Working up a plan for winter

It's been the better part of a month since my last post, but I haven't been in hibernation.

The unseasonably warm weather we had in October bled into the first week or so of November.  But the temperature has surely enough been trending downward.  I'm pretty certain we've seen our last day above 80 degrees Fahrenheit for this year.  This month has treated us to a lot of days in the 60s and 70s, but the last several days have stayed below 60 degrees, and the forecast is showing some highs in the 40s in the next couple of weeks.

In the last couple of years I've come to the decision that I've paid my dues when it comes to paddling in cold weather.  And so at this time of year I transition into some dry-land fitness activities.  Because of the above-normal temperatures this fall, I've continued to paddle quite a bit; but with the water temperature dropping on the Mississippi River, I think I've done my last barge-wake surfing until next spring.  I've been staying in the harbor or at least close to it, and working hard on my rotation from the hips.

Meanwhile, I've worked up a couple of dry-land routines for those days when the weather isn't something I want to paddle in.  My main focus in these is to work on my legs and core.  One is an indoor routine, for when it's pouring down rain outside: I do a couple of core exercises on the stability ball, some Hindu squats, and some abdominal crunches while hanging from the pullup bar.

When it's dry outside, but too cold and windy for paddling to be desirable, I go out and do some running and some medicine ball drills.

So, to borrow a phrase I heard Greg Barton use several years ago, I'm "letting the weather be my coach."  This past week has been a perfect example of that.  The early part of the week was warm, and I paddled both Sunday and Tuesday.  By Wednesday morning colder air had moved in and I stayed out of the boat for several days, doing the indoor routine Wednesday and Saturday and the outdoor routine in the Greenbelt Park on the riverfront on Thursday.

The weather warmed up a bit yesterday: by mid-morning the temperature was in the 50s on its way to a high in the mid 60s.  So I returned to the riverfront and got in the boat.  I did a lot more work on rotation, did a couple of surges, and in general tried to maintain a cruising pace a touch above my comfort zone.

I don't normally paddle on Monday, but with the forecast showing another warm day today followed by much cooler weather the rest of the week, I went on back down to the river this morning.  In a 60-minute session I did some stroke-power drills.

That's how it'll be for at least the next few weeks: a mix of in-the-boat and out-of-the-boat stuff, with the weather dictating how much of each I do.  Our winters aren't too terrible in this part of the country, and I hope that once I come out on the other end of the cold-weather season I'll have a strong platform of general fitness to build on.

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