Monday photo feature

Five years ago the deadly Covid-19 virus had the world in its grip and had largely shut down everyday life here in this country.  Thankfully, paddling my boat was still a safe thing to do.  Adam Davis and I often got together on weekends for some paddling on the Mississippi River, where we didn't catch any viruses but caught lots of quality time in beautiful environs.

The Mississippi was at above-average levels for much of that year, giving us plenty of liquid real estate to explore.  The photo above was shot on April 11, when the river registered 33.5 feet on the Memphis gauge.  This is a shot of Adam paddling up through the flooded Greenbelt Park.  We continued upriver almost to the mouth of the Loosahatchie River, then came back downstream by way of the Loosahatchie Chute on the west side of the Loosahatchie Bar (lots of Loosahatchies in there, I know) before returning to the harbor.

I'm not sure it's correct to say that the nation and world have returned to "normal" since 2020, but at least the virus is not quite the threat that it was in the spring and summer of that year.  The one thing that has not changed at all is that I'm still getting in my boat and paddling it on the Memphis riverfront.

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Lots of activity as the summer solstice approaches

For those of you who liked my photo of a Muscovy duck and her ducklings several weeks ago, here's another bit of wildlife on my dock.

The music is performed by Memphis saxophonist/flutist/vocalist Hope Clayburn and her Soul Scrimmage band.  I'd say it's an ideal song for this video, except for the part about the snake being a "cobra" or a "mamba"... we don't have those on the Memphis riverfront.  This guy is just a non-poisonous water snake.

So, what's been going on lately?  Well, I'm getting in the boat about four times a week.  On my lucky days, I paddle to the mouth of the harbor and find a big upstream-moving barge rig generating some big waves out on the Mississippi that I can surf.  When I'm not so lucky, I just paddle steady, usually for an hour, and try to throw in some good surges.  I'm pleased to say that lately I've been feeling really good in the boat.

I want to start paddling my whitewater boat some soon, to get my body used to those movements again before I spend sixteen days paddling it in the Grand Canyon.  Last fall, while I was up at the Gauley River in West Virginia, the pedestal came unglued from inside the boat, and since then the boat had been sitting in my garage with a loose pedestal.  Yesterday I finally went and got a tube of marine-grade cement and glued the pedestal back in place.  I thought about paddling the whitewater boat this morning--we've had a lot of rain lately, and I could have gone out to the swollen Wolf River to practice some ferries and other swiftwater moves--but the glue was still too soft.  This particular brand of cement takes a full seven days to cure completely.  So I was back in the surfski on the Mississippi today.

Meanwhile, I'm also riding my bike some.  I'm trying to get on it at least twice a week.  Usually I follow the Greater Memphis Greenline (a local "rails-to-trails" trail) out to east Memphis, where I either do a loop around Patriot Lake in Shelby Farms or turn down the Wolf River Greenway and ride to Walnut Grove Road and back.

I've thought about incorporating some running, but for the last couple of weeks something has felt a little off in my left knee.  It feels like it could be some patella tendinitis under the kneecap.  So I'm holding off on the running and hoping that discomfort will run its course.

All told, I think my summer fitness program is off to a good start.  So far it's been the easy part of getting ready for the Grand Canyon.  More challenging is the organization of the trip and keeping the fifteen other people in my group on the same page.

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Monday photo feature

We've had a lot of rain this weekend, and there's more on the way.  On Saturday I got thoroughly rained on as I paddled my boat on the Memphis riverfront.

I'd always thought that ducks love rain.  But on Saturday I found this Muscovy huddled with her ducklings underneath the kayak racks on the dock.  We had a few minutes where the rain stopped, and the ducks wandered over to the edge of the dock, as if they were considering going for a swim; but then the rain returned and they were right back under cover.

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"Adventure" fitness

Well, another month has drifted on by with no new posts put up here.  If there's anybody left who hasn't given up on me yet, I appreciate you checking in.

It's looking pretty likely that I won't do a single race this year.  There are reasons that I've rehashed here numerous times, but the biggest one is that I just don't feel like getting out and racing these days.  I'm still paddling plenty, but it's more for general exercise, adventure, and enjoyment of the outdoors than to satisfy competitive urges.  And I'm preparing for a pretty significant paddling adventure that embarks just three months from tomorrow: a trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

And that's not the only big adventure that's on the calendar.  A couple of weeks ago the Mocke brothers announced the dates for their downwind camps on South Africa's Western Cape, and I decided to sign up for one next February.

So I don't lack for motivation to get in the boat.  For the Grand Canyon I'm looking to build general fitness and stamina to withstand sixteen days in a challenging desert canyon environment; after that I'll need to put together a more specific training plan to produce the high-intensity efforts that riding the ocean swells in South Africa demands.

The Grand Canyon preparation includes no small amount of organizational work: communicating with the other fifteen people in the party I've put together; filling out paperwork for the National Park Service; figuring out all the equipment and provisions both I personally and the group as a whole will need; transportation to and from Flagstaff, and accommodations there before and after the river trip; and so on.  As far as the fitness training goes, I'm trying to get in the boat four times a week and also do some strength work and some running and some bike riding on dry land.  So far I've just been paddling the surfski, but when the hot weather arrives I'll break out the whitewater boat that I plan to use in the canyon, and do lots of rolls and other drills.  Hopefully I can work out at least one trip to paddle some whitewater, too.

Again, thanks to those of you who are still checking in to this blog.  Since I'm not doing a lot of formal race training it feels like there's not so much to write about, but I'll try to keep something going here as summer sets in.

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Monday photo feature

 

I've always loved old steel truss bridges, and we've got three of them crossing the Mississippi River here at Memphis.  This was my view of them yesterday, when the river was flowing at about 36.9 feet on the Memphis gauge.

There are plans to build a new bridge that will replace the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge as the route of Interstate 55.  Construction is supposed to begin next year.  It needs to be done: the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge predates the Interstate system and has never met the specs for an Interstate highway.  And I expect the new bridge will be an impressive feat of engineering.  But will it have the character of those steel-truss spans of the 19th and early 20th centuries?  It could, but I'll believe it when I see it.

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Weekend paddling footage

If I thought long and hard, I could probably come up with something to write about the paddling I've been doing lately.  But it's really so much easier to let some video footage do the talking.

Here's a short video of what I did Saturday and yesterday.  As I've been reporting here, the Mississippi River is flowing at quite a high level right now: on Saturday it was a little over 37 feet on the Memphis gauge, and yesterday it was a little under 37 feet.

I went out Saturday hoping to shoot some footage of the old steel bridges downstream of downtown Memphis.  But with a strong south wind blowing and a lot of barge traffic out on the river, I ended up attempting some downwind paddling instead.  The conditions were decent but not ideal, and I was not in my most stable surfski and was having trouble relaxing and paddling hard for each run.  So I wasn't really styling it out there.  The video doesn't show the most dramatic moment of Saturday's paddle, when I returned to the bank along Tom Lee Park and found several city police officers waiting for me.  Apparently somebody in the park had thought I was in distress and dialed 911.  The cops didn't hassle me; they just wanted to be sure everything was all right.  I told them I was fine and thanked them for checking.  This is not the first time I've had rescue authorities called on me, and it always makes me wonder how somebody can think I look so hapless while doing something I've spent most of my life trying to be good at.  I think the truth lies in our city's cultural ethos: over ninety percent of Memphians seem to think that the Mississippi River is a dangerous place and cannot comprehend that there are a handful of us who might actually have some fun out there.

Oh well... I was back out there yesterday, and while it was breezy again, the river wasn't nearly as rough as it had been Saturday.  So I got to make my trip down to the old bridges.  We've got three of them spanning that part of the river.  The oldest one is the one in the middle, the Frisco Bridge, which opened in 1892.  It carries a single railroad track across the river.  The next-oldest one is the one on the upstream side, the Harahan Bridge (opened 1916).  It's also a railroad bridge, and it also has cantilevered platforms ("wagonways") on either side that once allowed automobiles to cross the river.  Today one of those wagonways has been repurposed as a bike-pedestrian path, the "Big River Crossing."  On the downstream side sits the newest bridge, the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, opened in 1949.  It's solely for automobiles and currently carries Interstate 55 across the river.

Anyway... hopefully this background information will enhance your enjoyment of the video, as will the soundtrack.  I pretty much always have music in my head, and the songs here, performed by Cookie Monster, Chris Thile, the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, and Burl Ives, are as likely as any to be taking up residence in my brain.

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Monday photo feature

 

If you kept up with my sporadic posts this past winter, then you know I had a couple of "dry-land" workout routines.  Yesterday morning I stopped to take a picture of the spot where I liked to do one of those routines.  What we're looking at here is the place where I did some running and some core exercises and some medicine ball drills.

I know exactly what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "Hey... that ain't no dry land!"  And you're right.  Yesterday morning, at which time the Mississippi River was flowing at about 36.2 feet on the Memphis gauge, my workout spot was under water.

At normal levels, the Mississippi is inside its banks on the far side of that row of trees.  On this side of the trees is what we call the Greenbelt Park, a nice grassy strip of land that's ideal for anybody who wants to walk, run, toss a frisbee, fly a kite, walk a dog, have a picnic, or anything else that one goes to a public park to do.  But when the river rises into the mid-30s, all dry-land activities get put on hold.  On Saturday I paddled my boat over this piece of water.

A couple of days ago I saw a social media post moaning that "The park has been devastated!!!!"  I shook my head and thought, "Come on now, knock it off with the drama already."  Nothing has been devastated.  In a week or two or three--depending on what kind of rain falls upstream--the floodwater will recede as it continues its journey to the Gulf of Mexico.  The park will be muddy for a while, and the grass will be brown, but in quick order the ground will dry out and the grass will green back up and the park will be as good as ever.  I've seen it happen dozens of times.  Then, once more, people can work out, or play, or relax, right within view of the majestic Mississippi River.

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

Water from the sky and from higher ground

Some interesting events have transpired since my last post.  The weather has been the biggest story, as an extremely wet storm system moved across the Southeast and lower Midwest starting around the second of April.  Before the rain arrived in the Memphis area we had some gale-force south wind, and I made sort of a timid effort to do some downwinding out on the Mississippi River in front of Tom Lee Park.  Timid, because the water is still pretty cold at this time of year, and I didn't have my most stable surfski with me.

The first round of heavy rain moved in late on April 2, and while tornadoes visited parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and rural west Tennessee, my city was spared that kind of disaster.  I stayed indoors and worked on non-athletic projects on April 3 while the rain pounded the roof.

April 4 was actually a pretty nice day, as the rain took a break.  I got down to the river and paddled for an hour that morning.  But by the next day the rain was back with a vengeance, and I was grateful to live in a neighborhood that sits on pretty high ground.  Flash flooding was rampant in lower-lying areas as the torrential rain went on and on.

In all, about twelve inches of rain fell on Memphis in a four-day period.  And that same system of rain moved ever so slowly over the watersheds of the Tennessee, Cumberland, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, and upper Mississippi Rivers.  There has been considerable flooding, especially in the state of Kentucky.  Now, a whole lot of water is visiting Memphis in another way: flowing down the lower Mississippi River.  The day I paddled in those strong winds, the river registered around 8.5 feet on the Memphis gauge.  Today, the reading is 36.4 feet.  I'm not sure I've ever seen the river rise nearly 30 feet in less than two weeks.  Normally, a two-foot rise in one day is considered a big deal; last Monday, the river rose 5.6 feet.

Yesterday, when the level was 35.3 feet, I availed myself of the watery abundance to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar.  This is something I try to get out and do at least once a year, when the water level allows it: you need at least 18 or 19 feet of water on the gauge to enjoy a comfortable paddling depth around the top end of the Bar and down its west side.  Water depth was not a concern at all yesterday.  At one point I paddled over the inundated lower tier of the Greenbelt Park, where I was doing my running workouts just a few weeks ago.  For a paddler like me who starts and finishes at Harbortown Marina, the distance is usually about 12.5 miles.  With so much water yesterday, I was able to cut off some distance at the top end of the Bar and at the south end of Mud Island, and my G.P.S. device measured the distance at 19.45 kilometers, or about 12.1 miles.  My elapsed time yesterday was just over one hour, 56 minutes.  It takes a good solid effort to break two hours.

Paddling around the Bar never fails to leave me utterly exhausted for the rest of the day.  The weather was beautiful yesterday and I spent the afternoon just being lazy.

I returned to the river this morning with the intention of paddling easy for an hour.  There was a somewhat strong wind blowing from the south, and once I got out of the harbor I played around in the bumps out on the river.  Doing brief sprints out there seemed to help me feel better than I'd felt before paddling.

Right now I'm dealing with a little injury, though not one that will keep me out of the boat, fortunately.  Since Thursday I've had pain in the right side of my jaw.  It really hurts when I chew food.  Maybe it's a torn muscle, or a strained ligament... I really don't know.  All I know is that it feels like something of that nature.  I can often feel something popping in the right side of my jaw, as if the "hinge" that joins my upper and lower jaws is broken.  I'm hoping that it will heal itself in the next few days, but if it doesn't I guess I'll have to seek medical attention.  The thing is, I'm not sure if the dentist is the right doctor for this, or somebody else, like an orthopedist, maybe.

Whatever the case, I'll keep on paddling, even if I have to do it with my jaw wired shut.

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

Monday photo feature

Here's a picture I poached from the social media of my friend Nancy McDonald.  She and her husband Chris have been traveling the Southwest, and she took some pretty stunning photos during their time in Grand Canyon National Park.  Five months from now I'll be paddling my boat somewhere down in the bottom of that canyon.

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

Physical struggles

I did a bike ride Friday morning.  The rides I've been doing in recent weeks have been a little over an hour, and not terribly intense.  I've always thought of riding a bike as a fairly relaxing activity.  And yet... it seems like I've felt awful the day after a bike ride lately.  That was definitely the case yesterday: I woke up feeling tight and vaguely sore from head to toe.  I did some full-body stretching, and that was an utter ordeal.  I felt about as flexible as a kiln-dried 8/4 persimmon plank.  Then I went down to the river and paddled pretty easy for 60 minutes.  Once I got warmed up I felt reasonably okay in the boat, but had some soreness in my midsection.

I woke up feeling a good bit better this morning, though I was still tired and a bit sluggish.  One development of late is that my weight has been down in the last several months--closer to 150 pounds than 160.  Long-time readers might recall that I had a period of weight decline back in 2021-22, and that seemed to correspond with some low energy and listlessness.  My doctor's office tested things like thyroid and testosterone levels and found nothing conclusive.  Back around 2016-19, when I was racing especially well, my weight was up closer to 160 pounds.

I paddled for another 60 minutes this morning, and felt better than yesterday, but still lacked power and enthusiasm.  A strong south wind was blowing down on the riverfront and I mostly just played around in the chop out on the Mississippi before returning to the harbor where I worked on paddling relaxed in beam conditions.  Once I'd put in my time I went back to the dock and changed into dry clothes and drove home where some of my favorite non-athletic activities awaited.

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Feeling a bit rudderless, but paddling just the same

Well, a month has passed since my last post here.  I'd like to say that I've just been busy, but over the years I've almost always managed to get something posted even when I'm busy.

Since my last post it's sort of felt as though training activities have slowed to a crawl.  That's not entirely true, but some little pitfalls have dampened my mood about it all.  After some injury-free months during which I felt energetic and enthusiastic about the things I was doing, some aches and pains have now set in.  They started with a lot of soreness in my hips and pelvic area, and then I started feeling a lot of tightness in my left hamstring muscle that got really bad about two weeks ago.  I rode my bike for the first time in a long time, and then the next day I was driving my pickup truck, which, unlike my little sedan that I drive most of the time, has a manual transmission.  At one point I had just shifted gears and let up on the clutch with my left foot, and a wave of pain shot through my hamstring that was so bad that I thought I was going to have to pull over and get out and walk it off.  Fortunately the pain eased after a few seconds, and since then the muscle has just kept on feeling tight.

So, yes, my body hasn't been entirely cooperative lately.  And then there's the fact that I never really know anymore what I'm training for.  As I've been noting here for the last several years, the racing scene in my part of the country has almost completely disappeared.  The earliest event I might attend is over in Chattanooga, some five and a half hours away, on May 3; but I haven't yet decided just how badly I want to make that trip.  Like so many events nowadays, this one features two different races--a 6.7-miler and a 10.9-miler--and I've long considered that an utterly dumb idea.  Our sport is simply not big enough to be splitting its participants up into more than one category, and there always seems to be this unspoken expectation that the most accomplished racers are supposed to do the longer race, whatever the distances might be.  If I do find the gumption to drive over to Chattanooga and enter this event, I will do the 6.7-mile race, because decades of experience tell me that I am better suited to that kind of distance than one of ten miles or more.  But I think it's a safe bet that almost all the athletes who are at or above my competitive level will be racing 10.9 miles.  So I'll probably have little competition in the 6.7-mile race, and that's why I'm lukewarm about making the trip in the first place.

Meanwhile, my biggest event of the year, the one I'm most excited about, has nothing to do with competition.  My expedition through the Grand Canyon, scheduled to launch August 27, is slowly taking shape.  Having that on the calendar is good motivation to be fit, but I don't really need to be more than fit--it's not like I have to average 5 minutes per kilometer or anything like that.  I just need some solid stamina to negotiate the rapids and withstand the long days in the elements of the desert Southwest.

So... that's what's going through my head these days.  I'm doing very little racing, and honestly, I'm not feeling all that motivated to do a lot of racing.  My priorities have changed, I guess.  It's not that I'm not enjoying paddling as much as ever, but after being a gung-ho racer for decades, I'm now inclined to ease up a bit and enjoy the "adventure" side of the sport a bit more.  That includes my Grand Canyon trip, and I hope to get back to South Africa sooner or later, and I want to go paddle in Alaska one day... there's plenty to do.  And strength and fitness will still be required, especially for downwinding in South Africa and stuff like that.

We've crossed the vernal equinox and the weather is getting ever more friendly for paddling.  There's still a chilly day here and there, but the balance is tipping in favor of warmer ones.  That means I'm getting in the boat more and doing less dry-land stuff.  Since I might go to that race on May 3, I'm working in some formal workouts along with the usual mileage and work on stroke mechanics.  So while I may or may not bring home any race hardware this year, I'm moving a boat around with a paddle as always.

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

Monday photo feature

It's the "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, in March of 2021.  Here we have the front pack led by Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas.  Currently in second place is a double surfski paddled by Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi, and Nick Kinderman of Ocean Springs.  Roy Roberts of Chattanooga, Tennessee, holds third place, and that's me hanging out in fourth.  It was one of the more heated battles I can remember in that race.

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

Jury duty was quick

When I got down to the riverfront Monday it was 31 degrees Fahrenheit, but sunny.  I paddled for 60 minutes in the northern half of the harbor, where I could find at least some protection from the north wind.  The breeze wasn't especially strong, but when the temperature is below freezing any wind at all is unwelcome.

One thing I didn't mention in my last post is that I had a very strenuous project in my woodworking shop that stretched through last weekend.  I had to weave a chair seat with over 400 feet of 5/16-inch cord, and pulling all that material through at the end of each pass was hard on my arms and shoulders and especially my hands.  I don't normally count such "non-athletic" activities as part of "training," but it's worth pointing out that I was feeling especially tired and beat-up by the time I was in the boat on Monday.

By the time I was driving home from the river Monday, it had warmed up to about 37 degrees on its way to a high in the low 40s.  And that was about the nicest weather we would have all week.  On Tuesday it was overcast and blustery with a high in the 30s.  And then the real Arctic blast descended.  There was a mixture of snow and freezing rain overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, and then we had several days where the temperature didn't rise above freezing and dropped down to about 10 degrees at night.

Certainly, it was looking like a good week to sit indoors and discharge some civic duty.  At 8 AM sharp on Tuesday I finally reported to U.S. District Court in the Odell Horton Federal Building downtown.  I was whisked, along with everybody else in the jury pool, into an assembly room from which subsets of us would presumably be called into the courtroom to undergo the jury selection process.  We sat in there for an hour, then another hour, then another... at 12:30 they were so kind as to let us have an hour to go out for lunch.  Upon our return we sat there for another hour, then another... and finally, at 3:45, the presiding judge appeared.  He announced that as the trial was about to begin, some issues arose--a flurry of last-minute motions, stuff like that--that were more complicated than anybody had expected.  As a result, he had decided to delay the trial, and was dismissing us all.  We were now free from jury service until 2027 at the earliest.  (In federal court you can be summoned every two years, as opposed to every ten years in state courts.  Since the Western District of Tennessee includes pretty much all of the state's counties this side of the Tennessee River, the probability that I'll be called again anytime soon is pretty low.)

It was a pretty anticlimactic conclusion to this round of jury service, after I'd worked hard to finish a couple of workshop projects and fit in as many workouts as possible before I was called in.  After all my talk about it here, I'm sorry I can't share anything more consequential from my experience in our judicial system.

But... life goes on, one way or another.  Since I was already counting on a forced training break, and since the weather was so miserable, I stayed in and rested for the rest of the week.  At the same time, I took the opportunity to work on a project in the shop that I'd been wanting to do for the last year and a half or so, but never could get to because life kept getting in the way.  It was nice to attend to a part of my life that too often gets neglected, and in the overall scheme of things, I think that's just as important as getting my workouts in.  Sure, I felt a little antsy about the down time, but as I've noted here before, any race I'm likely to do is still months away.  I could take another week off, and it still wouldn't be hard for me to pick up where I'd left off.

The weather finally started warming a bit yesterday, and I went downtown and got in the boat once more.  I paddled for just 40 minutes because I was expecting an important phone call in the late morning and I wanted to be back home in time for that so I could give it my full attention.

I returned to the river today and did a higher-intensity session--four pieces of varying distances at anaerobic threshold.  Basically I just picked out some courses defined by objects in the harbor: from the end of the Beale Street Landing dock to one of the boats in the Memphis Queen Line flotilla (I clocked right at 2 minutes); from the monorail bridge to the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge (6:11); from the northeast corner of my marina to the southernmost mooring pylon at the old LaFarge facility (3:16); and from the southernmost mooring pylon at the Bunge plant to the northernmost pylon at the LaFarge facility (2:00).

Both yesterday and today were very nice days to paddle even though it wasn't exactly warm, mainly because there was practically no wind to speak of.  Yesterday the temperature was just above freezing with clouds giving way to sunshine, and today it was about 40 degrees with plenty of sunshine.  I've said it many times: I'd rather paddle when it's 30 degrees and sunny and calm than when it's 40 degrees and overcast and windy.

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

Monday photo feature

The year is 2019, and I'm standing near the Ohio River in Cincinnati, Ohio.  We have just raced nine miles down the lovely river.  I managed to take the win, with Michael Meredith (center) finishing second and Erik Snider (right) third.

One thing I remember about that event is that the race started at 7 AM Eastern Time--that would have been 6 AM in the Central Time zone from which I'd just come.  I got up around 4 o'clock Eastern so I would have time for some coffee and breakfast.  The nice thing about starting so early was that the temperature was very nice for racing.  It was the first Saturday in August, and by the time we were posing for this photo at the awards ceremony it was becoming about as hot as one expects at that time of year.

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

Making my last free week count

Another week went by with no call to duty at the federal courthouse.  So I was free for paddling and related activities.

The early-week forecast called for chilly temperatures with lots of rain Tuesday and Wednesday.  I went down to the river and paddled Monday, when the Fahrenheit temperature was in the high 30s.  It wouldn't have been such a bad day to paddle if it hadn't been for the wind.  I paddled into a headwind to the north end of the harbor, and once I was up there I worked my way back south with a lot of small loops and east-west zigzagging, just to keep my headwind exposure to a minimum.

When I went to bed Monday night my throat was suddenly very sore, and I woke up several times during the night to find that it was still sore.  For me, a sore throat is often a sign that I have a cold coming on.  Tuesday was shaping up to be a chilly rainy day, so I opted to stay in and give my body a chance to fight it off.  I did a lot of work done in the shop, but I didn't do any formal athletic stuff.  By Wednesday the throat soreness seemed to be fading and no cold symptoms were taking hold, and I did my indoor gym routine while some more rain fell outside.

The rain had moved out by Thursday, so I was back outdoors doing some running with some core exercises mixed in the Greenbelt Park that overlooks the majestic Mississippi River.  It was cold and windy and I was glad to have that session behind me.  Friday's weather was even colder, so I stayed in and did another indoor gym session.

Also on Friday, I learned that I finally must report to the federal courthouse downtown.  Because Monday is a federal holiday, my duty will begin on Tuesday.

In the early hours of yesterday morning some powerful thunderstorms moved into the area.  Storms were expected to continue all day yesterday, but the Internet radar showed a mid-morning break, so I went downtown and paddled.  Though the temperature was supposed to rise to near 70 degrees yesterday, it was only 50 or so while I was in the boat.  But the wind was light and the rain held off for most of the session, so in all I'd hit a pretty ideal window.  The heavens opened for about the last five minutes, so I was good and soaked when I got back to the dock, but soon I was in dry clothes, and the rain stopped so I could walk up to the parking lot without being doused again.

By afternoon it was freakishly warm outside, and by early evening another round of heavy storms was moving through with cold air behind it.  By the time I got up this morning, the temperature had plummeted.  I returned to the Greenbelt Park for some more outdoor dry-land work under overcast skies.  The temperature was a steady 35 degrees while I was down there, and if the wind had been bad on Thursday, this morning it was just plain awful.  At least it made me waste no time: I moved briskly from one exercise to the next, knowing that the sooner I got it done, the sooner I would be back home where it was warm.

It's supposed to drop into the mid 20s overnight, but tomorrow the sun is supposed to come out again and the high temperature is supposed to be a little over 40.  I'm hoping maybe I can get in the boat one more time before I'm forced to rest in a jury box.  It looks like the rest of the coming week will be miserably cold, so it's as good a week as any to serve my civic duty indoors.

I will say that while I'm not in any kind of high-level racing shape, I've been rocking the general fitness work this winter.  I'm feeling good about that, and I hope it'll stand me in good stead for whatever comes my way in the warmer months.

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Monday photo feature

The second Mocke Paddling/Paddle Africa downwind camp of 2025 is underway on the Western Cape of South Africa.  Kenny Howell, an Alabama native now living in Montara, California, is participating along with a few other North Americans.  That's Kenny on the left, speaking with Jasper Mocke as the group prepares to put in at Miller's Point.  Jasper's brother Dawid is standing behind Kenny.

I've known Kenny for some six or seven years.  As the West Coast rep for Epic Kayaks, Kenny handled my surfski rental the two times I flew out to the Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington.  Already a very solid downwind paddler, Kenny will likely come home with some tools for upping his game.

Seeing the photos and video on social media of Kenny and friends enjoying the Miller's Run in the summer sunshine is a reminder that I'd sure like to get back there sooner or later.  I think my Grand Canyon trip is as much as I can chew on this year, but... maybe next year.

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Getting plenty of exercise while federal court makes me hurry up and wait

The first week of my jury duty has come and gone, and I have yet to set foot in the courthouse.  Each evening I called the telephone number, entered my juror number, and got a recorded message informing me that I was not required to report the next day.

And so it goes: for the month of February I am living quite literally one day at a time.  It's not really how I prefer to live, but in some ways it's kind of nice.  Each time I'm told I don't have to go to court, the next day feels like a day off.

And so far this month, my training activities have suffered no interruption.  This past week I paddled Monday, did my indoor exercise routine Tuesday, did my outdoor routine Wednesday, paddled Thursday, did my indoor routine again Friday, and did my outdoor routine again yesterday.

My activities continue to be geared toward general fitness more than maximum canoe & kayak racing performance.  As I've noted recently, I'm not likely to line up for a race any sooner than May.  And my biggest event of this year is a trip through the Grand Canyon in August and September, and that will require not so much peak racing form as just a solid level of fitness.

The temperature was well above freezing all last week, but there was a lot of variety: sunny skies, overcast skies, quite a bit of wind, some chilly days, some freakishly warm days.  Yesterday was mostly cloudy and breezy with a temperature over 70 degrees Fahrenheit.  This morning it's still cloudy and breezy, but now the temperature has plummeted some 30 degrees.

I called the federal court's telephone number again Friday evening and learned that I do not have to report in tomorrow.  This jury duty is hard work, let me tell you.  I'm taking a rest day today, and right now my plan for tomorrow is to paddle even though it's supposed to be cloudy again and colder than 50 degrees.  It looks like there'll be lots of rain Tuesday and Wednesday, so those will be good days to stay indoors whether I have to go to court or not.  I really wish the court would go ahead and call me in, as the forecast is looking not so pleasant for the whole week.

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Monday photo feature

In August of 2016 I spent some time in the Hudson Valley of New York.  Here I'm paddling the Hudson River where it runs between the towns of Newburgh and Beacon, and it must have been a breezy day judging by all the water droplets on the camera lens.  That would be the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge that carries Interstate 84 over the river.

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By the seat of my pants, I'm keeping things going

It was another week of tailoring my workouts to the weather's whims.

On Monday I went down to the Greenbelt Park and did my outdoor dry-land routine that includes some running and some core exercises.

Tuesday's weather was a bit warmer and the wind wasn't so bad, so I paddled.  As I'm doing a lot this winter, I kept the stroke rate low and tried to take solid, precise strokes with good pelvic rotation.

I had a number of chores to do Wednesday, so I stayed home and did my indoor routine that focuses on my core and my legs.

Thursday was a rainy day.  But it was also quite warm, rising well above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  So I went back to the river.  My paddling session mostly coincided with a break in the rain, but I got drizzled on a few times.  I went a mile or so up the Mississippi and pushed the pace coming back down.  The wind was picking up from the south-southeast and I found myself fighting a stiff headwind to get back into the harbor.

Friday turned out to be quite a physically active day in unorthodox ways.  My car was overdue for an oil change, so I started the day by taking my car over to the far side of Overton Park, where there's a garage I've used for years.  They had a couple of other cars to do ahead of mine, so I took off on a hike around the neighborhood.  My main objective was to visit several "Little Free Libraries" that I know about to see if they had any reading material I was interested in.  Getting by them all required that I make a circuit around a big swath of the area surrounding the garage.  Once that mission was complete I swung back by the garage and learned that it would be close to another hour before my car was ready, so I headed in another direction, toward the rental property I own.  One of the tenants had told me that a tree branch had fallen during Thursday's storm, and I figured it was a good time to have a look at that.

The branch was up on the roof of the two-story building, and it looked like I would need a saw to cut it into manageable pieces, so I decided not to put up the ladder and go up there just yet.  Instead I walked back to the garage, and when I was just a block away from it I got a text from the mechanic telling me my car was ready.  Perfect timing.

All told, I think I walked at least four miles Friday morning.  I drove back home and launched into my "official" workout for the day, another round of my indoor routine.

Friday afternoon I returned to the rental property with the tools I needed.  It looked as though the branch had fallen pretty flat on the roof and done no serious damage.  (If it had penciled down vertically, it likely would have poked a hole in the roof.  That once happened to a house I owned a couple of decades ago.)  So I cut the thing up and threw the pieces down into the front yard, and then returned to terra firma myself to tidy the place up.  That wrapped up a day of working my entire body while getting all kinds of chores done.

Yesterday I returned to the Greenbelt Park and did my outdoor routine again.

Now I begin my month-long adventure with the federal judicial system, and apparently the way it works is that I call a number each evening to learn whether I must report to the courthouse the next business day.  I called Friday evening and was informed that I need not report tomorrow; tomorrow evening I'll call again to see if I have to go in Tuesday.  So the good news is that I won't have to go in to court every day of February, while the bad news is that I can't really plan anything else in advance.  For example, I have my semiannual dentist appointment a week from this Thursday, and I think I will have to re-schedule it because even though it's possible I won't have to go to court that day, I won't know for sure until after 5 PM the day before.

It looks like the weather will be lovely and warm and sunny for the next couple of days.  I'm having a day off today for the first time in a week, and I reckon tomorrow I'll go get back in the boat.  After that, who knows?  I'll be taking it quite literally a day at a time, and that's not how I'm used to doing things.  Rather than tailor my activities to the weather's whims, I'll be tailoring them to the federal court's whims.

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Monday photo feature

Here's a photo taken in 2017 on Barnett Reservoir just outside Jackson, Mississippi.  I'm sitting in my boat either just before starting a race or just after finishing.  It doesn't look like I'm breathing hard, so it's probably before the race.

That race down there is just one of a number that we used to have here in my part of the country, but don't anymore.  I miss it.

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Emerging from the deep freeze

The frigid air that moved in last weekend hung around through the middle of this past week.  I responded with some workouts on dry land.  On Monday I stayed indoors and did a routine that included lunges with dumbbells, a couple of core balance drills on stability balls, and some lying-down leg kicks.

On Tuesday I went down to the Greenbelt Park on a sunny but frigid and windy day.  I did some running both on flat ground and up hills, some oblique abdominal exercises, and some torso twists with the medicine ball.

By Thursday the Arctic blast was finally relenting, and I went back to the riverfront and got in the boat.  It wasn't exactly warm--I think it was just a little over 40 degrees Fahrenheit when I paddled.  But that's warmer than some of the weather I was paddling in down in Florida earlier this month.

Friday was colder and I did another round of the indoor routine.  Yesterday, with the temperature rising toward 50 degrees, I was back on the water.  Having done a rather grinding, low-stroke-rate technique session on Friday, I was keen to do something faster yesterday.  After a long warmup I did a piece that was a little over 400 meters, followed by two pieces on my 450-meter course from the monorail bridge to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  My time for the first piece was just under two minutes, and around 2:10 for the two bridge-to-bridge pieces.  I had a pretty strong tailwind for all three pieces, but having to paddle over the resultant chop offset that advantage somewhat.  My recovery time between the pieces was between five and ten minutes.

The wind was from the south, and that's better than a north wind, but at this time of year no wind is particularly welcome.  The wind forecast is definitely  something I look at when deciding when to paddle, when to work out outdoors, and when to work out indoors.

My jury duty starts a week from tomorrow.  Just how much of my time that's going to occupy, I won't know until I report to the federal courthouse downtown.  This coming week looks significantly warmer than last week was, albeit wet in the second half.  I hope to get in some good work before I venture into the unknown world of my civic obligation.

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Monday photo feature

Joe Royer shot this photo of me out on the Mississippi River fifteen years ago.  I'm pretty sure I've shared this photo before, but it seems suitable today as the Arctic blast that currently grips much of the nation is keeping the Fahrenheit temperature in the mid 20s here in the Mid South.

I don't think I've seen ice floes out on the Mississippi since this picture was taken.  Today's national weather map shows highs in the teens in Missouri and Illinois and even colder highs farther upriver, and you would think that should create some floes that would come drifting down by Memphis.  But such temperatures happen upstream of here every winter, and yet the floes are pretty rare.  I reckon ice formation must require some other atmospheric conditions that I just don't understand very well.

Oh well... ice or no ice, it's cold today.  Fifteen years ago both Joe and I were hardcore, but we seem to be getting too old for such foolishness now.

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Some Silver River wildlife

I finally got around to looking at the video footage I shot on January 8 at Silver Springs State Park near Ocala, Florida.  What we have here is a short clip that I edited from that footage:

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Real-world goings on

Since my return home from Florida last Sunday, training activities have been largely on pause.  The main reason is a big pile of nuisance chores that were waiting for me, a couple of which got drawn out longer than expected and caused me more than a little bit of grief and anger.

I'll spare you the grisly details of all that, but I will mention that one of the week's chores was to visit my doctor's office for my annual physical, and it seems that I'm in pretty good health these days (bloodwork results are still pending and I should hear about them sometime after this holiday weekend).  I'm still coughing a lot, but I think the frequency of my fits is decreasing ever so gradually.  The doctor thinks it's one of those "hundred-day coughs."

I finally got back in the boat on Friday, and again yesterday.  Frigid weather is now descending on the Mid South, and I wanted to get some paddling in before it arrived.  The sessions were generally calm, steady paddling, but I paid a lot of attention to stroke mechanics.

As for my plans for the immediate future, they're a little uncertain because starting two weeks from tomorrow I have jury duty in federal court, and at least according to the letter I received, it could last the entire month of February.  I hope that won't actually be the case, but the main thing I don't know yet is how "on call" the court will want me to be.

Part of me is frustrated because I feel like I ought to be building on what I got started down in Florida, but another part of me is aware that I might not have any sort of competitions in the foreseeable future.  The race at Ocean Springs that I have attended each March for many years is not going to happen this year.  Right now the earliest race that I might attend is one over in Chattanooga in May that Terry Smith told me about last week.  At the moment I don't know whether it will conflict with the college graduation of my niece and nephew, who both attend the same school over in Texas.

Anyway, for now I think my best bet is to re-start some kind of general fitness routine like I was doing back in the late fall--some paddling combined with some indoor and outdoor dry-land work that I can schedule around the weather forecast.  The very latest information will be available right here.

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Monday photo feature

A manatee noses up to the surface of the Silver River for a breath of air.  I shot this photo during our visit to Silver Springs State Park last Wednesday.  I actually got a good hour or so of video footage, and when I find time I'll edit that into something I can share on this blog and on social media and stuff.  When will I find time?  I have no idea.  Right now I'm feeling pretty swamped with real-world matters here at home after ten days away.

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Gutting out several more days

For most of the past week I've had an itchy rash from my ankles halfway up to my knees.  That's because the access we use on the Rainbow River is a ramp, meaning that we have to wade at least shin-deep into the water every time we put in and take out.  As a result, that part of all my paddling pants has stayed wet all week.  I didn't bring enough paddling clothes with me, and getting the clothes I have dry in between workouts has been more or less impossible.

That's just one of the reasons that by Friday morning I was thoroughly weary of camp.  The novelty of getting up in the morning and putting on damp clothes to paddle in sub-40-degree-Fahrenheit weather had worn off at least a day or two before.

Another reason is that the volume of training had been taxing and had left me feeling beat up and worn out.  That's how this camp always is, for in fact it is intended to be such.  I can only imagine how done-in the people are who attended the full two weeks.

In the aches and pains department, I'm having some pain in my outer lower right lat muscle.  It's not so bad that I can't paddle, but by Friday morning it had gotten so that I was wincing a little every time I inhaled.  I may have aggravated it a bit during our workout on Thursday.

That workout we did Thursday afternoon was a bear, but I was pleased with how I had performed.  Friday morning's workout was just the sort of thing to bring me back to reality.  It was two sets of six four-minute pieces done at 60 to 64 strokes per minute with a minute rest after each one; the first set was done with resistance on the boat, the second set without.  The purpose is to promote good paddling technique: the resistance dampens the boat's glide and prompts the paddler to focus on a good solid catch at the start of each stroke, and the low stroke rate allows him to contemplate all the other technical aspects.  It's important work and I understand why we do it, but that doesn't make it feel any less of a grind.  Chris Hipgrave and I did it together and we agreed that we were glad to have it behind us.

Friday afternoon's session was much shorter and sweeter.  We warmed up with some short pieces at various stroke rates, and then we did a bunch of short all-out sprints with short rest: six times 15 seconds on, 45 seconds off; and then eight times ten seconds on, 50 seconds off.  Each set of sprints got tough about midway through, more because I was struggling to maintain control of my strokes than because I was genuinely tired.

The camp finally came to a close yesterday morning.  Mercifully, the weather relented and gave us a temperature in the high 50s.  There were some gusty winds blowing, though.  Chris Hipgrave, Terry Smith, and I did a pair of time trials, each just shy of 600 meters long.  The first was downstream on the Rainbow River starting at the highway 484 bridge, and the second was down on the Withlacoochee River, starting next to a dock and finishing at the bike trail bridge.  My times were 3 minutes, 11 seconds for the first one, and 2:59 for the second.  The second one was done on the same course we'd timed ourselves on the previous Saturday; I was about 10 seconds slower yesterday than I'd been a week before, and I chalk that up mainly to the swirling winds.

And now I'm back home, with a mountain of ancillary chores to catch up on.  I'm not sure what's next for me in terms of canoe and kayak training, but that'll become clear over the next few days as I recover from camp.

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Florida is letting us down

The weather has turned nippy down here in Florida.  To full-time Floridians, I reckon it's downright frigid.  To me, these daytime Fahrenheit highs in the 50s fit into the "nuisance" category: such days are at the mild end of the winter weather spectrum back home, but are not what I come to Florida for.

The worst part has been the morning sessions, during which the temperature has been in the 30s.  As the week has gone on it's gotten harder and harder to get myself going in the morning.  But so far I've done it each time.

And what, exactly, have we been doing?  Well, Monday morning we did some technique work at stroke rates ranging from 60 to 72 spm, and that afternoon we did some longer pieces with short recovery at low-70s stroke rates.  Tuesday morning (the first cold morning) we did a "calm" 75-minute paddle, and in the afternoon we did some pieces with resistance on the boat.  Yesterday we traveled to the Silver River near Ocala for a relaxed 2-hour paddle with a lot of wildlife around, including birds, alligators, turtles, and manatees.  And this morning we did some more technique work at mostly-low stroke rates, while this afternoon we did three 9-minute pieces at a stroke rate in the mid 80s with 6 minutes recovery in between.

That last workout was definitely our most intense of the camp.  There were four of us--Chris Hipgrave, Royal McDonnell, Terry Smith, and me--and we started at 30-second intervals, with me going first, then Terry, then Chris, then Royal.  That meant that I did each piece with Terry in hot pursuit.  I think he gained some ten seconds on me in the first piece, but our times were close to dead even in the second and third.  I was pleased with my stamina: early in the third piece I thought maybe I had nothing left after the first two, but then I settled into a good rhythm and finished strong.

All good work, but again, I'm having a hard time savoring it because of the cold weather.  Yes, I know it's not as cold here as it is up north (in Memphis a winter storm is expected to move in tonight and continue through tomorrow), but it's as cold as I ever care to paddle in.

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Monday photo feature

I swiped a shot from Steph Schell's social media for this week's photo feature.  She and my other housemates arrived in Florida a week before I did, and she took this picture of the lovely Rainbow River from her boat on New Year's Day.

It does indeed look pretty idyllic.  But this coming week we won't be spared entirely from the national cold snap here in Florida.  This week the temperatures here will be warmer than the rest of the nation, but still quite brisk by Florida standards.

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Greetings from Florida

I arrived in the town of Dunellon, Florida, on Friday.  Since then I've been making the adjustment to an increased volume of in-the-boat workouts.

My fellow paddlers include Chris Norbury of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Royal McDonnell of Lake Placid, New York; Steph Schell of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania; Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Peter Wottowa of Crystal River, Florida.

So far we've done some distance at low to medium stroke rates, some power drills, some short sprints, and a time trial of just under 600 meters down slow-moving current.  The weather has been cool for Florida--Fahrenheit highs in the low to mid 60s.  Today is supposed to be our last balmy day; then the Arctic blast that's been moving across the rest of the nation will arrive here and lower the daily highs to un-Florida-like 50s.  That's still a lot warmer than the 20s and 30s back home in Memphis, but it'll most likely be in the 30s for our morning sessions, so we'll be sharing in the misery at least a little bit.

Anyway... that's about all to report for now.  At least it's been nice to have a break from the routine at home and catch up with a few friends.

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It's almost time to go to camp

Well, it's been more than a month since my last post here.  Sorry for the radio silence, for those of you who have been checking in.

I said in my last post that my plan for the remainder of the year was to mix paddling with a couple of dry-land routines, one indoor and one outdoor, that I would do depending on the weather conditions.  And that's what I did.  I got in the boat a couple of times a week, and I also did some running and some body-weight exercises and some work on a stability ball and some work with a medicine ball.

My goal was to get myself to a decent level of fitness for the next phase of winter training: I plan to leave tomorrow for the state of Florida, where I will participate in an informal training camp with a few other racers.  Long-time readers of this blog know that we've been having this camp for the last few years.

I took a few days off last week while traveling to North Carolina to spend the Christmas holiday with my sister's family.  Once back home I wanted to spend my time in the boat getting ready for the increased work load I can expect down in Florida.  For the first time in months, I did a couple of workouts with resistance on the boat.  On Saturday I did two sets of two (5 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/3 minutes at 65 spm/2 minutes at 70 spm).  For the rest of the day I felt tired and sore in my legs, and I guess at least that's a sign that I'm doing an okay job with my leg drive and pelvic rotation.

The fatigue was severe enough that I spent Sunday just doing a recovery paddle.  Then yesterday I did another workout with resistance on the boat: three times (5 minutes on, 3 minutes off) at 70 spm, and three times (3 minutes on, 3 minutes off) at 80 spm.  The session was pretty taxing, but in the aftermath I haven't felt nearly as beat-up as I felt after Saturday.

I've had a cold since Sunday.  It's not the worst I've ever had--it's mostly just a stuffed-up nose.  My energy level seems to be holding up pretty well.  All the same, I sure hope to be on the downhill side of it as I depart for Florida.

I plan to leave home tomorrow and arrive in the town of Dunnellon, Florida, on Friday.  The weather forecast is saying that my first several days down there will be quite pleasant for this time of year, with daily highs above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  But most of next week looks not so Florida-like: the highs will be in the 50s, and we'll likely be dealing with temperatures in the 30s during our morning sessions.  But it'll still be better than up here in Memphis, where the temperature isn't expected to rise above the 30s during the same period.

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