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:

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