Another week of spring-fever fun

It's been another week of trying to keep something going in the athletic department while having lots to deal with in my non-athletic life.  The next race I'm considering doing is in mid June, so before long I guess I'll ramp things up again.  But I'm satisfied with how this past week went.

I made it down to the river Tuesday for a 60-minute paddle.  It was quite breezy from the south and I went out on the river to see if there was any downwind action, but it was small.

I did a leisurely bike ride Wednesday afternoon, thinking I would do a more serious one on Thursday, which has been my bike-riding day lately.  But rain moved in Thursday afternoon.  I'm just fine with paddling in the rain, but riding my bike in the rain?  I don't like that so much.

So I pushed the bike ride to Friday, and I made it a good one, taking the Greenline out to Shelby Farms and looping around the lake before returning home.  I often see deer out in Shelby Farms or in the Wolf River bottoms, and they usually dash away when they see me coming.  But on Friday there was a whole flock of young deer grazing no more than 30 feet off the bike path, and when I rode by they stayed right there and kept on munching grass:

I continued on and did my loop around the lake, and when I passed back through this location about 20 minutes later, the deer were long gone.

Yesterday I was ready to get back in the boat for a longer paddle.  There was a strong south wind blowing, and rather than expose myself to all that with another trip around the Loosahatchie Bar, I elected to stay on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River and paddle up the Wolf River to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge before heading back.  Up on the Wolf the water is much more sheltered from the wind, and I was able to relax and focus on technique and stroke mechanics in a way I can't quite do on rougher water.  Meanwhile, I was actually feeling tired and sluggish in the boat; I think Friday's bike ride took more out of me than I realized.  So it was a pretty tough two hours.  I had to paddle some rough water on my way back down the Mississippi, and I tried my best to relax and let the current carry me.  Even so, I was flat-out exhausted by the time I was back in the harbor.

I woke up a couple of times last night with my arms throbbing, probably because I'd used them too much out on the river.  I went back down there this morning planning to keep the intensity low.  The south wind was blowing even a bit harder, and I relaxed and didn't fight it as I paddled down to the harbor's mouth.  Once I got a look out over the river I saw some small but serviceable downwind runs, and I couldn't resist going out and playing on them a little.  I didn't stay out there too long: the runs were confused and hard to catch, and I also still wasn't entirely comfortable out there myself.  In another six weeks, when hot weather has settled in for the summer, I'll be able to go out there and not care about swimming.  Anyway, back in the harbor I paddled easy and tried to take good strokes until time had expired on a 50-minute session.

I'm still not in super-serious training mode, but I'd say it wasn't a bad week.

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