Clearly, winter is not quite done yet. Between now and the start of spring on the 20th of March, the daily high temperatures are expected to be mostly below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. At least the sun came out Friday afternoon, but my training activity was indoors. Just a gym session.
Yesterday morning started sunny, but it was quickly clouding over by the time I was in the boat. I had a 5-kilometer time trial on tap, and I gauged the wind direction so I could avoid doing it into a headwind. Looking at the flags at the Coast Guard station across the harbor, I thought it was a north wind, but once I was paddling up toward the harbor's north end, I realized that it was more east than north.
I did three 8-stroke sprints, turned to head back south, and was on my way. The harbor is mostly straight, but it does have some gentle bends to it, and in the early going I found myself fighting a headwind. Shooting for a stroke rate of 80 strokes per minute, I moved as close as I could to the harbor's east bank in search of some shelter, but it was a struggle just to maintain 11.5 kilometers per hour. Once in a while I sank below 11.0, and it was clear that the 5-minutes-per-kilometer pace that I covet so much wasn't in the cards on this day. I tried to relax and take the most precise and powerful strokes I could. The last two kilometers were definitely tough, but I kept up the cadence and my speed actually nudged up a little because the wind was more in my favor. I reached the 5-kilometer mark right in the swirly water at the mouth of the harbor, and recorded a time of 26 minutes, 41 seconds. It was far from my best ever, but I think I gave a good honest effort from start to finish, so I can't really be too hard on myself.
Some rain moved through the area yesterday afternoon, but by this morning all the precipitation appeared to be south of here. A look at the Internet radar revealed that Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama were getting hammered with rain pretty good. Around here it was just cloudy, and the mercury was struggling to reach 50 degrees. Down on the riverfront I found a stiff north wind blowing that made it feel like a brutal winter day even though it wasn't really that cold. I put the pogies on for the first time in a couple of weeks and set out on my Sunday long paddle. With the Mississippi River flowing at 27.8 feet on the Memphis gauge I could have paddled around the Loosahatchie Bar again, but instead I opted to stay in the state of Tennessee and paddle up to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge on the Wolf River.
The trip up the Mississippi from the mouth of the harbor to the mouth of the Wolf was a real slog into the teeth of that wind. Adding insult to injury was the presence of an obstacle in the form of a touring riverboat (the American Countess) moored at the boat ramp just below the mouth of the Wolf. It looked like I had room to paddle between this vessel and the bank, but just like last week I found that passageway blocked by a floating tree trunk. I ended up carrying my boat up the ramp and across the parking lot to a spot where I could get back on the water in the Wolf's mouth.
Now that I was in the protected environs of the Wolf I was able to relax and concentrate on taking good strokes. The trip up to Danny Thomas and back gave me a good 6000 meters of flatwater distance paddling, and once I was back on the Mississippi I had the wind at my back. Then it was one last leg into the wind from the mouth of the harbor back to the dock. It was nowhere near my worst-ever winter day paddle, but I was glad to have it over just the same.
This morning was also the first of Daylight Saving Time, and so the dreaded circadian adjustment phase begins. I'm feeling dead-dog tired and am grateful to have a day off coming up tomorrow.
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