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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