I hadn't paddled for six years before last Tuesday.

I was worried about how my ailing left arm and shoulder would respond to whitewater-style paddle strokes, and it turns out I was right to be.  The pain in my shoulder/biceps area worsened, and I did something to my forearm as well.

I'd been flirting with the idea of getting back on some whitewater soon, but that plan is now on hold.  It's discouraging not to be able to do something that for most of my life felt as natural as could be.

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):

The period that has passed since my last training-related post has been full of ups and downs.  Right now things are sort of down.  My left shoulder and biceps area has been acutely sore, and lately even my left wrist and forearm have been hurting some.

In recent months I've had thoughts of getting back out on some whitewater, but I don't know if my body will let me do that in its current state.  On Tuesday this week I broke out my old Superglide C1 that I raced slalom in from the late 1990s into the mid 2000s, and took it down to the harbor.  Forward paddling wasn't really a problem, but my left arm and shoulder didn't respond particularly well to draw strokes with the blade opened way up (I paddle on my left in a whitewater C1).  I finished 40 minutes of paddling feeling sore and discouraged.  I think part of the problem is that the boat's outfitting is the same as it was when I last raced slalom back around 2005, and my body has surely changed some since then.  I probably should find myself a more comfortable, more forgiving boat to paddle than this high-performance race boat, but that would involve some financial investment, and again, I'm not sure serious whitewater paddling is something I can do right now.

Today is the last day of pleasant, balmy weather before much colder air moves in, so it would make sense to paddle one more time today, but my body just doesn't want to do it.  I've actually done a lot of out-of-the-boat stuff this week: bike riding, rehab exercises, and some light weight work.  Today I'm feeling pretty tired from all that.

This evening Greg Barton is delivering an online lecture about wintertime cross-training.  I plan to tune into that and see what good ideas I might get.

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Monday photo feature

This photograph appeared on the CNN website this past week.  It's part of an article about the low flows on the Mississippi River.  You can view the article here.

While I don't think the article was intended to mislead people, the use of this photo is deceptive in my opinion.  The caption reads as follows:

The Mississippi River at Memphis -- shown here near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge -- has slowed to a trickle. It was at its fifth-lowest level on record this week and continues to drop.

Actually, that's the Hernando DeSoto Bridge in the photo.  The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge is a mile or so downstream.  But the thing I take issue with is the suggestion that the little puddle pictured here is all there is of the Mississippi at Memphis right now.  It's not.  Just look at the last two photos in the post I put up yesterday.  As I said, even at historic low flows the Mississippi is a very big, very powerful river.

Maybe I shouldn't get upset about this.  But I constantly encounter people in our society whose understanding of basic river hydrology and continental drainage is shockingly poor.  We don't need an ostensibly serious news organization making that problem worse.

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The ravages of a lack of water

I went back down to the riverfront yesterday and found the water even lower than it had been on Tuesday.  At -10.76 feet on the Memphis gauge, it was just over a tenth of a foot lower .

I mentioned in Tuesday's post that the low level is putting a lot of stress on the marina.  Check out the bowed roof supports in these photos:

The marina is owned by its slip owners, sort of like a condo.  I'm not part of the ownership since I just rent a rack for my kayak down there, and I guess I'm glad not to be on the hook for the damage that's happening to the structure right now.  But on the other hand, I get a lot of enjoyment out of my use of the facility, and I hope the owners will be able to keep it in good repair.  I don't think the slip owners are a particularly wealthy group--the wealthy houseboat and yacht owners around here keep their boats at Pickwick Lake--so it remains to be seen how they address the damage once this low-water period has run its course.

Just like on Tuesday, I had to use another dock to have access to the water, and even at this dock there was just barely enough water to float my boat.  I did a quick depth-check with my paddle; the tip of the blade was probably an inch or two immersed in mud:

Meanwhile, not even the United States Coast Guard has a ramp that extends all the way down to the current water surface.  The USCG buoy tender the Kankakee is usually parked in this spot, but right now it's having to take up residence elsewhere:

I got in my boat and paddled for 60 minutes.  The low water level is causing all kinds of trouble for commercial vessels, but there's still plenty of water for paddling.  Even at a record-low level, the Mississippi is still a very big river:

Yep... interesting times in the lower Mississippi River basin.  Let's hope for some rain in the Midwest soon.

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This low-water season is REALLY low

I'm on a bit of a break from blogging.  Apologies to anybody who's been checking here multiple times hoping for something new.

Not much has changed since my last post, and that's the main reason I decided to give the blog a rest for a while.  The truth is that I was tired of writing essentially the same thing over and over.  Soon I'll post an update of what's been happening with my aches and pains and my efforts to keep some kind of exercise going until I find the motivation for pursuing paddling excellence once more.

The main reason for this post is to share some photos I took today in the harbor.  Yesterday the Mississippi River dropped to its lowest level ever recorded at Memphis.  The record low had been -10.70 feet on the Memphis gauge back in the summer of 1988, and yesterday afternoon the water dipped almost a tenth of a foot lower than that: -10.77 feet.

By the time I got down to the river this morning it had risen back to -10.65 feet... still all but the record low, as far as I'm concerned.  As I walked down to the marina, I found that the entire west end of it was in the mud:

Here's the dock where I normally put my boat in the water:

Low water puts a lot of stress on the marina.  Even the part of it that's still afloat has some piers that are touching the bottom, causing contortion in the roof line:

Since my normal dock was completely aground, I carried my boat around the corner to a dock that still had some water access:

First I paddled up toward the harbor's north end.  Up there a barge is sitting high and dry:

I headed back south, and stopped to take a picture where Bayou Gayoso empties into the harbor.  My guess is that the mound of dirt in the foreground is made up of sediment that's washed into the harbor from the bayou:

Farther south, down the hill from River Garden Park where the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race used to finish, an historic relic has been revealed.  Pictured here is some kind of old wooden boat complete with the engine block that I presume once propelled it.  I am not the first person to spot it: there's an orange traffic cone marking the site just to the right of this photo.  I hope that means our local archeologists are on it:

There are two marinas in the harbor.  I've shared pictures above of the one where I keep my boat.  The other one is some one thousand meters to the south, and it's not faring so well right now, either.  The entire west wing and much of the east wing are sitting in the mud.  The boats in this photo won't be going anywhere until the water comes up a few feet:

And here's a photo of the same marina from a different angle that local photographer Danny Day took yesterday.  I think he made better use of the light than I did (i.e., he's a better photographer):

All very fascinating, to be sure.  But I hope for the return of some rainfall to the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland drainages soon.

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Monday photo feature

The first slalom race I ever did was one of those "citizen" races the Nantahala Racing Club used to put on. You could enter in whatever boat you had and do an easy course on the gates down near Worser Wesser Falls.  Here I am racing my old Dancer kayak.  Every time I look at this photo I want to say I'm 11 or 12 years old, but the year was in fact 1992, at which time I was 24 and going on 25.  Photo by Michael Stout.

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Feeling good at times and deflated at others

This was a week of ups and downs in terms of how I'm feeling and what sort of physical activity I've managed to do.

I spent Monday dealing with logs, trying to gather some material for my job at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair next weekend.  No matter how careful I am, I always manage to tweak some muscles when I do such work, usually in my lower back.

I woke up Tuesday feeling really stiff and sore from Monday's work.  But I got myself down to the river and paddled for an hour, and that seemed to loosen me up very nicely.  I can say that in my four-plus decades of paddling there have been countless days in which I felt better after paddling than I'd felt before.

Meanwhile, I was trying my best to keep my left arm in the "neutral" position to keep the stress off my rotator cuff, and doing the strengthening exercises that Rob had shown me.  By Thursday the area was feeling as good as it had felt in a long time, and that lifted my spirits.  I had a good bike ride Thursday morning, and then saw my chiropractor that afternoon.  I told her of the improvement in my left rotator cuff area, joking that I was almost afraid to say it out loud.

As it turned out, I was right to be afraid.  I spent Friday doing more log-hunting, and while I can't think of any specific thing I did to aggravate any particular muscles, by yesterday morning my left arm was back to feeling as bad as ever.  I went down to the river and got in the boat, and as I warmed up in the harbor, the pain nagged me with every stroke.  Eventually I got warmed up enough for the discomfort to move into the background, but today the area continues to hurt.

Lately Sunday has been a bike-riding day for me, and that was the plan again today.  But I was delayed by the latest of what has been a rash of flat tires in the last month.  I got it fixed and did a good ride out to Shelby Farms and back by way of the Greater Memphis Greenline.  As I carried the bike back into the garage to the spot where I hang it on the wall, I heard a sudden hissing noise: for some reason all the air was running out of the tire once more.  Sigh... at least it waited until I was back home.  I was too tired to deal with it right then, but I'll be fixing yet another flat tire before my next ride.

If I need a reminder of how small my problems are, then I guess I should look at the current catastrophic phenomena around the planet.  The remnants of a Pacific typhoon walloped the west coast of Alaska, another typhoon is hitting Japan, Puerto Rico is bracing for Hurricane Fiona, a series of earthquakes has rocked Taiwan, and wildfires continue to burn in the western U.S.  Oddly enough, it's as calm as can be around here.  The sun is out, breezes are light, and we're in for several days of near-100-degrees-Fahrenheit temperatures.

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Monday photo feature

When my friend Rob came to visit last week, it was the first time I'd seen him in person in six years.  Back in 2016 I visited his home in New York's Hudson Valley during my trip to the USCA Nationals in western Massachusetts.  One day Rob and I put on the Hudson River at Peekskill and paddled up toward the Bear Mountain Bridge.

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Entertaining a house guest and hunting logs

My best friend Rob came to visit for a few days this past week.  We visited a couple of local museums, went out to eat, explored the outdoors... the sort of things good friends do.

But Rob's visit has some actual relevance to this blog, too.  Rob is a chiropractor based in Pawling, New York, and he had a lot to say about my current skeletal-muscular issues.  He had me go through a whole bunch of movements and concluded that my deltoid/biceps woes are the result of inflammation of tendons in my rotator cuff.  He said that only once this inflammation is calmed down will any other treatments really work.  He urged me to do my best to keep my left arm in the "neutral position" (i.e., as if it's in a sling) as much as possible to minimize stress on the area.  He also showed me some exercises that target the rotator cuff area specifically.  While he was at it, he showed me a whole slew of core exercises (mostly on the stability ball) that I now want to incorporate into strength work this fall and winter.

All this advice is what one would expect from a chiropractor.  But Rob is also quite knowledgeable of internal health in general, and while he was here he gave me advice on my diet and the vitamin supplements I should be taking.  My cholesterol level has been somewhat high my whole adult life, and after a particularly high test result back in June, my doctor finally put me on a prescription statin drug.  My LDL level has come down a lot as a result, but Rob thinks I can achieve the same thing with a natural over-the-counter statin (red yeast rice).  He explained that the prescription statin has an oversized impact on other nutrients in my body that is less severe with the natural statin.  So I'm looking into possible changes there.  I'm scheduled to visit my doctor again in December, so I'll probably wait until then before making the switch.

Since Rob was here on vacation, I took sort of a vacation of my own from most chores (both athletic and non-athletic) this past week.  But we found ways to get out and be active.  On Tuesday we took my plastic sea kayak down to the river for Rob to paddle, and the two of us paddled out of the harbor, up the Mississippi above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and across the river to a bunch of sandbars, where enjoyed a little beach time.  On Wednesday afternoon I was hoping to find a bike for Rob to use so we could go for a bike ride together, but the closest thing we could find was one of those app-activated electric scooters.  So we got that running and Rob rode it out east on the Greater Memphis Greenline while I rode my bike; once we were out at Shelby Farms we switched mounts for the trip back.

Rob departed after lunch on Thursday, and I turned my attention to catching up on some of the chores I'd ignored while he was here.  The annual crafts fair where I demonstrate bowl carving is just two weeks off, and I need some material for the job, so on Friday afternoon I set out on a scouting trip on my bike, looking for good logs that people had cut in their yards and put out on the curb for the city sanitation service to collect.  I rode all over sections of the Evergreen, Vollintine-Evergreen, and Speedway Terrace neighborhoods and made a mental note of any promising material I saw.

Yesterday I did some stretching and started some of the rehab exercises Rob had shown me.  Then I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  I felt surprisingly good in the boat and even got some good rides on the wake behind a fuel barge that services the tour boats that pass through Memphis on the Mississippi.  All the while I tried to keep my left arm in the neutral position as much as possible; since good paddling form involves keeping the elbows close to the body, I was able to do so without much trouble.  On the way home from the river I stopped and picked up several logs I'd spotted during Friday's bike ride.

This morning I did some more bike scouting, focusing on a couple of the neighborhoods south of the Greenline that I usually ride out to Shelby Farms.  I didn't see much bowl-carving material today, but I live in a big city with lots and lots of trees, so I feel pretty sure I can find what I need in the next few days as long as I keep at it.

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Another week crossed off

Last week was much like the weeks that preceded it: I paddled Tuesday and Saturday, did a bike ride Thursday and yesterday, and did lots of rehab exercises the rest of the time.  The chiropractor showed me a couple of new exercises to add to the routine, and suggested we do some dry needling the next time I go in.  I'm scheduled to do that this coming Thursday.

I've more or less packed it in as far as racing goes this year, though there's at least one event that's tempting: there's a downwind race on Lake Michigan the weekend of October 8-9.  That's a long trip for me, and I'm nowhere near race-ready, but I'm not immune to those FOMO urges.  I'll most likely stick to my guns and pass it up unless I experience some very quick and significant improvement in the ailments department.

For now, I'm putting my athletic life on the back burner because my friend Rob has come down from New York to visit, and I'm going to show him around town.

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Monday photo feature

In recent years I've been traveling out to the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon-Washington state line for the purpose of downwind surfski paddling.  But back in 1998 I went out there to enjoy one of that region's other offerings: whitewater.  In this photo I'm paddling on a section of the White Salmon River, which originates in the vicinity of Mount Adams in Washington and flows southward, meeting the Columbia River across from the town of Hood River, Oregon.  Photo by Wendy Peterson.

Is it possible for me to get back into some whitewater paddling?  I can't think why not, but there are some logistical hurdles I'll have to clear.  The nearest decent whitewater stream is some four hours from where I live.  And I'll have to get myself a new boat: the boat pictured above was my go-to river-running craft for about 20 years, but then it got stolen from behind my building six years ago.

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Weary

I can't say that last week offered much of interest to those wanting to read about canoe and kayak training.  I did my rehab exercises, but until the weekend I did little else that can be called real training or anything fitness-oriented.  Part of the reason is that I was busy with some non-athletic things: both my woodworking business and my rental properties have been commanding much of my attention lately.

And I continue to grapple with motivation and general existential questions of what my paddling future is going to look like.  It seems like in the last two years I've been training more and enjoying it less, and it's gotten to where I can't even think about my boat or the river without thinking about how exhausted I sometimes feel out there.

One idea I've had is to get back into some whitewater paddling.  But while I may in fact do that, it has motivational challenges of its own, most notably the fact that there's no whitewater where I live and I'll have to make road trips to do it.  The biggest appeal of open water/surfski paddling is that I have an ideal place to do it right here at home, and I can paddle for an hour or two and still have the rest of the day to get work done and live my life.  Getting myself to a whitewater-rich region requires investing an entire day or an entire weekend or more.

Meanwhile, I continue to have my aches and pains, and while they don't directly affect my paddling, they've been a detriment to my overall quality of life, and I'm getting more and more frustrated with their refusal to go away.  I've got the rehab exercises that my chiropractor gave me for my deltoid/biceps pain and that another physical therapist gave me for my neck tightness, but I've been doing them and doing them and doing them, and the discomfort is still there.

On top of all that, my age increased by an integer over the weekend.

Anyway... on Thursday I tried to get out and do some exercise in the form of riding my bike.  But about three miles from home I got another flat tire.  I had all the necessary tools to change a tire except one, and it was an important one: an air pump.  I've given up on the old tubular pumps that mount on a bike's frame because it takes an eternity and a lot of physical effort to achieve even 30 pounds per square inch (my bike's tires need a minimum of 40 or 45 psi).  And I was about four miles from the public pump that I'd used for my flat tire a week earlier.  So I found a place to lock up the bike, summoned an Uber to take me home, and drove my pickup truck back out to retrieve the bike.  Once I was back home from that errand I walked to the bike shop in my block and asked the friendly owner what the latest tire-inflation technology is, and he sold me a little carbon dioxide canister that he said can air up a tire in no time.  So I hope I now have all the survival gear I need now that I'm doing some slightly more serious bike riding.

Saturday morning I went down to the river and got in the boat for the first time since paddling with Scott up in Kentucky.  I'd sort of been dreading it for the reasons listed above, but once I was warmed up I didn't feel half bad in the boat.  I even had the gumption to do some surfing behind a barge rig out on the river, though I missed the best waves because I got turned broadside and took a long time getting back into the right position.  In the end I got one decent ride, and then I headed back to the harbor.

Yesterday I got back on the bike, and this time I got a good ride in without any flat tires.  I did my usual ride out to Shelby Farms and back.  I got rained on during the trip back, and that actually felt pretty good on a hot late-August afternoon.

This week will include a bit of paddling, a bit of riding, and of course more rehab work while I ponder what's ahead for me.

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