Tuesday morning I got in the boat and warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did sort of a variation on the tempo workout I'd done the previous Tuesday. I did five 1000-meter pieces, starting every 8th minute, and tried to maintain 11.5 kilometers per hour while keeping the stroke rate below 80 strokes per minute and preferably in the low 70s. I chose 11.5 kph as my target rate because I thought I'd have the wind at my back, but in fact the wind seemed to be swirling around from all directions, so at times I was moving more like 11.0 kph.
Past performances suggest that I really ought to be able to maintain 5 minutes per kilometer in a 5- or 10-kilometer race. That's an average speed of 12.0 kph. But wishing something doesn't make it so, and back in February I learned that it was counterproductive to set goals for pace workouts based on what I wish I could do rather than on what I can actually do. So I'm dialing back the expectations a bit for these pace workouts, hoping that they'll be good solid aerobic sessions and that I can elevate my speed capabilities in shorter, faster workouts.
Actually, with a big downwind race coming up in July, the focus on pace will probably give way to an emphasis on speed and power sooner rather than later. But at the moment I'm still working on general fitness and saving the more specific stuff for later.
This morning I went out and paddled a steady loop on the Mississippi for 60 minutes. Some heavy rain was on the way, but it didn't arrive until the afternoon. After dropping for a couple of weeks, the river is about to start rising again as a result of storms that have moved across the watershed upstream. The current forecast says it'll get up to 24.6 feet on the Memphis gauge, and I expect that'll be revised upward once this rain we're having here now moves on across the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio basins.
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