Monday photo feature

This is where I was exactly two years ago: lounging in the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club on the Western Cape of South Africa.  Seated at right are our two coaches for Downwind Camp, Jasper Mocke (red cap) and his brother Dawid.  That's me in the upper left corner, with fellow campers Moses (lower left), Ezra (foreground), and Donald (orange shirt).  I'm guessing we've just gotten back in from paddling out on False Bay.  It's the middle of summer there and the weather is deliciously warm.  Carefree times, indeed.

There's another Downwind Camp going on there this week, and several of my racing friends from the southeastern U.S. are participating.  They include Chris Hipgrave, whom I saw down in Florida several weeks ago, and Alessia Faverio and Cam Thacker, who have attended the Florida training camp in the past but didn't this year because they were saving money for the South Africa trip.  They're now posting about their trip on social media, and I'm feeling all jealous.  Don't you just love the way social media makes you feel?  Oh well... hopefully one day I'll return to Fish Hoek or some similarly awesome place, and people can get all jealous of me.  So there.

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Toiling away in offseason obscurity

The never-ending frigid spell finally ended last Sunday when the temperature rose above freezing to stay.  By Monday it was up around 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  50 degrees never felt so warm.

On Tuesday I got in the boat for the first time in ten days.  I stayed in the harbor and did another round of work on my hip rotation.  I paddled for 60 minutes, and was reminded of how hard it is to focus on one mechanical aspect for that long.  But I really would like to get more comfortable with this change.  Rotating down at my hips should take stress off my arms and shoulders, where, as regular readers know, I've had a lot of discomfort for the last several years.

Before going to the river Tuesday I did a couple of sets of the exercises I've been doing lately--Hindu squats and core exercises on the stability ball.  I was still feeling sore from having started these exercises the previous week, especially in my abs and quads.  It was as stubborn an episode of soreness as I can remember.

I paddled another 60 minutes Friday, and again yesterday.  The theme remained the same as I focused on just one thing, how my body was moving in the boat.  I didn't worry about how fast I was going or what energy system I was working or any of that stuff.

And that's pretty much it for where I am these days.  Not a whole lot of excitement.  My first race of the year will probably be March 23 at Ocean Springs, but my mind isn't really in competitive mode these days.  I just want to paddle the best I can, and be ready to perform well whether it's in a race or in some more recreational undertaking.

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Monday photo feature

I don't have any particularly profound regrets in this life, but I am kind of sorry that I never had an opportunity to get into cross country skiing.  The snow that fell here in the Mid South a week ago was powdery and not too wet, and I'm pretty sure it was ideal for that activity.  Once the streets had been driven on just enough for the snow to get packed down a bit, as in the photo above, we had a whole network of groomed ski trails.

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Shut down, to some extent

It's been a frigid week here in the Mid South.  Since last Sunday the temperature has risen above freezing for just a few hours, and it's spent quite a bit of time in the single digits on the Fahrenheit thermometer.  The snow that fell Sunday and Monday has had little chance to melt, and the melting that has occurred has re-frozen, making the streets even more treacherous than they were earlier in the week.

I've spent most of the week indoors being utterly unproductive.  While I have a project to work on in the woodworking shop, it's at a point where I need to go out and get some more material, and I just don't want to be out driving right now.  I'm trying (and mostly failing) to persuade myself to knock out some tax-filing and other paperwork chores.  Meanwhile, I've been binge-watching some television.  I normally watch very little TV, but my housemates down in Florida got me hooked on the "Ted Lasso" series, and now I'm using the seven-day free trial period offered by Apple Tee Vee Plus to watch all 34 episodes.  Just one of the little ways in which I stick it to The Man.

It's hard not to consider it a lost week in terms of canoe and kayak training.  Even if I were feeling plucky enough to go paddle in this weather, it's been cold enough that there's a fair chance the harbor has been iced over (I haven't been down there to check).  The same is true for bike riding: I'm even less inclined to do that in cold weather than paddle, and the whole landscape is covered in ice anyway.  I have managed to do a decent amount of stretching, including the new hip stretches I started doing last weekend; I've also started doing a couple of core exercises on the stability ball and some Hindu squats, along with some rotation drills in which I'm trying my best to twist my rear end against the floor, just like I need to be doing in my boat.

So I haven't completely wasted the week... I haven't made any cardiovascular gains to speak of, but I've made some effort in the tedious process of technical adjustment.  I admit that it would have been nice to have an erg machine for this work.  I've resisted getting one because most of the time we have liquid water to paddle on here, and even when it's cold I prefer that to the mind-numbing repetition of erg work.  But when intensive focus on mechanics is necessary, it's better to do it in a warm, comfortable environment, and it sure would be nice to have an erg for that.

The last blast of Arctic air was last night and this morning... for now, at least.  This coming week the temperature is supposed to rise as high as 60 degrees, albeit with some rain.  I hope to be back in the boat soon.

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Monday photo feature

The first few times I ran Bull Sluice rapid on the Chattooga River, it was in a Blue Hole "OCA" canoe that could be paddled either tandem or solo.  The camp I went to had a rule against campers running the rapid, and so the counselors would paddle all six of the camp's canoes through the formidable whitewater maelstrom.  My first summer as a counselor was in 1985, and that's when I made my first run of the rapid.

This photo was shot by Todd Tyler in 1987.  The river is flowing somewhere around 1.3 or 1.4 feet on the U.S. 76 bridge gauge.  Though I prefer to paddle on the left in a whitewater canoe, here I'm paddling on the right because at the time I thought I would need a brace on that side as I went over the main drop.  As my paddling skills improved in the years since then, I realized that paddling on the left works just fine.

The Chattooga River is born in the mountains near Highlands, North Carolina, and flows in a southeasterly direction.  It leaves North Carolina and forms the border between South Carolina and Georgia.  At its confluence with the Tallulah River, it becomes the Tugaloo River; farther downstream, below Hartwell Reservoir, it becomes the Savannah River for the rest of its journey to the Atlantic Ocean.

Bull Sluice is located just upstream of the U.S. 76 bridge that crosses the Georgia-South Carolina state line.

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Letting the weather be my coach

After checking out of the rental house in Dunellon last Sunday, I drove a couple of hours south to Tampa, where I visited my friend Jonathan who moved there from Memphis last summer.  Jonathan has taken up sailing and we hoped to get out on his boat, but the weather didn't cooperate.  We had a good visit just the same.

I began the trip home Tuesday morning.  As I departed the Tampa Bay area, violent thunderstorms were moving across Alabama and into the Florida panhandle.  By the time I had turned west on Interstate 10, the wind was making driving difficult: I was afraid my boat would blow off the car and take the roof racks and bicycle with it.  So I got off at an exit and waited for the worst of the storm to pass through.  Having checked the radar that morning, I knew the squall line was narrow and wouldn't stick around for long, but I also knew it would be accompanied by heavy rain and stronger winds.  It didn't disappoint.  Once I was back on the road moving west toward Tallahassee, I saw two overturned semi trucks and quite a few billboards whose ads had been torn off.

I spent Tuesday night in central Alabama, and arrived home a little after noon on Wednesday.  I found myself dealing with a ceiling-high stack of chores that had accumulated while I was away.  On Thursday morning I was feeling swamped with work, not to mention tired from my travels, and going out paddling was the last thing I felt like doing.  But the weather outside was lovely, and a look at the forecast revealed that Thursday would be the last pleasant day for quite a while.  So I dragged myself down to the riverfront for a 60-minute paddle in the harbor.

I sprayed some protectant wax in my seat bucket to provide some lubrication for my hip rotation, and off I went.  I tried hard to use my legs to generate the rotation, and I felt about as awkward as I'd felt down in Florida.  I also felt slow.  It was somewhat breezy and hard to get an accurate idea of how fast I should be moving the boat, and I also had a feeling I shouldn't even worry about speed while making a technical adjustment.  But it was hard not to notice that my speed was down a bit.

By the time I finished I was glad I'd paddled just the same.  I think by encouraging my body to relax, I also relaxed my brain a bit and felt less stressed over all the things I have to do.

Heavy rain moved across the area Friday, and strong wind came behind that front bringing colder air with it.  It was definitely a day to stay inside.  I got online and looked at some yoga exercises that are supposed to "open up" one's hips; when I tried them myself I couldn't do them nearly as well as the people demonstrating them in the online videos, but there's no reason I can't incorporate them into my stretching routine and see if I can get more comfortable with them.  With miserably cold weather expected to settle into this area for most of next week, I'm hoping to come up with a gym routine that includes some kind of hip-rotation drills.

The temperature dropped to around 25 degrees Fahrenheit overnight, but by the time I got up yesterday morning the sun was out and the wind had died down.  Even though it was some 20 degrees colder than when I'd paddled on Thursday, I decided it was tolerable enough to get one more paddle in before the much worse weather that's expected to pay us a visit.

All the rain that's fallen here in the last week has also fallen higher up in the watershed, and the Mississippi River is on a big rise.  When I got down there yesterday morning the level was at 3.6 feet on the Memphis gauge--the first above-zero level I've seen since I can't remember when.  And it's coming up fast: it was a foot higher by yesterday afternoon, and the current forecast says it'll be up to almost 16 feet by next weekend.

I paddled for another 60 minutes yesterday, doing more hip-rotation work.  Waxing my seat bucket definitely makes it a bit easier than it felt down in Florida.  There were moments when I felt myself getting more comfortable with it, but much of the time it still felt awkward.

I'm glad I got it in, at least, because I doubt much paddling will take place for the next week.  As I write this on Sunday afternoon, it's snowing and 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius) in Memphis.  According to the current forecast, Thursday is the only day this week that will have a high temperature above freezing, and that'll be 36 degrees with rain and freezing rain.  I've paddled in worse conditions, but at this point in my life I kind of feel like I've paid my dues in that department.

Mostly, I'll be looking to do some indoor exercise.  Like I said, I hope to draw up a gym routine that includes some hip rotation.  Today I just did some full-body stretching, including those "hip-opening" yoga movements.

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Monday photo feature

I suppose we could call this an updated version of the photo I posted last Monday.  It was shot by Vadim Lishchuk of Newtown, Pennsylvania, who joined us for some of our workouts last week.  This was a chilly Wednesday morning on the foggy Rainbow River.  Paddling the K2 on the left are Royal McDonnell of Lake Placid, New York, and Steph Schell of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.  That's me in the middle, and to my right is Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina.

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Camp winds down with a time trial

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Steph and Chris N., who were anxious to get back to Pennsylvania as much ahead of the winter storm that's headed toward the eastern seaboard as they possibly could.

The rest of us took the morning off from paddling while a system of heavy wind and rain moved through the area.  By lunchtime the rain had moved out, and later in the afternoon Chris H., Royal, and I met a few other paddlers at the Blue Run access on the Rainbow River for our time trial, in which we would paddle up the Rainbow from the Route 484 bridge to the KP Hole public access.  Normally we would go downriver for a time trial, but the forecast indicated stiff headwinds for downstream paddlers yesterday.

Meanwhile, there was a Strava record for our 484-to-KP course: 29 minutes, 22 seconds by Robert Norman of the Tampa Bay area.  I don't do Strava myself, but Chris H. and Royal do, and they were keen on taking a shot at that record.

But that was their worry.  I was just hoping for a respectable effort after a taxing, sometimes demoralizing week of training.  After some warmup time I decided to get on with it.  I lined up at the downstream edge of the bridge, started my watch, and took off.

I knew the distance up to KP Hole was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 kilometers, and as I paddled upriver I saw that I was moving the boat around 10 kilometers per hour--sometimes above, sometimes below depending on how well I chose my lines to avoid the strongest downstream current.  Every now and then I would hit a patch of shallow water and my speed would plummet below 7 kph, but other times I would pick a good line and cruise along close to 11 kph.

I wouldn't say I was feeling "good," exactly; I was quite stiff and sore from the workouts we had done on Friday.  But I was comfortable with the intensity level and never doubted that I could sustain it all the way to the finish.  I aimed for 80 strokes per minute.  Eventually the KP Hole facility came into view and I bore down for a strong finish.  I paddled up to the upstream edge of the KP Hole property and stopped my watch at 33 minutes, 50 seconds.  My G.P.S. device measured my distance paddled at 5.66 kilometers.

Chris and Royal and I paddled together back down to the Blue Run access.  There Royal uploaded his effort to Strava, and we learned that he was the new record holder for this course.  His official time was 28:17.  Chris also finished under the old Strava record with a time of 29:01.  I, meanwhile, was satisfied with my result, so the mood was upbeat as we loaded our boats in the parking lot.

This morning I went back to the river for a recovery paddle.  I headed downstream toward the Withlacoochee River, which I'd never really checked out before.  I paddled down past where the U.S. 41 bridge crosses it, then back up to where the Withlacoochee State Trail crosses it.  It's definitely different from the Rainbow: the Rainbow is crystal clear, while the water is tannin-stained on the Withlacoochee; the Withlacoochee also has quite a few algae blooms on it.  But I thought the Withlacoochee was pretty enough, especially once I got away from the built-up banks right near the U.S. 41 bridge.

I tried to focus on my rotation, though I was tired and sore from yesterday and my thoughts were wandering about.  But it was a pleasant sunny morning, and I saw an otter right as I was getting back to the Blue Run access ramp, so all told it was a successful paddle.

Well, that concludes the Rainbow River camp for this year.  I have to check out of the rental house soon.

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All bent out of shape over my mechanics

Yesterday morning's session was four 19-minute pieces with a one-minute break in between.  The prescribed stroke rate was 60 strokes per minute for the first, 66 spm for the second, 72 spm for the third, and 60 spm for the fourth.

It was my first time in the boat since my discussion with Chris N. about my "false rotation."  Basically, the problem is that I've been doing all my rotation in my upper torso rather than down in the hips where the connection with your leg power takes place.  Per Chris's instruction, I moved my footboard forward (away from me) one notch so I could get my legs a bit straighter on each leg drive.  I also talked to Royal, who had his own "false rotation" issue a year ago and spent the ensuing months working on it, and he told me he looks for the sensation of twisting his rear end against the seat.  The most helpful tip he gave me was to try to move my backside across the back of the seat bucket instead of straight into it.

So that was what I spent yesterday morning working on more than anything else.  And it felt terrible, as if I were completely re-learning how to paddle.  I definitely sacrificed some speed: when paddling downstream it was all I could do to maintain 12 kilometers per hour.  But I resolved to put all such worries out of my mind for the moment and focus exclusively on that twisting motion.  This will definitely take some time: Royal told me it was a couple of months before he really felt like he was getting the hang of it.

The afternoon workout yesterday was a pyramid of sprints with long recoveries, to make our bodies produce lactic acid and then flush it out before the next sprint.  The sprints were 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 15 seconds, and 10 seconds; the recovery times were 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes.

Chris N. told me not to worry about my new rotation challenge during the sprints, but I worked on it during the warmup and the cool-down.  And it felt just as terrible as it had in the morning, if not worse.  By the end of the session I was tired and frustrated, and the idea of spending the rest of this winter toiling through mechanical issues all alone in the harbor back home is just not getting my juices flowing right now.

This morning we did two sets of (4 minutes on, 1 minute off) at 60-64 spm.  We did the first set with light resistance on the boat and the second set without.  This actually was a good workout for working on hip rotation because of the resistance that killed glide and thus increased blade pressure, but I didn't feel any better that I did yesterday.  Part of the problem was that I'd left my shoes back at the house and had to paddle barefoot, which I hate doing in a surfski.  Chris N. suggested I do some yoga to open up my hips more; I'll look into that when I get home.

We wrapped up today with some varied-pace training, sort of like what happens when you're trading wake rides with other competitors in a race.  It was two sets of five times (3 min. at 60 spm and 2 min. at 75 spm).  I continued to struggle with rotation but got through the workout decently enough.  All that's left is a time trial tomorrow and another workout Sunday morning, and then I'll have some time to regroup and try to figure out how to recapture my paddling self-esteem.

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Florida training camp continues

Monday was a rest day, and we "rested" by riding our bikes down the Withlacoochee State Trail for 21 miles to the town of Inverness, and then riding back.  42 miles is nearly twice as long as the longest ride I regularly do at home, but we kept the pace reasonable and it was actually a nice relaxing "active" recovery.  Also, in Inverness we took the time to enjoy a leisurely lunch at a good diner.

The weather hasn't exactly been what one expects down in sunny Florida.  The daily Fahrenheit highs have been just in the 60s, often with a chilly breeze.  The overnight lows have been down around 40, and it's typically still in the 40s during our morning paddling sessions.  I think the El Niño weather pattern is largely to blame.  But I'm pretty sure it's still nicer than what any of us would be dealing with back home right now.  Back in Memphis the highs are mostly in the 40s this week, with some overnight lows in the 20s; I expect it's about the same in western North Carolina, where Chris Hipgrave and his wife Trish live.  Chris Norbury and Steph Schell hail from Pennsylvania, where the forecast is calling for heavy snow later this week, and Royal McDonnell is from Lake Placid, New York... the Adirondacks, for crying out loud.  I think we're doing just fine down here in Florida.

Yesterday morning we went out and did a "calm" 75-minute paddle.  It was a wake-up session in advance of a much tougher afternoon workout: three 8-minute pieces at 80-88 strokes per minute, or, as Chris H. explained, race pace for a 10-kilometer race.  We had 8 minutes recovery time in between.  My stroke rate for a 10K race is not much more than 80, so that's where I tried to keep it during the three pieces.  The workout was definitely hard, but nowhere near the worst I'd ever hurt.

I actually thought this morning's workout was harder, or at least more of a grind.  We did four sets of (6 min. at 56 spm, 4 min. at 60 spm, 3 min. at 64 spm, and 2 min. at 68 spm).  The first two sets were upriver, and Chris H., Steph/Royal (paddling tandem), and special guest Vadim Lishchuk opened a big lead on me during that period.  We got back together on the trip back downriver, and I tried very hard to stay with them in the second pair of sets.  I didn't entirely succeed, but I did a better job than on the upstream leg.  I put all the power into each stroke that I possibly could, and my muscles were feeling it by the end of the workout.

Before the workout I'd issued a blanket request for feedback on my stroke form, and Chris N., who's done his share of coaching over the years, took me up on it.  He told me that I was "false rotating"--while my leg drive was good, all it was doing was pushing my pelvic region into the back of the seat bucket rather than generating genuine rotation of the hips.  I was disheartened to hear this because it's exactly what I was paying a lot of attention to during my paddling sessions at home all fall, and I thought I was doing a decent job.  But at home I don't have other pairs of eyes on me, and in a technical sport like ours what you think you're doing in your boat and what you're actually doing are not always the same thing.  Chris gave me a couple of suggestions for my next time in the boat, and I guess I'll just keep trying to get it right for the rest of our camp and beyond.

We had the afternoon off to do whatever we felt like.  I went out for an easy 40-minute bike ride.

Back at the house we're renting, the party simply never stops.  There's no telling what sort of trouble the people I'm staying with might get into when left to their own devices:

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Monday photo feature

I'm attending winter training camp in Florida for the third time.  I came here last year, and two years before that.  The picture above is from my first camp: that's me in the blue shirt; to my left is Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina.  To my right are Alessia Faverio of Asheville, North Carolina, and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  We're about to start a workout on the lovely Rainbow River near the town of Dunellon.

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