Bike to work(out)

It's a bright sunny day here, and getting warm enough to push the limits of comfort this afternoon.  But this morning was glorious.

My friend Meghan wanted to get together and paddle this morning and she was on a tight schedule, so I'd been leaning toward driving to the river to make sure I didn't keep her waiting.  But then, looking at this morning's paper, I remembered that this is National Bike to Work Day, and decided I couldn't not ride.  I also had to ride a mile in the opposite direction to feed my mother's cats (she's out of town), so just like that I was on a tight schedule.  But in the end I made it to the dock with a few minutes to spare.

My bike is a pretty basic one.  It's a mountain bike, but not a "fancy" one with the shock absorbers and all that stuff.  And I don't do much trail riding with it; I mostly just ride around Midtown and Downtown Memphis.  Years ago, after I'd finished college and graduate school and settled down back in Memphis, I knew I wanted to own a decent bike, but I didn't want to spend thousands of dollars on a fancy model and all the accessories like the shoes and what have you.  I figured I had the time, energy, and money to be serious about one sport, and for me that sport always was and always will be paddling.  So I got the bike I'm still riding today, and it has served me well.

There was an interesting interview on NPR this morning (in observance of National Bike to Work Day) with a guy named Grant Petersen, who has written a book on bike commuting.  I thought it was really interesting because he made the same points I had made for myself regarding biking.  He urged the audience to avoid space-age bicycle technology if all they want to do is use a bike to go to work or run errands.  I'll second that.

Anyway... I made my own bike commute today, as I have enjoyed doing the last several weeks.  Meghan and I paddled together for about 35 minutes.  My back was still stiff as we got started but it loosened up nicely as we paddled along on this exceptionally pleasant morning.  When Meghan had to leave, I went back to the dock and did some stretching, then got back in the boat and did eight 2-minute pieces with 90-second recovery.  I did the first two pieces in the harbor (flatwater), the next three going up the Mississippi along the Tennessee bank, and the last three coming back down the Mississippi.  There were some waves out on the river from some towboat traffic that had moved through, but I felt like I was moving the boat well.

I completed my commute with the ride back home.  My back has continued to feel better.

Stiff as a board

Yesterday I did a nice 45-minute recovery paddle.

Today I woke up with bad stiffness in my back.  I've mentioned in the past that I often have some lower back soreness, but today it's in the middle of my back, right along my spine.  I can't think of anything I did yesterday that might have caused it; maybe I just slept on it wrong.

Anyway, I did five laps of the May strength circuit today, and I hope I'll be up for a workout in the boat tomorrow.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 10: Making the hatch lids

To make the hatch lids, I start with the pieces of deck that I cut out to make the hatch openings.  The finished hatch rims are larger that these cutouts, so I need to build the cutouts outward to fit over the rims.

Using some scrap plywood that I have lying around the shop, I make templates in the shape of the hatch openings (the stern hatch template is shown here; the pictures in this post all pertain to the stern hatch).  I will stick the deck cutout onto the template with a hot glue gun.  I have applied postal tape around the edges to create a "non-stick" surface where I will be laying resin-saturated Kevlar and fiberglass to build the lid outward from the cutout.  The template is cut into halves because the deck cutout has a slight ridge on it and I want the template to fit up into that ridge.

I have now built the lid outward with strips of Kevlar to cover the entire template.  I will use a sharp knife to trim the rough edges flush with the template.

Here is the lid after I have trimmed the edges and popped it off the plywood template.  The darker material is the original hatch cutout.  There is still some hot glue gun reside on it that I will chisel off.

Now, I need to make a "lip" on the lid that will fit down over the hatch rim, like a trash can lid fits down over a trash can.

Here's the method I dreamed up to create this "lip."  I have taken scrap pieces of two-by-four lumber and cut them to fit the lid's curves, covered them with postal take to make them non-stick, and hot-glued them around the edges of the rim.  I was very glad to have my bandsaw for cutting these curves.  As a woodworker I have other tools with which I could have done the job, but I confess I don't know how I would tell a non-woodworker to do this.

After laying on a couple of layers of fiberglass, I pop the lid off this "mold."  Now that the shape has been established, I can continue to add fiberglass layers without the mold until I have achieved the desired thickness.

After reinforcing the lip, I cover the top with a layer of fiberglass, using peel-ply to leave a nice smooth surface.  Here is the finished lid after the lip has been trimmed for a nice-looking fit over the hatch rim.

It's good to treat the exterior parts of a composite boat with some sort of wax or other protectant.  For this lid, I'm trying out a new product distributed from right here in Memphis by my friend Gino Bauwens.  His company offers the "Kayak Protector" pictured here, as well as a "Kayak Cleaner" and several related items, for sale here.





Whew!  I'm finished!  Oh, wait... no I'm not.  I still need to make and install the straps that hold the lips in place on the hatch rims.

Time for a little more sewing.  I have bought some nylon webbing at Outdoors, Inc., which sells it by the foot.  Using the same needles and thread I used for the neoprene hatch covers, I sew on the female part of a "fastex" buckle.

I also sew a loop at the other end of each strap to attach to this little nylon bracket that attaches to the boat with screws.  I expect you can buy these brackets, as well as fastex buckles, all kinds of places; I bought them from a website called topkayaker.net.

And here it is... the stern hatch lid, on top of the stern hatch neoprene cover, on top of the stern hatch!  All of which I constructed in this project!

Here's the completed bow hatch.  The lid doesn't look quite as nice as the one on the stern hatch because of the contrast between the new Kevlar and the Kevlar in the original deck cutout (I made this lid first, and then, learning from this result, covered the stern lid with a single piece of Kevlar).  But it's finished, and it's functional.  Yahoo!

Varying the intensity

Today I did five laps of the May strength circuit, and then rode my bike down to the dock to join Joe for a workout.  We did eight three-minute pieces with three-minute recovery; we did the first two minutes of each piece at anaerobic threshold, then picked it up to sub-maximum intensity for the third minute.

Monday Photo Feature

Canoeing and kayaking has taken me to some beautiful places, such as the White Salmon River near Trout Lake, Washington, in the summer of 1998.  Photo by Wendy Peterson.

Breathing hard all morning

It was a morning full of aerobic work.  It started with five laps of the May strength circuit, followed by a bike ride down to the river, where I paddled for 130 minutes.  For the first time in a while, the river is high enough for me to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar.  The bike ride back home completed the day's exercise.

Somebody brought it to my attention that people who don't use "Blogger" were blocked from posting comments on this site.  I checked my settings and I think I've got that fixed now.  Sorry--I'm still learning here.

Setting goals

The Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and KayakRace is five weeks from today. This is the race I'm really pointing to in my training. I think every athlete should have some sort of goal for each competitive season. The body is not capable of performing at its best at all times, so it makes sense to select a small number of times each year to have it ready for peak performance.

Back when I was a high school and college distance runner, setting goals wasn't that hard to do. Sports at the college and secondary levels are structured with obvious achievements to aspire to. A high school runner has regional and state titles to shoot for as well as all-region and all-state teams to try to make. Even less-talented runners can improve their times in the various distances and can help their teams do well in the big meets. For a college runner, there's the challenge of being all-conference and qualifying for the NCAA championships.

But once college is over, athletic goals suddenly are not so clear. And in canoe and kayak racing, a much smaller sport than running, deciding what to shoot for is that much tougher. Unless you're on track to make national and Olympic teams, your race offerings tend to be a disjointed set of events that don't lead to any particular title.

My response is to pick an event with high-quality competition and train to be at my very best when the day of that event arrives. I am fortunate that such an event happens each year in my hometown: the opportunity to test myself against the competition in the OICKR, and to promote the sport here by placing a Memphian as high in the field as possible, is plenty of motivation for me to be prepared for this race.

Of course, winning this race is all but out of the question for me as long as people like Olympic champion Greg Barton and three-time Olympian Mike Herbert keep showing up. But the hidden blessing here is that I am forced to evaluate my achievements on my own, and find internal happiness with my successes rather than have them validated by titles or medals.

In any case, I think setting goals for the season is a good idea. Pick a race that you really want to focus on and do well in, and structure your training plan accordingly. It makes training a lot more fun and there's much satisfaction in seeing through a plan from start to finish.

Catching up

Sorry for the several days of silence.  Allow me to bring you up to date:

On Wednesday, I did a 60-minute paddle to recover from Tuesday's workout.

On Thursday, I did four laps of the May strength circuit, and then rode my bike down to the river for a 100-minute paddling session with Joe.  We did a "pyramid" workout: pieces of 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute with a 2-minute recovery interval.

On Friday, I rode my bike down to the river and paddled for 100 minutes.

The river is on a nice rise this week.  After sitting around three or four feet on the Memphis gauge for what felt like forever,  it's coming up and is forecast to hit 17 feet by Monday.  During yesterday's session I paddled up into the lower end of the Loosahatchie Chute, an area that was nothing but sandbars when the water was low.

One other thing to catch up on: race results have been posted for my last two races.  The results of the Gator Bait Waterfest Regatta on Ross Barnett Reservoir near Ridgeland, Mississippi, are here.  The results of the Bluz Cruz Marathon on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg are here.

Who actually reads this thing?

Today I did four laps of the May strength circuit, then rode my bike down to the river for an 80-minute paddle with Joe.  We did eight 2-minute pieces with 90-second recovery.  These workouts start to hurt a little when the recovery interval gets shorter than the work interval.  My arms were feeling pretty rubbery during the last three pieces.

This blog has a "hit counter," and I used to get really excited whenever it shot up, but then I realized what veteran bloggers probably know well: a lot of the "traffic" comes from spam sites.  I don't want to cajole anybody who prefers to remain unknown, but I am curious to know how many actual people are reading this blog.  Some people have told me when I bumped into them somewhere, and I appreciate that.  I'll just add that the comments section, which has been very quiet here, is a fine way to let me know.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 9: Making the neoprene hatch covers, continued

Okay... my attention has been divided among many different things lately, but I'm still inching along on this boat-outfitting project.  When we last visited the project back on April 19, I had started making the neoprene hatch covers, and was unsatisfied with the first set I had made.  I had made them by folding the neoprene into a hem over the shock cord and gluing it in place.  They just seemed too bulky to me.

The type of sprayskirt I have always preferred is the kind that has the shock cord sewn onto the neoprene, like these skirts pictured here that I use with my slalom C-1, and I decided I wanted to make my hatch covers that way.  I found this web page with instructions for making a skirt in this fashion.

Following these instructions, I cut out two pieces of MDF in the shape of the hatch rim.

I cut a length of shock cord to fit the hatch rim and closed the loop with a stainless steel clip.  I bought both the shock cord and a dozen clips from Sweet Composites.  I also often buy shock cord here in Memphis from Outdoors, Inc., but since I was already ordering a bunch of other stuff from Sweet, it made sense to let them sell me some shock cord, too.

Next, I cut a piece of 1/8" neoprene in the shape of the MDF template, with about an inch border around the edges.  The neoprene is also a Sweet Composites purchase--they sell it by the yard from rolls.

I stretch the shock cord around one of the pieces of MDF, and loop a piece of nylon webbing (recycled from a roof-rack strap whose buckle had broken) through it.  The webbing will be the grab loop for pulling the cover off the hatch coaming.

Then I sandwich the neoprene between the MDF with the shock cord on it and the other piece.  Spring clamps keep it all together.

Time to start sewing the shock cord to the neoprene.  This is a slow, tedious process that I spread out over a few days.

I use waxed nylon thread that I bought at my local Tandy Leather Factory store.  They sold me the appropriate needles as well.

Each stitch requires no small bit of persuasion.  I use a pair of needle-nose pliers and Martha's antique thimble to get the needle through.

The hardest part is sewing through the grab loop, the cord, and the neoprene.

At last, the boat has hatch covers.  Now it's time to make the protective lids that fit over them.

Monday Photo Feature

I generally trace my paddling career back to when I was a 13-year-old summer camper--that's when I really started to love the sport and learn the many boat-handling skills.  But my earliest experiences in a canoe occurred when I was younger than that.  My parents' good friends owned (and still own) a cabin on the Spring River at Hardy, Arkansas, and our two families would go up there at least once a summer when I was little.  They had a canoe, and the little kids would sit in the middle while the grownups and bigger kids paddled.  Of the two small boys in this picture, I'm the one on the left.  I guess I'm about seven or eight years old.

Pedaling and paddling

This morning I did four laps of the May strength circuit, then rode my bike down to the river, where I paddled for 80 minutes.  It's about a 20- to 25-minute bike ride from my house to the marina, so the round trip adds 45 or 50 minutes of additional aerobic exercise.

Tomorrow is a day off, and I'm looking forward to it after a rather taxing four-day stretch.

Carp bombing

I didn't ride my bike to the river today.  I had to drive my mother to the airport this morning, so I just drove to the river from there.  Maybe tomorrow.

Today I paddled my boat for 130 minutes, during which time I did eight three-minute pieces.  I did the first two minutes of each piece at anaerobic threshold, and the third minute at sub-maximum (i.e., not quite all-out) intensity.  The recovery interval was three minutes.

One of the hazards of paddling on the Mississippi River is the Asian carp, an invasive species of fish that has proliferated in the last ten years.  They like to hang out near the bank in the eddies and shallows, and they are very excitable on warm days like today.  As I paddled upriver by the bank along the Greenbelt Park, a five- or six-pounder leapt right over my bow, maybe a foot from my face.  A few minutes later another one, about the same size as the first, exploded from the water on my right, glancing violently off my boat in the process, then swam underneath my boat, banging around against the hull and rudder for a couple of seconds.  I was worried that he might have broken my boat, but fortunately he hadn't.

I need to start paddling with one of those Go Pro cameras on my boat.  Sooner or later I'll capture an Asian carp jumping over the bow, and it will be a You Tube sensation.

More on "bonking"

Today I rode my bike down to the river and did a 75-minute recovery paddle.  I ought to ride my bike down there more often, but it seems to require just enough advance planning that I tend not to.  One of the nice things about keeping my boat down at the marina is that I don't need my car to carry it down there every day.  And now we've even got bike lanes on North Parkway, the main route from my house to the marina.  So we'll see if I can start a habit with today's ride.

The other day I mentioned that I had "bonked" a couple of times in Vicksburg.  Most canoe and kayak racers know the meaning of that expression, but for anybody who doesn't I'll elaborate a little.

"Bonking" is the same thing as what marathon runners call "hitting the wall."  As this Wikipedia page explains, it's "a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy."

Basically, an athlete who has bonked is physically unable to compete any longer, and must redirect his or her efforts to simply getting to the finish line or, in more extreme cases, to surviving until the necessary help arrives.  The race is not necessarily over for a bonked athlete; like I said in my post last Saturday, I had built big enough leads in those Vicksburg races that I was able to amble to the finish line before being caught by another paddler.  But if that athlete is in a tight race with a competitor who has not bonked, the chances for victory are over.

The nice thing about those Vicksburg "bonks" is that they happened with only about a mile to go in the race.  On four occasions I have bonked with much greater distances in front of me.  My first "bonk" in a canoe and kayak race occurred in December of 2001 at about Mile 9 of the 12-mile Captiva Classic off Captiva Island near Fort Myers, Florida.  The second happened the following summer, with maybe six miles to go in a 22-kilometer (about 13.7-mile) race in southern Ontario.  The third came in May of 2009 around Mile 27 in a 35-mile race on the White River near Allison, Arkansas.  The fourth occurred last summer just over half way through the 18-mile Chicago Shoreline Marathon on Lake Michigan.

The reason I remember these episodes so well is that each of them was keenly unpleasant in a very memorable way.  Certainly the physical discomfort was considerable, but the psychological part of it is what I really remember.  Each time, the thoughts going through my mind were of utter despair.  As I limped along through mile after endless mile, with paddlers I had left behind hours before cruising past me, I emitted silent whimpers of self-pity and cursed my decision to enter the race in the first place.

At the turn of the century I was still new to open water/marathon/surf ski racing and hadn't really done any races longer than the three-mile Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  So in the Captiva Island and Ontario races, bonking was a result of my inexperience.  I took no fluids, not even water, in the boat with me.  I have since learned that a participant in these longer races must ingest something in-race to extend the limit of his glycogen stores.  Some people actually take solid snacks in the boat with them--fruit, trail mix, energy bars, stuff like that.  I don't like to chew solid food during exercise, and I personally think that "Gu" stuff is disgusting, so I stick with liquids, usually some gatorade diluted with water in a camel back bag.

With these libations on board, I went the next seven years after that Ontario debacle without bonking in a race.  Then, in a moment of temporary insanity, I decided to enter that 35-mile race on the White River.  Even with my standard mixture of gatorade and water, I just couldn't last.  The lesson I took from that experience is simply not to do races that long.  I don't enjoy them.  I do not share the opinion that a longer race is a more worthwhile race.  If you like to spend a third or more of your day sitting in a boat hammering away with a paddle, that's your prerogative, but ultra-marathon events are not my cup of tea.

In Chicago last August, I was victimized by both my own tactical errors and simple bad luck.  I went out too hard, stubbornly trying to hang with guys who were out of my league, and then my camel back let me down: about a third of the way in, I looked down and discovered that my tube was dangling in the water, and the bite valve had come off and all my fluids had drained away.  I was already struggling by the time I reached the turnaround point, and the bonk I knew was coming hit me with a good eight miles to go.  It was my worst bonk ever.  I actually stopped to beg water from a safety boater, and later stopped at a beach just to stand up for a few minutes.  I did eventually limp across the finish line, but for all practical purposes I was a "DNF" in that race.

Anyway, I hope the reader has learned something from this description of "bonking" and my personal experience with the phenomenon.

Looking forward to my biggest races

Today I did three laps of the May strength circuit.  My hamstrings and quad muscles have been sore since Tuesday because of all the lunges in this new circuit.

Then I went down to the river and paddled for 105 minutes.  I spent the first half of the session paddling up to the mouth of the Wolf, and much of that time I felt really tired from the strength workout.  But I was starting to find a groove by the time I got to the Wolf.  Upon reaching the Wolf I did a set of eight intervals of 2 minutes on, 2 minutes off.

I have two pretty intense races coming up in June: the Arkansas River Canoe and Kayak Race at Little Rock on June 2 and the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race here at Memphis on June 16.  Both races are significantly shorter than the races I have done so far this season (5.5 miles at Little Rock, 3 miles at Memphis).  And in neither of these races will I be the favorite to win.  I will have to race extremely well just to finish in the pack among some very respectable competition.

So as I train in this next month I will have a couple of main objectives for these races: to go hard off the starting line for as long as I can before I settle into my mid-race pace, and to withstand the lactic burn as I hammer the last mile or so to the finish.  My workouts will emphasize speed and lactic endurance, and I will continue to maintain my aerobic base in the meantime.

New strength circuit

Happy May Day, everybody!  Time for a new strength circuit.  It's warm and dry here in Memphis, so I'm moving it out to the backyard.  Today I did three laps of the following circuit:

Hindu pushups, 10 reps
Lunges with cinder block, 10 paces
4-way abdominals, 8 reps
Bent-over rows with cinder block, 2 x 10 reps
Lunges with cinder block, 10 paces
Cleans with cinder block, 10 reps
Lunges with cinder block, 10 paces

There's a video demonstration of Hindu pushups here.  There's a video demonstration of lunges here, although I've always done lunges walking forward rather than staying in one spot.  I hold the cinder block up over my head.  For a demonstration of bent-over rows, look here.  And you can see cleans here; I go on to lift the cinder block over my head when I do them, and I don't drop it to the floor afterward--I've only so many cinder blocks.

I think one of the biggest mental obstacles to somebody wanting to start an exercise program is simply having ideas of what to do.  In the case of weightlifting and other strength work, I've found it helpful to keep a list of all the different exercises I know.  I divide the list into categories of different parts of the body: abdominal exercises, upper torso exercises, biceps and triceps exercises, wrist and forearm exercises, leg exercises, and so on.  Then, when it's time to draw up a routine, I pick an exercise or two from each of the categories.

Where, exactly, did I learn the exercises I know?  Well, some of them are ones everybody knows: pushups, situps, and pullups, for instance.  I learned more as I did weight training for my high school and college cross country teams.  As a teacher I also did some coaching, and I learned all kinds of exercises from the coaches of other sports that I worked with.

These days, the Internet makes it easy to learn new exercises.  If you google "weight training" or "strength training" or "weight exercises" or something like that, you'll find more information than you want, along with lots of You Tube videos like the ones I've posted above.

Meanwhile, for my in-the-boat workout today, I met Joe down at the riverfront and we paddled in the harbor for 100 minutes.  I'll be working back into some more intense stuff as the week goes on.

Monday Photo Feature

The sun sets over the Louisiana forest this past Friday evening.  This was the view from my bedroom in Vicksburg: I was staying at the Bazsinsky House, which sits on the bluff overlooking the Vicksburg Front.  The water in the foreground is the Yazoo Cutoff, whose confluence with the Mississippi River is to the left of this picture.

I'm not about to pick up and move to Vicksburg--I'm not sure there's any place I want to live more than my hometown--but I sure enjoy visiting there.

The Cutoff

The riverfront of Vicksburg, known as the "Vicksburg Front," sits on the Yazoo River.  More precisely, it's the Yazoo Cutoff.  Once upon a time, the Mississippi River flowed by the Vicksburg Front, but one of the big floods of the 20th century--'27 or '37, not sure which--shifted the Big Muddy's course to the west, leaving Vicksburg high and dry.  To restore its access to the Mississippi, Vicksburg got out its shovels and redirected the Yazoo through the former riverbed of the big river.

Most of the time the Yazoo Cutoff has little or no flow, with water backing up from the Mississippi about a mile below the Vicksburg Front.  In this way it is similar to Wolf River Harbor at Memphis.  So I felt right at home as I put my boat in the water here this morning for a long recovery paddle.  I paddled out onto the Mississippi and went down below the Interstate 20 bridge, then paddled up the Louisiana bank.  The conditions were ideal: it was warm with just enough of a breeze to keep me cool, and the river was calm.

Physically I felt surprisingly good considering yesterday's tough trek downriver.  My right pec felt better than it did before the race yesterday morning.  I don't get it, but I'm not complaining.

I returned to the Yazoo Cutoff and took out an hour and forty minutes after putting in.  I headed back up the bluff to where Martha and I were staying, and we prepared for the trip back to Memphis.  And so I proceed from one phase of my season to the next, with a month of hard training planned to prepare for the year's most intense races in June.

No reason for the "bluz" today

It seems like every year I'm tired to the point of catatonia after finishing the Bluz Cruz Marathon, but this year's installment seemed tougher than most.  Part of it was simply the duration: whereas last year my time was 1 hour, 56 minutes and change, today it was just over 2:20.  Low water, a pesky south wind, and numerous patches of choppy water slowed the race down considerably.  Two hours is about my limit for subjecting myself to punishment in the boat, and I wasn't happy to have to stretch that out today.

But I won the race, and it's hard not to be pleased whenever that happens.  I spent the early miles of the race in a pack with a couple of tandem kayaks.  Once I had pulled away from them I paddled alone for the middle ten or so miles until the Arkansan Phil Capel, who had found a faster line around a bend than I had, pulled even with me.

The final mile of this 22-mile race is spent paddling up the Yazoo River to a finish line on Vicksburg's riverfront.  Two of the previous three times I had done this race I had bonked as I entered the mouth of the Yazoo, holding on for the wins by virtue of the big leads I had built.  Today I had no such luxury with Phil on my case, and I tried to paddle as efficiently as possible in the last six miles to avoid another bonking episode.  I wasn't entirely confident of the outcome until I was within a half-mile of the finish, but it all worked out okay.

After the race Melissa Morrison, a paddler in one of the tandems I had raced with early on, asked me how I managed to control a tippy surf ski in conditions like we had today.  I wasn't sure how to answer her question at the time, but after spending the rest of the day giving it some thought, I'd say my experience racing whitewater slalom has a lot to do with it.  Slalom racers devote a huge chunk of their practice time to keeping their boats moving in every conceivable type of water condition.  I've carried that idea into my training for open-water distance racing, doing balance and control drills in choppy or boily water whenever I can find it.  I do one of my most simple drills in the harbor at home on windy days when there are small waves: I paddle my boat in beam waves (i.e., the waves are moving from my right to my left or vice-versa) and try to keep my deck perfectly level, without any rocking from side to side.  Even on teeny little waves, I have developed a comfort level that carries over to bigger stuff that I sometimes encounter in races, and I encourage anybody reading this blog to try it.  I'm not a particularly powerful or speedy paddler, and I'm also not getting any younger, so I think this technical stuff is my best hope for staying competitive.

Heading downriver

Martha and I went down and paddled for 70 minutes this morning, and I loaded my boat for the four-hour drive to Vicksburg.  My pec is feeling pretty good--maybe just a hint remains of  whatever is wrong with it--so I plan to go for it tomorrow.

Hoping to be race-ready

I did another stripped-down strength workout today, and another 75-minute paddling session in the harbor.  My pec muscle is still bothering me a little--it's not really in pain, but it doesn't feel quite right.  All I know to do at this point is go easy on it for a few days and then put it to the test in the race this Saturday.

Backing off

Well, I seem to have a little injury.  I felt fine lifting weights and paddling Sunday morning, but by that afternoon I had some pain in my right pectoralis muscle.  This is an injury I've had several times in the past; I think it's just a small tear.  Having raced on top of a couple of pretty tough workouts last week, I was probably a little vulnerable, and I'll bet I hurt it lifting weights Sunday morning.

In my experience this sort of thing has healed after a few days of rest, so I'm trying to take it easy for several days.  Today I eliminated the military press and pullups from my strength routine, and did only four laps of the circuit.  Then I did an easy 75-minute paddle in the harbor rather than the interval workout that was on the schedule today.

I don't know an athlete at any level that doesn't have occasional training disruptions.  You get sick, or you get injured, or you have a death in the family... one way or another, events conspire to make sure your training doesn't go right on schedule from start to finish.  With any luck, several easy days will do me some good and I'll be ready to go again.

U.S. Olympic Team watch

This past weekend, Carrie Johnson of San Diego became the first paddler to make the U.S. Olympic team.  By virtue of her strong performances in 2011, all Johnson had to do was win the women's 500-meter kayak race at the U.S. Team Trials at Oklahoma City, and she did just that, clocking 1 minute, 57.76 seconds.  If another paddler had won the race, she would have had to beat Johnson again in the first World Cup race to claim the Olympic berth.  But Johnson took care of business and is now a three-time Olympian.

The women's 500-meter kayak spot is one of only two berths the U.S. has qualified for the Olympic flatwater regatta this summer.  The other is a spot in the men's 200-meter kayak race, and Ryan Dolan of Kailua, Hawaii, was in the same position as Johnson: if he won the 200 meters at Trials, he was on the Olympic team.  But Tim Hornsby of Atlanta edged Dolan by eight tenths of a second, so now Dolan and Hornsby will move on to the first World Cup race to decide who goes to London.  World Cup #1 will be May 19-20 at Poznan, Poland.

On the whitewater side, the U.S. National Team was selected in a Team Trials at Charlotte on April 13-15.  The national team consists of three boats in each class, but only one boat in each of the four Olympic classes-- ladies' kayak, men's single canoe, men's double canoe, and men's kayak--will compete in London.  The athletes who will fill those spots will be decided in the first World Cup race at Cardiff, Wales, on June 8-10.

The whitewater slalom competition for the London Olympics will take place from July 29 to August 2 at the Lee Valley White Water Centre in Hertfordshire.  The Olympic flatwater sprint regatta will be August 6-11 at Eton Dorney, Buckinghamshire.

Monday Photo Feature

For her first canoe and kayak race ever, Ocean Springs resident Dana Robertson chose the Bluz Cruz Marathon, a 22-mile race on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, last year.  The conditions were not ideal for a first-time racer--a violent storm front had come through the day before and a brisk northwest breeze made the river awfully bumpy--but Dana didn't seem too perturbed.

This Saturday, a much more seasoned Dana will return to Vicksburg.  I'll be there too, along with a few dozen other racers.  The river will be significantly lower this year, so I expect the times will be slower as we wind our way through the exposed sandbars.  In any case, it's a beautiful section of river, and the people who put the race on are exceptionally nice.  So I'm looking forward to this weekend.

Minimal post-race pain

Today I did six laps of the April strength circuit and paddled my boat for 90 minutes.  I'm feeling not nearly as beat-up today as I usually do the day after a race.  Yesterday's race was more about staying upright and negotiating the waves than it was about putting the hammer down.  I'm glad to be recovering from it quickly with another race coming up this Saturday.

A win for the boat today

I got up early today and made the three-hour drive down to the race on Ross Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi.  When I got there the skies were overcast, the temperature was a cool 60 degrees, and a breeze was blowing.

One of the first people I saw in the parking lot was Christian Maßow (pronounced "massow"), the man who had beaten me down at Ocean Springs back on March 3.  He had spanked me by about four minutes in that 9.5-mile race, and I figured I was in for more of the same in today's 9-miler.

But then the gun went off, and once we were a mile or so into the race it became clear that I, paddling my surf ski, was better equipped for the conditions than Christian was in his K-1.  Out in the heart of the lake the waves were about as big as I've ever seen in non-coastal Mississippi.  While my high-volume bow rose up and over each wave on the trip out into the wind, poor Christian was taking one gigantic splash after another in his chest, and throwing down a brace for almost every stroke he took.  After making the buoy turn and heading back downwind toward the finish, I found many surfable waves and increased my lead.  And so I won the race.

I've always been fond of the motto "It's not the boat; it's the motor."  Having a good boat is important, of course, but I have little patience for people who say things like "So-and-so won that race because he had the fastest boat," as if the training so-and-so had done in that boat didn't count for anything.

Well, I have to admit that my win today was all about the boat.  If conditions had been calm, or if Christian had had a more suitable craft for rough water, I'd probably be sitting here back home with a second-place medal instead of a first-place one.

But I'm not complaining.  I'll take a win any way I can get it.  Sometimes winning a race is simply a matter of being there to take advantage when the favorite is having unforseen problems.

Pre-race ritual

Today I did a light paddle in the harbor, then loaded my boat on the car for the trip to Ridgeland, Mississippi (a suburb of Jackson), site of tomorrow's Gator Bait Waterfest Regatta.  It's about a three-hour drive from Memphis; I'll leave early tomorrow morning.

My pre-race routine is fairly straightforward.  The day before the race I gather together the clothing and equipment I'll need.  I grab my small toolbox in which I keep tools for making adjustments and minor repairs to my surf ski in case I need to.  I try to pack sets of clothes for different weather conditions.  I make sure my camel back is in good working order.

In the nutrition department, I don't deviate from my normal rule, which is to eat only what I can identify.  In other words, if I look at the ingredients list and see a lot of stuff I don't recognize as food, I don't eat it.  (Yes, I occasionally break this rule, but not that often.  Sharing a home with a spouse who feels the same way is a big help.)  Vegetables, meats, fruits, grains... I try to eat them all in good balance.  If I do anything different in the day or two before a race, it's to make sure I eat plenty and store as much glycogen as I can, and also avoid anything that might upset my stomach.

On race day I try to arrive at the race site about 90 minutes before the start time.  That gives me enough time to pick up my race packet, put my number on my boat, do a full systems check, do a little stretching, and get in a good warmup.  I try not to be on site much earlier than that, because then I'm just standing around cooling my heels and wasting energy.  And I should mention that racers like me are very grateful to race directors who make sure their race starts at the announced time.  Sitting in the boat waiting for the start of a delayed race is another big energy-waster and concentration-buster.

Pre-race mode... that's the mode I'm in right now.  I hope to have a good report posted here by tomorrow night.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 8: Making the neoprene hatch covers

I'm sorry I've taken so long to get another project post up, but this phase of the project, which I figured to be relatively easy, has been a little frustrating.

Making these hatch covers is like making a sprayskirt, only simpler because hatch covers don't require any tunnel for a paddler's waist and torso.

So I found an article on sprayskirt construction here, and I made a pair of hatch covers for the tandem kayak following the method described.  But in the end, I wasn't happy with the results.

I expect this failure is due largely to my inexperience with this kind of work.  But at the same time, I've always preferred skirts whose shock cord is sewn directly onto the neoprene, and I have decided to try to make my hatch covers that way.  I have found an online article describing a method I think is within my ability, so I will post the results as soon as I produce them.  Maybe I can manage not to waste any more neoprene.

Thank you for your patience!

Spike workout

Today I did five laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 110 minutes.

Joe and I did what I call a "spike" workout: pieces of 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, 6 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes, with 2 minutes recovery.  I crushed the 2-minute pieces pretty hard, and the 6-minute pieces, though I pushed them hard too, felt like part of the recovery by comparison, because of the lesser intensity.  When I'm in really good shape I can get an occasional "rest" during the course of a race by backing off the intensity just a tiny bit, such as when I'm riding a competitor's wake.

Yesterday I did an easy recovery paddle of 40 minutes.  Also yesterday I registered for the Gator Bait Waterfest Regatta, so I guess I'm officially going to that now.  With that race this Saturday and another race the following Saturday, this two-week period is shaping up to be pretty high volume and intensity.

Intervals

Today I did five laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 110 minutes.  Joe and I did eight three-minute pieces with three minutes recovery.  After feeling sort of tired and crummy for a few days, I felt stronger today.

There's a nice easy-to-understand article on the benefits of interval training here.

Busy week ahead

Today I did five laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 80 minutes.

I'm about 95 percent sure I'm going to enter a race this Saturday--a 9-miler on Ross Barnett Reservoir near Jackson, Mississippi.  But I've got a couple of hard in-the-boat workouts scheduled this week, so I'll have to see how I'm feeling before I make the final decision.  Since I'll be "training through" this race, I'll have to take full advantage of all my rest opportunities this week.

Feeling like a workhorse

Today I paddled for 85 minutes.  I paddled easy, recovering from yesterday's workout.  My back is stiff and sore today, as it often is.

Tomorrow I plan to participate in a litter pickup on Workhorse Bayou, a tributary of the Wolf River in North Memphis.  Seeing as how I not only paddle downstream of Workhorse Bayou but also own a house in North Memphis, it's not such an imposition on my time.  Thanks to the Chickasaw Chapter of the Sierra Club for organizing this activity.

Sluggish off the start

Today I did four laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 130 minutes.

Joe and I paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf and did a workout that we try to do a couple of times each season.   Starting at the power lines that mark the starting line of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, we did five pieces out onto the Mississippi and down to the boat ramp about a quarter-mile down the course.  The recovery was the paddle back up to the start.

I didn't feel at my best today.  I normally try to do these pieces at sub-maximum intensity (i.e., not quite all-out, but pretty darn close), but today I was struggling with my balance a little and just couldn't paddle as hard as I would have liked.  The river, though smooth, felt awfully squirrelly, and we had a breeze swirling around from multiple directions.  On top of that my digestion was a little off this morning, and it all added up to a less-than-satisfying workout.

Oh well... there will be days like this.  I haven't done many workouts at this point and I don't yet have the "pop" off the starting line that I hope to have later on.  In June I'll have a couple of short (5.5 miles or less) races with strong competition where getting good position early will be very important, and the purpose of this workout is to develop the ability to paddle hard off the starting line for 60-90 seconds.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 7: Making the hatch rims

Now, I move on to what is probably the hardest (or at least the messiest and most time-consuming) part of this project: making the hatch rims.  The hatch openings will be sealed with neoprene covers, so the rims will be just like cockpit coamings.

The first step is to glue pieces of plastic tubing around the perimeter of each cockpit opening; these will serve as a "mold" over which I can form the coamings.  Like the Rubbermaid garbage can, the plastic tubing will not bond with epoxy resin, so I'll be able to pull it away once a couple of layers of the coaming have hardened.  I use a hot glue gun to glue the tubing to the deck; later, when I remove the tubing, I can peel off the glue.  (I got the idea to make the hatch rims this way while reading Bill Kirby's boatbuilding project, here.)



As for the coaming material itself, my first thought was to use fiberglass and Kevlar seam tape, but fortunately I sought Davey Hearn's advice before going through with that idea.  Seam tape is difficult to persuade into the shape of the rim, Davey said, because of the way its fibers are oriented: the warp fibers run in alignment with the rim, while the weft fibers are orthogonal to the rim's curve.  Davey went on to say that Kevlar is not a good material for a cockpit rim because it fuzzes along the trimmed edge and wears on the neoprene sprayskirt or hatch cover.  He recommended making the hatch rims from ordinary fiberglass cloth cut along the bias.

Cutting fabric along the bias is a trick that's little-known outside the fashion industry.  Designers of ladies' fashions often use bias-cut fabric because it conforms better to the curves of a woman's body.  "Cutting along the bias" simply means cutting the fabric at a 45-degree angle to the warp and weft fibers, as shown at right.  Fiberglass fabric that has been cut this way will "lie down" better on unusual surfaces like a cockpit or hatch rim.  Many years ago I read something about using bias-cut fabric for tight curves and other unusual shapes, but I never really understood it before now.  If patching a boat is a topic of FRP 101 in prestigious universities, then the clever manipulation of fibers is the stuff of FRP 235 or something like that.

Here's the stern hatch rim with a layer of fiberglass applied with epoxy resin.  Building the rims is a tedious process that involves laying on several fragments of cloth, letting the resin harden, trimming/scraping/sanding off the jagged edges of the hardened laminate, laying on some more cloth, letting that harden, and so on.  The tight-radiused corners of the hatch openings require me to reposition the plastic tubing several times.

Here's one instance where I have repositioned the tubing at a corner, using both spring clamps and glue to keep it in place.  Note that I have cut away a previously laid-up section of coaming because I wasn't happy with how it looked.

Once enough glass is in place to hold the desired form, I yank out the plastic tubing.

Here's the stern hatch once its rim is finished except for some final trimming and cleaning up.

Here's the nearly-finished rim for the bow hatch.  This blog post doesn't really convey just how messy and tedious this job has been.  I'm ready to move on to the next thing.

Maintaining good form

Today I did four laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 130 minutes.  Joe and I stayed in the harbor and did a workout of four eight-minute buildup tempo pieces, with four-minute recovery intervals.

One thing I always strive for in all my workouts is to maintain good form even as I get deep into the workout.  Even if I have to back off the intensity a little because of fatigue late in a workout, I try to continue taking the best strokes I can.  If I do have to ease up, I'll do so by pulling on the paddle a little less while keeping the stroke rate the same.

A "hard" easy day

Today I paddled in the harbor for 35 minutes with the same friend Martha and I paddled with last Monday.

She's one of a few friends Martha and I have encouraged to come paddle with us on the riverfront.  With most such friends, I have to paddle almost uncomfortably slow just so they can keep up.  That's not because I'm some world class talent, but simply because these people are novice paddlers who often have very little athletic background.  So even my easy pace is a little too fast for them.

Not so with this girl today.  Strong and not afraid to push herself, she stayed right there with me and even pushed the pace a little.  I was paddling pretty easy--I wasn't breathing hard or anything--but I was taking good solid strokes and not intentionally "waiting up" for her.  She really wants to get back in shape after her pregnancy, and I'm looking forward to accompanying her on some of that journey.

Monday Photo Feature

This Thursday, the U.S. Team Trials for whitewater slalom racing begins at Charlotte, North Carolina.  The event will determine the U.S. national team for World Cup competition in June, and is also an important step for athletes hoping to make the Olympic team.  Only one boat in each of the four Olympic classes--men's single canoe, men's double canoe, women's kayak, and men's kayak--will be allowed to compete in the Games, and the athletes' World Cup performances will be the final factor in deciding who gets to paddle up to the starting gate in London.

Twelve years ago, I participated in the Olympic selection process myself.  Back then, the three-day team trials, held on the Ocoee River near Ducktown, Tennessee, was the only step in the Olympic team selection--if you won your class, you were going to the Olympics.  So the event was in fact the Olympic Trials and had all the fanfare and drama you might expect to go along with that.

Here I am racing on the first day of the 2000 Olympic Trials, competing in men's single canoe (C-1).  I was basically a wide-eyed bumpkin among the confident, debonair, globetrotting stars of U.S. slalom, the nerdy kid stammering as he tries to ask the homecoming queen for a date.  Nobody expected me to challenge for a spot on the team, and I didn't provide any surprises.

But I was there, adding my six runs to the books.  Here's a photo to prove it.


Photo by Harrison Shull.

More pep in my step

Today I did four laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 100 minutes.  Feeling more energetic today, I pushed the pace for a good chunk of the session.

Paddlin' sunshine

Today I paddled for 90 minutes.  I was still feeling tired, both from Thursday's workout and from a really lousy, frustrating day yesterday.  I won't bore you with the details of that, but I will say that I kept the intensity moderate today.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 6: The seat backs

Sorry to keep you waiting... I hope my technical difficulties are over for a while.  Thanks to Pickle IT for getting my laptop up and running again.

Now that the bulkheads are in place, I turn my attention to the seats.

Touring kayaks typically have some sort of backrests on their seats like the one in Martha's solo kayak pictured at right.  Our tandem kayak came with no such backrests.  I tend to live with such things--I'm a racer, after all, and racers train to sit up straight in their boats--but Martha doesn't like it at all.  And she's right, for a long day of touring is different from the two-hour-or-less races that I mostly do, and it's nice to have some back support in that situation.  So I am going to see what sort of backrests I can fabricate.

My first challenge is to find some sort of a mold.  I have several of these Rubbermaid garbage cans in and around my shop, and it has occurred to me that they are about the right radius for a seat-back.  And the plastic these things are made of won't bond with epoxy resin, so I can lay something up directly on it.

The lamination includes three layers of fiberglass with two layers of Kevlar interspersed.  My technique is to lay the cloth down a layer at a time, pour a small pool of resin on it...

...and then use a piece of minicell like a squeegee, spreading the resin out until it has been absorbed by the cloth.  I keep adding resin a small bit at a time until the cloth is fully saturated.

Here's the backrest lamination after it has been fully wetted-out.  I'll trim off the rough edges after the resin has hardened and I've popped the piece off its garbage-can mold.

If you look back at the picture of Martha's kayak seat above, you'll see a piece of 6-mm rope running behind the backrest.  This rope controls the "recline" of the backrest; it attaches to a cleat up under the cockpit rim.  The tandem boat is already equipped with such cleats, so all I need to do is include some sort of passage for a rope on the backs of these backrests I'm making.  I cut a piece of plastic tubing, hold it where I want it with a clamp, and attach it to the back of the backrest with pieces of Kevlar.

And here it is... a seat back!  I'll be gluing the piece of blue foam onto it.  The foam is cut just a hair larger than the laminate to prevent any sharp edges from digging in.

I pondered several ways of attaching the seat back to the existing seat, but in the end I just stitched it on with some 4-mm rope.  It'll be a while yet before this boat is back on the water, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for seat-back success.

Recovery day

Today I went down to the river and paddled easy in the harbor for 40 minutes.  I think a session like this is the best way to recover from a hard workout like I did yesterday.  It's better than doing nothing at all, because by paddling I'm getting some blood flowing in all the relevant muscles, cleaning out any lactic acid that might be lingering there and facilitating the repair of damaged tissue.

April showers

Today I did three laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 100 minutes.

I spent the first fifty minutes paddling from Harbortown Marina up to the mouth of the Wolf River.  Then I did a "pyramid" workout: pieces of 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, 4 minutes, 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 3 minutes, 2 minutes, and 1 minute, with 2 minutes recovery between pieces.  I did the first four pieces on the flatwater in the bottom mile of the Wolf.  The 5-minute piece took me back out onto the Mississippi, where I did the 4-minute and 3 minute pieces as well.  I was back in the harbor for the last two pieces.

Today was a beautiful day in a different way from what we've had: I paddled the first half hour or so in a light rain; up on the Wolf, there was a thin mist hanging over the water.  By the time I was heading back down the Mississippi, the southwestern sky was clearing.  When I reached the harbor and turned back north, the northern sky was still as dark as oil shale.  Very interesting.  Some of the prettiest moments of paddling I've ever had have occurred on these days of so-called "inclement weather."

The beat goes on

Today I did three laps of the April strength circuit and paddled for 100 minutes.  It was another perfect day for paddling... I'm almost getting tired of saying that.

Outfitting the tandem kayak: Please stand by

This morning I did a very easy 40-minute paddle in the harbor.  Martha and I went down there and paddled with a friend of ours who has been mostly out of her boat while going through a pregnancy and getting the hang of motherhood.  She's ready to start paddling again, and Martha and I are delighted to have her back on the water and we hope to meet her each Monday for a while.

For those of you who are following the outfitting project, the reason I haven't posted an update in a few days is that I'm experiencing some technical difficulty: some photos I had planned to post are saved on my laptop's hard drive, and that hard drive has decided to crash.  My Training Blog by Elmore takes its commitment to its readers very seriously, and I assure you that a top expert is working to resolve the problem.  I hope to have a new post up soon.

Monday Photo Feature

This is me getting back in my boat after taking a break on Egmont Key, near the mouth of Tampa Bay, in 2010.  Here in Memphis we just had our warmest March ever, making me wonder if I'll ever have to go to Florida to flee cold weather anymore.

No fooling

Another month has arrived, and with it a new strength circuit:

Military press: 8 reps with a pair of 20-lb. dumbbells, then 5 reps with a pair of 25-lb. dumbbells
Torso twists with medicine ball: 10 reps each direction
Pullups: 6 reps
Leg raises while hanging from pullup bar: 10 reps
Bicep curls: 8 reps with 20-lb. dumbbells

I'm starting with three laps of this circuit, and I can already tell this one is quite a bit more taxing than last month's.  Could be bringin' the pain once I get up into five and six laps later this month.

Then I went down to the river and paddled for 100 minutes.  After a 25-minute warmup, I did four 8-minute tempo pieces with 4-minute recovery periods.  In each piece, I spent the first several minutes building up to anaerobic threshold and stayed there for the remainder.  Throughout, I tried to remain aware of all the technical things I've been working on while paddling easier: keeping the boat quiet (not bobbing up and down or rolling left and right), immersing the blade fully on every stroke, sitting up straight.

It all added up to a pretty exhausting day.  Fortunately, it was the latest in a string of incredibly beautiful days we've been having.  It's been sunny and warm, the harbor has been smooth as glass, and there's been just enough of a breeze to keep me pleasantly cool.

Snake & surf

Today I paddled for 95 minutes.

When I got down to the dock there was a humongous snake sunning itself there.  Snakes at our dock are nothing new, and I've mostly learned not to let them bother me.  Some people are convinced they're water moccasins, but I've come around to the opinion that they're non-poisonous water snakes.  I'm no snake expert, however, and I could be utterly wrong.  In any case, I've never seen one behaving aggressively, and I just try to watch where I'm stepping and not catch one by surprise.

My intention was to paddle pretty easy today, ahead of a higher-intensity session tomorrow.  I paddled out of the harbor and down toward the trio of old bridges south of downtown Memphis.  When I got down there, I saw a towboat pushing a fuel barge upriver.  I am quite familiar with this towboat, which is based just below the old bridges.  It almost always produces a wake that is very good for surfing.  So I headed up the Arkansas bank, pushing the pace so I could get ahead of the towboat and then paddle out to it.  Yes, I know I was planning to paddle easy today, but, well...

"Training plan, schmaining plan," I thought.  "I wanna go surfing!"

By the time I got up to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, I was far enough ahead of the towboat that I could ferry out to the middle of the river in time to catch its wash.  Ten or fifteen minutes of sweet surfing ensued.

Once the good waves had petered out, I headed back to the harbor and paddled easier for forty minutes or so before returning to the dock.  I think I'll be fine for tomorrow.

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 5: Bulkheads continued

Here is the bow bulkhead after I have laminated it in a layer of fiberglass.  The next step is to put the bulkheads in place, get them as "square"  (perpendicular to the boat's long axis) as possible, and start glassing them in place.  I start on one side of each bulkhead, attaching it to the inside of the boat with strips of fiberglass all the way around its edges.  Then I move to the other side and fill the gaps between the plywood and the inner surface of the boat with epoxy resin thickened with wood dust to the consistency of putty.  Finally, I lay strips of fiberglass around the edges of the bulkhead on that second side.






Here is the stern bulkhead after it has been glassed in on one side.  I will fill the biggest gaps, like the one visible at the bottom of the photo, with thickened epoxy from the other side.  Once that has hardened, I can do the fiberglass work on the other side.

This work involves positioning the boat one way, laying in some fiberglass and resin, letting it harden, and then positioning the boat another way.  This way, I have gravity working for me at all times.  Most of the time I'm able to work pretty comfortably, as in the photo at right, where I've got the boat suspended at such a height that I can stand up straight and work inside it.

However, there are a few moments when an uncomfortable working position can't be avoided.  The hardest place to reach is the aft side of the bow bulkhead, because the bulkhead has to be placed up beyond the bow paddler's foot pegs.  The photo at left shows me during what is probably the least pleasant part of this entire project.




At this point I should mention a property of epoxy resin that will be relevant throughout this project.  Resin takes several days to become fully cured.  After it has hardened but before it has fully cured, it is said to be "green."  When fresh resin is applied to green resin, the two resins will form a chemical bond.  But fully-cured resin will not bond chemically with fresh resin, and so it must be sanded so that a mechanical bond will be established between the new resin and the old.  (Remember when we used to patch bicycle tires as kids, and we had to scuff up the area around the leak so the patch would stick?)

The resin in the original boat is of course fully cured.  Therefore, I must sand the areas inside the boat where the bulkheads will be installed.  Meanwhile, once I start the installation job, I want to get it completed before any of the new resin has fully cured so I don't have to do any more sanding.

March going out like a lamb

Today I did six laps of the March strength circuit and paddled for 150 minutes.  Joe and I paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf, and then up the Wolf a couple of miles to a railroad bridge, before turning around and going back to the marina.  The entire round trip, starting and finishing at our dock, is about 12 miles.

We've had some spectacular weather this week: warm, sunny, calm.  And there are worse places to spend it than on the lower Wolf River.  In its bottom few miles before it empties into the Mississippi River, the Wolf runs in its original meandering riverbed (it has been largely channelized farther upstream), and it's an exceptionally pretty place to paddle on a beautiful sunny day.