The last several days have been very humid and today promised to get even more so (rain). The raindrops began to fall as I drove down to the river this morning and then a couple of heavy showers moved through as I stretched under the marina's shelter. By the time I was through stretching the rain had abated to a light drizzle and mostly held off the whole time I was on the water.
I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and then up the Mississippi toward the mouth of the Wolf River. I found myself paddling into a strong northwest wind as well as the swift current of the swollen river, and the going was slow. It was a struggle to go much over 3 miles per hour from the mouth of the harbor to the Greenbelt Park. Once I reached the greenbelt I was able to move into more protected water since the park's lower tier was underwater with the Memphis gauge reading at 34.4 feet. But the wind still impeded my progress and getting the boat up to 5 mph was a challenge.
I finally reached the mouth of the Wolf more than 50 minutes after I'd left the dock--most of the time it takes me between 45 and 50 minutes to get up there. I'd had quite a workout, but the day's official workout was only beginning. I embarked on eight three-minute pieces with three minutes recovery in between; the target pace for each piece was 7.5 mph, pretty quick for me. With the 5-kilometer Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race just four weeks away, it's time to go faster.
I did the first piece up the Wolf and struggled to achieve 7.5 mph; after the recovery interval I did the next piece back down the Wolf and maintained 8 mph for most of it. There must have been a bit of flow in the Wolf even though the Mississippi was backed up into it.
I did the next two pieces going back down the Mississippi, so the 7.5-mph standard was irrelevant, but I tried to paddle with the same intensity. The water was squirrelly and I occasionally had trouble taking good strokes while trying to stay balanced.
I did the last four pieces back in the harbor and kept my speed at or near 7.5 mph throughout. I was feeling it big-time in the last two but I got it done.
I'm still a bit sore from the new strength routine, and now I'm exhausted from today's workout. Fortunately I didn't have anything pressing on the agenda for the rest of my Saturday.
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Race schedule update
Here's an updated schedule of races for the remainder of this season. New additions include an event on Taylorsville Lake outside Louisville on June 10, a race at Charleston, South Carolina, on September 16, and a race on the Ouachita River in Louisiana on September 23.
June
10 4th annual Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle. Taylorsville Lake, Taylorsville, Kentucky. A 10-mile flatwater race. Register
17 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee. The 36th edition of this classic. A 5000-meter race down the Mississippi, finishing at Mississippi River Park in downtown Memphis. Register
July
29 Music City SUP and Kayak Race. J. Percy Priest Reservoir, Nashville, Tennessee. A 6-mile flatwater race. Register
August
5? The Paddle Grapple. Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina. A 6-mile flatwater race.
10-13 U.S. Canoe Association National Championships. Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa. Flatwater marathon races in numerous classes sanctioned by the USCA.
September
2 Big River Regional. Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.
3 Rock Island Paddle Rampage. Center Hill Reservoir near Walling, Tennessee. A 14-mile flatwater race. Register
9 Lower Atchafalaya Race. Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana. An 8-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.
16 Chucktown Showdown. Charleston Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina. A 9-mile offshore race. Register
23 Ouachita River Rat Race. Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana. A 6.5-mile race on a Class I river.
October
7 Gator Bait Race. Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi. A 5.5-mile flatwater race.
June
10 4th annual Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle. Taylorsville Lake, Taylorsville, Kentucky. A 10-mile flatwater race. Register
17 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee. The 36th edition of this classic. A 5000-meter race down the Mississippi, finishing at Mississippi River Park in downtown Memphis. Register
July
29 Music City SUP and Kayak Race. J. Percy Priest Reservoir, Nashville, Tennessee. A 6-mile flatwater race. Register
August
5? The Paddle Grapple. Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina. A 6-mile flatwater race.
10-13 U.S. Canoe Association National Championships. Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa. Flatwater marathon races in numerous classes sanctioned by the USCA.
September
2 Big River Regional. Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.
3 Rock Island Paddle Rampage. Center Hill Reservoir near Walling, Tennessee. A 14-mile flatwater race. Register
9 Lower Atchafalaya Race. Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana. An 8-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.
16 Chucktown Showdown. Charleston Harbor, Charleston, South Carolina. A 9-mile offshore race. Register
23 Ouachita River Rat Race. Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana. A 6.5-mile race on a Class I river.
October
7 Gator Bait Race. Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi. A 5.5-mile flatwater race.
Friday, May 19, 2017
The river's still up
Having started the new strength routine Wednesday, I was sore as I paddled away from the dock yesterday. My triceps and armpit area is where I felt it the most--I guess that was probably from the pullups. I was all the way to the mouth of the harbor before I was finally loosening up a little.
The Mississippi River had been dropping slowly from its crest last weekend, and registered 35.2 feet on the Memphis gauge while I was out yesterday. Knowing that it might be my last chance to explore the flooded bottomland on the Arkansas side for this particular high-water event, I wanted to head back over there. There was a pretty strong south wind blowing and the river was choppy, but I was feeling relatively bold and handled the conditions just fine as I ferried across just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.
There's an outlet channel from Dacus Lake a few hundred meters above the HDB, and I paddled up that, savoring the protection from the wind that the wooded environs provided. Then I paddled out onto Dacus Lake and looped around through the flooded bottomland to its south, rode the sluice of current flowing under the HDB, paddled through some more submerged bottomland, and finally re-entered the main river channel directly across from the mouth of the harbor. By the time I'd ferried back across the river and re-entered the harbor I'd had a pretty good tempo session.
The Mississippi River had been dropping slowly from its crest last weekend, and registered 35.2 feet on the Memphis gauge while I was out yesterday. Knowing that it might be my last chance to explore the flooded bottomland on the Arkansas side for this particular high-water event, I wanted to head back over there. There was a pretty strong south wind blowing and the river was choppy, but I was feeling relatively bold and handled the conditions just fine as I ferried across just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.
There's an outlet channel from Dacus Lake a few hundred meters above the HDB, and I paddled up that, savoring the protection from the wind that the wooded environs provided. Then I paddled out onto Dacus Lake and looped around through the flooded bottomland to its south, rode the sluice of current flowing under the HDB, paddled through some more submerged bottomland, and finally re-entered the main river channel directly across from the mouth of the harbor. By the time I'd ferried back across the river and re-entered the harbor I'd had a pretty good tempo session.
Thursday, May 18, 2017
A new strength routine
Well, it's time for a new strength routine. I started easing into this one yesterday:
1. "Explosive" pushups: clap pushups, pushing up from prone position to kneeling position... stuff like that
2. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:34 of her video that's posted here
3. Pullups
4. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:50 of her video
5. Front and lat raises
6. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 3:11 of her video
1. "Explosive" pushups: clap pushups, pushing up from prone position to kneeling position... stuff like that
2. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:34 of her video that's posted here
3. Pullups
4. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:50 of her video
5. Front and lat raises
6. Core exercise with stability ball demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 3:11 of her video
Monday, May 15, 2017
Monday photo feature
My friend Scott Banbury and his family live on a lovely little estate overlooking Cypress Creek in North Memphis. In its present-day form Cypress Creek is mostly a concrete-lined ditch with little more than a trickle of urban runoff. But when the Mississippi River gets very high, it backs up Cypress Creek all the way to the Banbury home, providing deep water that's perfect for--what else?--canoeing! This past Friday, as the river was approaching its crest of 36 feet on the Memphis gauge, Scott (left) and his son Kade grabbed their boat and bushwhacked down to the creek for some high adventure in the urban jungle. Photo by Amy Stewart-Banbury.
Sunday, May 14, 2017
Post-race notes and "recovery"
Before yesterday the fastest time recorded in the Osage Spring 12 race had been one hour, 34 minutes, 1 second. Tandem kayakers Joe Mann and Matt Dressler turned in that time in the 2015 edition; yesterday's overall winners Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski were just three seconds back that year. With the help of the strong river flow and ideal weather conditions yesterday, ten boats were faster than the old record. Mira and Ron set a new overall record of one hour, 17 minutes, 31 seconds; my time of 1:19:32 is the new record in the "men's solo unlimited" (i.e., surf skis and such) class. The complete results are now posted here.
I don't think I've ever seen Mike Herbert use as low a stroke rate as he was using in the race yesterday. He was in the stern seat, so Savanna got to set the rate and it was Mike's job to follow. Savanna is a fine athlete but apparently she didn't inherit her dad's insane turnover ability.
I woke up this morning very sore in my midsection. That's not at all unusual the day after a race, but what was unusual was some sunburn on my scalp. My hair is pretty short right now--a man even asked me if I was in the military while I was filling up the tank on the trip home--and in the race I wore just a visor, without any thought given to the exposure of my skin up there. I did apply sunscreen to the rest of my exposed skin.
Once I'd had some coffee and breakfast and was awake for real, I saw to the typical post-race chores: I washed the mud and grime off my boat and stored it in the garage, and I unloaded the car of paddling gear and camping gear and cleaned it up a little and put it away all nice and neat.
After that I headed down to the river for a recovery paddle in the old beat-up boat I keep down there. At least, a recovery paddle is all I really needed today. But with the river having just crested at 36 feet here at Memphis around midnight, there were all kinds of nifty places out there to explore, and on top of that it was another gorgeous sunny day with Fahrenheit temperatures in the mid 70s. So I had to get out and do a little bit more than I'd normally do on a recovery day.
I did some thorough stretching on the dock and then paddled off toward the mouth of the harbor. As soon as I got there I ferried straight across the Mississippi to the Arkansas side. I had to hoof it a bit because a barge rig was coming upriver; then, over near the Arkansas side, I had to navigate the same minefield of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff I'd encountered last Sunday.
Then I was paddling across the flooded farmland across from downtown Memphis, and the water calmed down, though it was definitely flowing. One thing you should understand about the Mississippi basin is that bottomland areas like the one across from downtown are in fact river channels that are simply between floods most of the time. If you want to plant some crops on that land, or build a house on it, fine; but you must accept that when Old Man River has a mind to go a-floodin', he couldn't care less how many thousands of dollars you've invested there.
Here the current was mild enough that I could paddle against it without much trouble, and I did the easy "recovery" paddling I'd been seeking. Soon I was north of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and I found a couple of open channels through the forested land up there. I couldn't believe I was only a mile or so from the core of downtown as I drifted through this impromptu swamp, serenaded by the songbirds and dappled by the sunlight peaking through the lush tree canopy.
Soon I popped out of the woods and was back in the main river channel. That barge rig I'd had to avoid earlier had left plenty of turbulent water in its wake and I tried to keep my sore body relaxed as I paddled through it. As I re-entered the harbor I saw dozens of walkers and joggers over on the bank, enjoying the beautiful day, and I displayed my very best paddling form because, just like I said in my last post, I'm a bit vain that way, like a peacock showing off his tail feathers.
I returned to the dock to complete a 70-minute session, and all told it was a decent recovery paddle with maybe just a whiff of higher intensity.
I woke up this morning very sore in my midsection. That's not at all unusual the day after a race, but what was unusual was some sunburn on my scalp. My hair is pretty short right now--a man even asked me if I was in the military while I was filling up the tank on the trip home--and in the race I wore just a visor, without any thought given to the exposure of my skin up there. I did apply sunscreen to the rest of my exposed skin.
Once I'd had some coffee and breakfast and was awake for real, I saw to the typical post-race chores: I washed the mud and grime off my boat and stored it in the garage, and I unloaded the car of paddling gear and camping gear and cleaned it up a little and put it away all nice and neat.
After that I headed down to the river for a recovery paddle in the old beat-up boat I keep down there. At least, a recovery paddle is all I really needed today. But with the river having just crested at 36 feet here at Memphis around midnight, there were all kinds of nifty places out there to explore, and on top of that it was another gorgeous sunny day with Fahrenheit temperatures in the mid 70s. So I had to get out and do a little bit more than I'd normally do on a recovery day.
I did some thorough stretching on the dock and then paddled off toward the mouth of the harbor. As soon as I got there I ferried straight across the Mississippi to the Arkansas side. I had to hoof it a bit because a barge rig was coming upriver; then, over near the Arkansas side, I had to navigate the same minefield of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff I'd encountered last Sunday.
Then I was paddling across the flooded farmland across from downtown Memphis, and the water calmed down, though it was definitely flowing. One thing you should understand about the Mississippi basin is that bottomland areas like the one across from downtown are in fact river channels that are simply between floods most of the time. If you want to plant some crops on that land, or build a house on it, fine; but you must accept that when Old Man River has a mind to go a-floodin', he couldn't care less how many thousands of dollars you've invested there.
Here the current was mild enough that I could paddle against it without much trouble, and I did the easy "recovery" paddling I'd been seeking. Soon I was north of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and I found a couple of open channels through the forested land up there. I couldn't believe I was only a mile or so from the core of downtown as I drifted through this impromptu swamp, serenaded by the songbirds and dappled by the sunlight peaking through the lush tree canopy.
Soon I popped out of the woods and was back in the main river channel. That barge rig I'd had to avoid earlier had left plenty of turbulent water in its wake and I tried to keep my sore body relaxed as I paddled through it. As I re-entered the harbor I saw dozens of walkers and joggers over on the bank, enjoying the beautiful day, and I displayed my very best paddling form because, just like I said in my last post, I'm a bit vain that way, like a peacock showing off his tail feathers.
I returned to the dock to complete a 70-minute session, and all told it was a decent recovery paddle with maybe just a whiff of higher intensity.
Racing in the mighty Midwest
I left Memphis around noon on Friday, hoping to arrive at the race site less than six hours later. It would take me closer to seven hours. The drive west from Saint Louis seemed to take forever. But at last I reached the point where U.S. 50 crosses the Osage River, some 15 miles or so east of the state capital in Jefferson City. I checked into a campground a short distance from where the race would start the next morning. I found the local Saint Louis Cardinals affiliate on my car radio and listened to the Cards lose to the Cubs while I set up my tent and got settled in. The temperature was dropping toward an overnight low in the 50s Fahrenheit, and by ten o'clock I was snug in my sleeping bag and drifting off to sleep. I like campin'.
When I got up yesterday morning I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunny day. After a quick breakfast and breaking of camp I headed over to the Mari-Osa river access (so named because it's near the confluence of the Maries and Osage Rivers) and found several dozen other racers congregating there. I looked out over the river and was pleased to see a good strong flow: much of Missouri had experienced significant flooding a week earlier, and a lot of water was still being released from the Lake of the Ozarks upriver.
I had always assumed that the Osage Spring 12 race was an all-downriver affair, but I quickly learned otherwise yesterday morning. Bonnots Mill, where the race ends, is only eight miles down the Osage River from the Mari-Osa access. The course proceeds downriver two miles past Bonnots Mill to a buoy near where the Osage enters the Missouri River; racers then must paddle those two miles back up the Osage to the finish line. I was hoping that the Missouri would be high enough to back up into the Osage and spare us a struggle against the current in those last two miles.
As racers continued to arrive it became evident that Mixed Tandem Kayak would be the class to watch. The biggest name involved was three-time Olympian Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, who was teaming up with his daughter Savanna. Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski had made the trip over from Olathe, Kansas; in the last five years or so I had raced them two or three times and they'd looked better each time. And then there was Dylan McHardy, a strong racer from Springfield, Missouri, who had recruited the lovely and powerful Mandy Urban to be his partner.
We all went through our warmup routines and maneuvered our boats into position on the swollen river. At ten o'clock sharp the gun went off, and I sprinted hard off the line. As I'd expected, Team Herbert had the fastest start and I tried to grab at least a few seconds on their wake. They quickly pulled away from me and I sidled over toward Mandy and Dylan pulling even with me on my left. Over to my right Mira and Ron were advancing, and in the next few minutes our three boats converged to form a chase pack.
It was a quick pace and I wasn't a hundred percent confident I could sustain it for the entire 12 miles, but I dug in and hoped I could hold my competitors' wakes for as long as I could. I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I knew that if I lost those wakes the race would turn from a lively competition with my peers into a lonely, miserable slog in which I could easily be caught by my pursuers.
Several miles in Mandy and Dylan dropped off the pace. They seemed to be having an amicable discussion about their preferred method of boat control and I sensed that their run as a contender had come to an end. I held fast on the stern wake of Mira and Ron, who were throwing in surge after surge to reel in Savanna and Mike. I was hanging on for dear life, but as we covered more and more distance with the aid of the current my confidence began to grow. Finally Mira and Ron attained the Herberts' stern wake and I decided to make a move up onto the Kansans' right-side wake. After several minutes of recovery there, I threw in another sprint and moved up alongside Savanna and Mike. Now I was starting to have some fun. After a few more minutes of recovery I moved up into the lead, because... why not? How often do I get to lead a race in which Mike Herbert is participating?
I knew I couldn't be too cocky and a short time later I dropped back onto the Herberts' right-side wake. Moments later I got a little surprise: off to my right Mandy and Dylan reappeared. I'd thought surely we'd left them behind for good, and I was impressed that they had fought their way back into the mix.
We passed the finish line at Bonnots Mill and I knew things would get a little more serious in the last four miles. The river surface had smoothed out and I was hoping we'd hit the backwater of the Missouri. A few minutes later the big red turning buoy became visible in the distance, and I think all seven people in our lead pack were having similar thoughts. A buoy turn is often the site of high drama in canoe and kayak racing, and I was hoping my sharper turning ability might give me an edge over the longer tandem boats. But I think the others were aware of that issue too, and the pace began to quicken to the point that I was struggling to hold my position. This was the first hint that my competitors might have more left in the tank than I did.
As we approached the buoy my spirits fell a bit more as I saw a pair of clean, crisp eddy lines coming off it. Those last two miles back upriver would indeed be a fight against the current. The Herberts were still in the lead and they followed a carefully-planned counterclockwise arc toward the buoy. The moment their boat became broadside in the current Mike yelled "go!" and they shot around the buoy and into a ferry toward the river-right bank. Mira and Ron closed tight on the buoy and I had to back off my speed for a moment to avoid getting pinched off. That moment of hesitation neutralized my turn-radius advantage. Mandy and Dylan got swept downstream a bit and once were were all around the buoy the order was Savanna and Mike in first, Mira and Ron in second, yours truly in third, and Mandy and Dylan in fourth.
And at this point my race began to fall apart a little bit. Moving upstream I had trouble staying on Mira and Ron's wake and after several minutes of struggling I fell off. With Mandy and Dylan closing in behind me I tried to read the water for the most efficient lines (I do paddle up the Mississippi River all the time, after all). But I lost a gamble when I took a little slot between a hanging tree branch and the bank and found myself sliding over either a log or the muddy bottom, and I had to stop and make sure I eased over it without hurting my rudder. Mandy and Dylan cruised right by me.
After this mishap it felt like somebody had thrown a cinder block in my boat. Every stroke became excruciating, and the three tandems opened an ever-increasing gap on me. I wondered if something had snagged on my rudder, and once it became obvious that I would not be able to catch back up to the tandems I stopped and took a few backstrokes, hoping that would get it off. But moving forward again I still felt like I was paddling through cement. I had at least a good three or four minutes on the next paddler behind me, so finally I stopped and hopped out of my boat to check my rudder. There was nothing there.
Up ahead there was one final moment of excitement as the Herberts were closing in on victory. They tried to duck under a ramp between the bank and a floating dock, and Savanna hit it with her paddle and broke off her right blade. Mira and Ron, who had opted for the safer line on the other side of the dock, had gotten just the break they needed to move in front and cross the finish line in first place. Mandy and Dylan also were able to sneak past the Herberts as Savanna labored through the final meters with only one blade. A couple of minutes later I reached the same spot and ducked under the ramp like the Herberts had (I'm not a fast learner), and fortunately I was able to proceed across the finish line with no equipment damage.
After the race somebody pointed out that the water was quite shallow where we'd paddled upriver in those last two miles, and that's probably the reason for my sudden paddling difficulty in the last two miles. It seems obvious enough but in these times of flood the idea hadn't crossed my mind. And so I guess those tandem boats simply gave me a good whipping in that water. I shouldn't let it dampen my spirits after what was otherwise a good race for me--I did take the overall win among solo paddlers, after all. But you know me--I'm a competitive, slightly vain person who wants to go out and beat 'em all every time.
The race organizers provided a nice little lunch, followed by the awards. I thought this was an excellent event and the gorgeous weather did nothing to hurt that. I was tired as I began the long drive home, but in good humor. The afternoon baseball game kept me entertained for most of the trip (this time the Cardinals beat those mean old Cubs). I arrived home around nine o'clock and was passed out in bed not much later.
When I got up yesterday morning I could tell it was going to be a beautiful sunny day. After a quick breakfast and breaking of camp I headed over to the Mari-Osa river access (so named because it's near the confluence of the Maries and Osage Rivers) and found several dozen other racers congregating there. I looked out over the river and was pleased to see a good strong flow: much of Missouri had experienced significant flooding a week earlier, and a lot of water was still being released from the Lake of the Ozarks upriver.
I had always assumed that the Osage Spring 12 race was an all-downriver affair, but I quickly learned otherwise yesterday morning. Bonnots Mill, where the race ends, is only eight miles down the Osage River from the Mari-Osa access. The course proceeds downriver two miles past Bonnots Mill to a buoy near where the Osage enters the Missouri River; racers then must paddle those two miles back up the Osage to the finish line. I was hoping that the Missouri would be high enough to back up into the Osage and spare us a struggle against the current in those last two miles.
As racers continued to arrive it became evident that Mixed Tandem Kayak would be the class to watch. The biggest name involved was three-time Olympian Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, who was teaming up with his daughter Savanna. Mira Doneva and Ron Ladzinski had made the trip over from Olathe, Kansas; in the last five years or so I had raced them two or three times and they'd looked better each time. And then there was Dylan McHardy, a strong racer from Springfield, Missouri, who had recruited the lovely and powerful Mandy Urban to be his partner.
We all went through our warmup routines and maneuvered our boats into position on the swollen river. At ten o'clock sharp the gun went off, and I sprinted hard off the line. As I'd expected, Team Herbert had the fastest start and I tried to grab at least a few seconds on their wake. They quickly pulled away from me and I sidled over toward Mandy and Dylan pulling even with me on my left. Over to my right Mira and Ron were advancing, and in the next few minutes our three boats converged to form a chase pack.
It was a quick pace and I wasn't a hundred percent confident I could sustain it for the entire 12 miles, but I dug in and hoped I could hold my competitors' wakes for as long as I could. I was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I knew that if I lost those wakes the race would turn from a lively competition with my peers into a lonely, miserable slog in which I could easily be caught by my pursuers.
Several miles in Mandy and Dylan dropped off the pace. They seemed to be having an amicable discussion about their preferred method of boat control and I sensed that their run as a contender had come to an end. I held fast on the stern wake of Mira and Ron, who were throwing in surge after surge to reel in Savanna and Mike. I was hanging on for dear life, but as we covered more and more distance with the aid of the current my confidence began to grow. Finally Mira and Ron attained the Herberts' stern wake and I decided to make a move up onto the Kansans' right-side wake. After several minutes of recovery there, I threw in another sprint and moved up alongside Savanna and Mike. Now I was starting to have some fun. After a few more minutes of recovery I moved up into the lead, because... why not? How often do I get to lead a race in which Mike Herbert is participating?
I knew I couldn't be too cocky and a short time later I dropped back onto the Herberts' right-side wake. Moments later I got a little surprise: off to my right Mandy and Dylan reappeared. I'd thought surely we'd left them behind for good, and I was impressed that they had fought their way back into the mix.
We passed the finish line at Bonnots Mill and I knew things would get a little more serious in the last four miles. The river surface had smoothed out and I was hoping we'd hit the backwater of the Missouri. A few minutes later the big red turning buoy became visible in the distance, and I think all seven people in our lead pack were having similar thoughts. A buoy turn is often the site of high drama in canoe and kayak racing, and I was hoping my sharper turning ability might give me an edge over the longer tandem boats. But I think the others were aware of that issue too, and the pace began to quicken to the point that I was struggling to hold my position. This was the first hint that my competitors might have more left in the tank than I did.
As we approached the buoy my spirits fell a bit more as I saw a pair of clean, crisp eddy lines coming off it. Those last two miles back upriver would indeed be a fight against the current. The Herberts were still in the lead and they followed a carefully-planned counterclockwise arc toward the buoy. The moment their boat became broadside in the current Mike yelled "go!" and they shot around the buoy and into a ferry toward the river-right bank. Mira and Ron closed tight on the buoy and I had to back off my speed for a moment to avoid getting pinched off. That moment of hesitation neutralized my turn-radius advantage. Mandy and Dylan got swept downstream a bit and once were were all around the buoy the order was Savanna and Mike in first, Mira and Ron in second, yours truly in third, and Mandy and Dylan in fourth.
And at this point my race began to fall apart a little bit. Moving upstream I had trouble staying on Mira and Ron's wake and after several minutes of struggling I fell off. With Mandy and Dylan closing in behind me I tried to read the water for the most efficient lines (I do paddle up the Mississippi River all the time, after all). But I lost a gamble when I took a little slot between a hanging tree branch and the bank and found myself sliding over either a log or the muddy bottom, and I had to stop and make sure I eased over it without hurting my rudder. Mandy and Dylan cruised right by me.
After this mishap it felt like somebody had thrown a cinder block in my boat. Every stroke became excruciating, and the three tandems opened an ever-increasing gap on me. I wondered if something had snagged on my rudder, and once it became obvious that I would not be able to catch back up to the tandems I stopped and took a few backstrokes, hoping that would get it off. But moving forward again I still felt like I was paddling through cement. I had at least a good three or four minutes on the next paddler behind me, so finally I stopped and hopped out of my boat to check my rudder. There was nothing there.
Up ahead there was one final moment of excitement as the Herberts were closing in on victory. They tried to duck under a ramp between the bank and a floating dock, and Savanna hit it with her paddle and broke off her right blade. Mira and Ron, who had opted for the safer line on the other side of the dock, had gotten just the break they needed to move in front and cross the finish line in first place. Mandy and Dylan also were able to sneak past the Herberts as Savanna labored through the final meters with only one blade. A couple of minutes later I reached the same spot and ducked under the ramp like the Herberts had (I'm not a fast learner), and fortunately I was able to proceed across the finish line with no equipment damage.
After the race somebody pointed out that the water was quite shallow where we'd paddled upriver in those last two miles, and that's probably the reason for my sudden paddling difficulty in the last two miles. It seems obvious enough but in these times of flood the idea hadn't crossed my mind. And so I guess those tandem boats simply gave me a good whipping in that water. I shouldn't let it dampen my spirits after what was otherwise a good race for me--I did take the overall win among solo paddlers, after all. But you know me--I'm a competitive, slightly vain person who wants to go out and beat 'em all every time.
The race organizers provided a nice little lunch, followed by the awards. I thought this was an excellent event and the gorgeous weather did nothing to hurt that. I was tired as I began the long drive home, but in good humor. The afternoon baseball game kept me entertained for most of the trip (this time the Cardinals beat those mean old Cubs). I arrived home around nine o'clock and was passed out in bed not much later.
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Getting ready to race again
This morning I paddled for 60 minutes on the riverfront, doing eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals and otherwise paddling a comfortable pace with the hope of feeling sharp at the Osage Spring 12 race on Saturday.
I've wanted to attend this race for each of the last two years, only to cancel at the last minute because of an injury popping up. Neither injury turned out to be that serious, but at the time it was bothering me enough that I decided not to push my luck. As for right now, I'm feeling pretty good, so with fingers crossed I'll be heading up to Missouri in the morning.
Yesterday I did my current strength routine for the last time before Saturday's race. Next week I'll probably draw up a new routine to carry me through to the big race here at Memphis on June 17.
I've wanted to attend this race for each of the last two years, only to cancel at the last minute because of an injury popping up. Neither injury turned out to be that serious, but at the time it was bothering me enough that I decided not to push my luck. As for right now, I'm feeling pretty good, so with fingers crossed I'll be heading up to Missouri in the morning.
Yesterday I did my current strength routine for the last time before Saturday's race. Next week I'll probably draw up a new routine to carry me through to the big race here at Memphis on June 17.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Gar-watching on a sunny day
It's official: I'm now registered for the Osage Spring 12 race up in Missouri this Saturday. It's a 12-mile race down the Osage River near the town of Osage City. From what I've been able to find out so far it sounds like the area didn't experience significant flooding during last week's storms. My guess is that the most likely flooding effect on the race will be no current in the bottom miles: the finish line isn't far from the Osage's confluence with the Missouri River, and if the Missouri is high it could be backed up the Osage pretty far.
But such concerns seemed a long way off as Joe and I paddled a loop in the harbor this morning. With the Mississippi River at 34.1 feet on the Memphis gauge, the harbor was broad and well up into the green trees, and the harbor denizens were taking it in stride. We saw the turtles and the blue heron we're used to seeing, and just beneath the surface lurked many dozens of gar. The gar is an ancient species--I believe they were around when the dinosaurs were--and it looks different from any other fish I've seen. Gar are skinny and needle-nosed, and when they see a paddler like me coming they contort into a U-shape and quickly disappear into deeper water, leaving a small disturbance on the surface. Up at the north end of the harbor there were many gar hanging out among the submerged trees, and a couple of times we were able to get close enough to one to get a good look at him before he fled. I saw a couple of huge ones--one about half the length of our 20-plus-foot boats.
But such concerns seemed a long way off as Joe and I paddled a loop in the harbor this morning. With the Mississippi River at 34.1 feet on the Memphis gauge, the harbor was broad and well up into the green trees, and the harbor denizens were taking it in stride. We saw the turtles and the blue heron we're used to seeing, and just beneath the surface lurked many dozens of gar. The gar is an ancient species--I believe they were around when the dinosaurs were--and it looks different from any other fish I've seen. Gar are skinny and needle-nosed, and when they see a paddler like me coming they contort into a U-shape and quickly disappear into deeper water, leaving a small disturbance on the surface. Up at the north end of the harbor there were many gar hanging out among the submerged trees, and a couple of times we were able to get close enough to one to get a good look at him before he fled. I saw a couple of huge ones--one about half the length of our 20-plus-foot boats.
Monday, May 8, 2017
Monday photo feature
Here's a photo from a day in April nine years ago when the water was a little bit higher than yesterday's 32.4 feet on the Memphis gauge: what's usually bottomland beneath the old bridges south of downtown Memphis was under enough water for paddling. That's the Frisco Bridge in the foreground; just beyond it is the Harahan Bridge. The sloping ramp just behind the Harahan Bridge is what now carries the Big River Crossing bike and pedestrian trail.
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Sunny skies and big water
The sun is out again but strong winds continued through yesterday in the wake of that weird storm system. When I paddled yesterday morning the wind wasn't too bad yet but I could tell it would be a gusty afternoon.
I warmed up for fifteen minutes and did three 8-stroke sprints, then paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River. With the water at 31.4 feet on the Memphis gauge the paddle up felt slow--the water was high enough to wash out a lot of the eddies along the bank but not high enough to inundate the Greenbelt Park and provide slack water to paddle on there. But I got up to the Wolf in less than 50 minutes, and that's reasonably efficient for me.
Once there I commenced my main objective for the day: the "start-to-boat-ramp" workout. This workout consists of five hard pieces from the power lines that mark the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race to the boat ramp at the south end of the parking lot, about 400 meters down the course. The recovery interval is the time it takes me to paddle back up to the start (around five minutes). It kind of reminds me of the slalom workouts I used to do, where I'd run a course, paddle back up to the top of it, run it again, paddle back up, and so on.
For years this workout was a staple for Joe and me as we prepared for the OICK race, but I hadn't done it in several years before yesterday, largely because doing the start-to-boat-ramp thing is a nearly two-hour undertaking because of the paddle up to the Wolf and back, and I was looking to do crisper, shorter-duration workouts. But I've decided that the race practice built into this workout is invaluable: in a less-than-20-minute race like the OICK, starting fast and getting good position early is of paramount importance.
These pieces are often physically exhausting, but yesterday they seemed oddly exhilarating even though I was doing them into a pretty stiff headwind. Maybe it was the fast current in the rising river. Whatever the case, I was in a mood to paddle hard and was almost disappointed when each piece was over.
Typically a recovery paddle would be in order for the next day, but I really didn't feel so worn out this morning. Today's weather was gorgeous--the wind finally subsided--and I made the enjoyment of it my main agenda. I paddled out of the harbor and down the Mississippi to the trio of bridges below downtown (the Harahan, the Frisco, and the Memphis-Arkansas). I kept the intensity mostly moderate, though a couple of times I did have to hammer a bit while working my way back up along the Arkansas bank: at today's river level I found myself fighting some strong current over there. There were also a lot of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff that reminded me of big-water whitewater rivers like the Gauley and the New--it was a little disconcerting for a guy sitting in a tippy race boat.
Once I'd ferried back across the river I finished off my 70-minute session with an easy paddle up the harbor back to the dock.
I warmed up for fifteen minutes and did three 8-stroke sprints, then paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River. With the water at 31.4 feet on the Memphis gauge the paddle up felt slow--the water was high enough to wash out a lot of the eddies along the bank but not high enough to inundate the Greenbelt Park and provide slack water to paddle on there. But I got up to the Wolf in less than 50 minutes, and that's reasonably efficient for me.
Once there I commenced my main objective for the day: the "start-to-boat-ramp" workout. This workout consists of five hard pieces from the power lines that mark the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race to the boat ramp at the south end of the parking lot, about 400 meters down the course. The recovery interval is the time it takes me to paddle back up to the start (around five minutes). It kind of reminds me of the slalom workouts I used to do, where I'd run a course, paddle back up to the top of it, run it again, paddle back up, and so on.
For years this workout was a staple for Joe and me as we prepared for the OICK race, but I hadn't done it in several years before yesterday, largely because doing the start-to-boat-ramp thing is a nearly two-hour undertaking because of the paddle up to the Wolf and back, and I was looking to do crisper, shorter-duration workouts. But I've decided that the race practice built into this workout is invaluable: in a less-than-20-minute race like the OICK, starting fast and getting good position early is of paramount importance.
These pieces are often physically exhausting, but yesterday they seemed oddly exhilarating even though I was doing them into a pretty stiff headwind. Maybe it was the fast current in the rising river. Whatever the case, I was in a mood to paddle hard and was almost disappointed when each piece was over.
Typically a recovery paddle would be in order for the next day, but I really didn't feel so worn out this morning. Today's weather was gorgeous--the wind finally subsided--and I made the enjoyment of it my main agenda. I paddled out of the harbor and down the Mississippi to the trio of bridges below downtown (the Harahan, the Frisco, and the Memphis-Arkansas). I kept the intensity mostly moderate, though a couple of times I did have to hammer a bit while working my way back up along the Arkansas bank: at today's river level I found myself fighting some strong current over there. There were also a lot of boils and exploding whirlpools and stuff that reminded me of big-water whitewater rivers like the Gauley and the New--it was a little disconcerting for a guy sitting in a tippy race boat.
Once I'd ferried back across the river I finished off my 70-minute session with an easy paddle up the harbor back to the dock.
Friday, May 5, 2017
A mid-continental nor'easter
Right now it feels like we've taken the Wayback Machine to mid March and its cold, wet weather. Since Wednesday there's been a bizarre, slowly-rotating system parked over the Mid South and Midwest, visiting light but persistent rain, chilly temperatures, and occasionally fierce winds upon us.
Yesterday I paddled in a steady drizzle, a Fahrenheit temperature of 51 degrees or so, and a gusty wind from the west. I stayed out for 60 minutes, using the first fifteen to warm up and do three 8-stroke sprints, and then paddling at anaerobic threshold from 0:15 to 0:45.
The Mississippi River stage forecast has been revised upward to 36.5 feet on the Memphis gauge. That won't hurt the city proper, but surrounding bottomland will be underwater. These high water levels are actually a fun time to get out and paddle because of all the new real estate one can explore. If I can just find some time, maybe I'll do that.
For those following the news of all the flooding that has hit Arkansas and southern Missouri, I'll just mention that that region drains into the Mississippi downstream of Memphis by way of rivers like the Saint Francis, the White, and the Arkansas. That's why flooding along the Mississippi here at Memphis will not be as bad as one might expect. I'll be curious to see how river towns below the mouth of the Arkansas and White Rivers fare--the surrounding areas of places like Greenville, Vicksburg, and Natchez.
Yesterday I paddled in a steady drizzle, a Fahrenheit temperature of 51 degrees or so, and a gusty wind from the west. I stayed out for 60 minutes, using the first fifteen to warm up and do three 8-stroke sprints, and then paddling at anaerobic threshold from 0:15 to 0:45.
The Mississippi River stage forecast has been revised upward to 36.5 feet on the Memphis gauge. That won't hurt the city proper, but surrounding bottomland will be underwater. These high water levels are actually a fun time to get out and paddle because of all the new real estate one can explore. If I can just find some time, maybe I'll do that.
For those following the news of all the flooding that has hit Arkansas and southern Missouri, I'll just mention that that region drains into the Mississippi downstream of Memphis by way of rivers like the Saint Francis, the White, and the Arkansas. That's why flooding along the Mississippi here at Memphis will not be as bad as one might expect. I'll be curious to see how river towns below the mouth of the Arkansas and White Rivers fare--the surrounding areas of places like Greenville, Vicksburg, and Natchez.
Monday, May 1, 2017
Monday photo feature
USA Canoe-Kayak held its flatwater marathon national championships over the weekend at Sugar Land, Texas. Here, Carson Pellerin of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, begins a portage with his brother Peyton hot on his heels. Carson and Peyton's brother Conrad took third place in the Junior age group of the K1 class. Photo by Sandy Yonley.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Not enough sense to come in out of the rain
Yesterday I set out to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar. I'd last done it back on February 5; it took me one hour, 55 minutes, 15 seconds that day, and according to my G.P.S. device I covered 12.66 miles. Yesterday my course was about a half-mile shorter--12.17 miles--and I took over two minutes longer to do it at 1:57:35.
The main reason for the shorter distance is a higher water level: 22.9 feet on the Memphis gauge, versus 19.7 feet on the fifth of February. This makes a difference at the north end of the Bar and at the southern tip of Mud Island, where water covers up more terrain as the water rises. Meanwhile, the main thing slowing me down yesterday was a stiff south wind.
Mind you, I never really do this paddle as a serious time trial--I don't go out dead-set on beating my best time or anything like that--but I do try to keep the boat moving and follow efficient lines and stuff like that. I keep a watch on it mostly out of curiosity; I'll get back to the dock and look at the time and say "Hmm, I did that pretty fast today" or whatever might be appropriate. I'm always really tired by the time I get back to the harbor, so part of the value of this exercise is the opportunity to practice good stroke form with my body in such a state.
There's a storm system moving across the central U.S. that the weatherman on my tee vee has been talking about all week because of its potential for bringing Noah's-Ark-caliber flooding. The system arrived here in the Memphis area last night and it rained pretty steadily through lunchtime today. It felt like a bit of chore to go out and paddle in such weather, but of course I usually get at least somewhat wet anytime I paddle--it is a water sport, after all. So out I went. Having paddled hard both Thursday and yesterday, I kept the intensity low today. It was reasonably warm, fortunately, and I tried to relish the drenching rain. Tried, that is... I was still glad to get back to the dock and go home.
I'm curious to see what effect this storm system has on the Mississippi, seeing as how it's covered large portions of the Missouri, Ohio, and upper Mississippi basins. I've been watching the NOAA forecast of Memphis gauge readings, and over the last few days the predicted crest has been revised upward from 25.4 feet to 32.5 feet to 34.5 feet. Official flood stage on the Memphis gauge is 34 feet: the city of Memphis will be fine, but bottomland on the Arkansas side and along tributary rivers on the Tennessee side will be inundated.
The main reason for the shorter distance is a higher water level: 22.9 feet on the Memphis gauge, versus 19.7 feet on the fifth of February. This makes a difference at the north end of the Bar and at the southern tip of Mud Island, where water covers up more terrain as the water rises. Meanwhile, the main thing slowing me down yesterday was a stiff south wind.
Mind you, I never really do this paddle as a serious time trial--I don't go out dead-set on beating my best time or anything like that--but I do try to keep the boat moving and follow efficient lines and stuff like that. I keep a watch on it mostly out of curiosity; I'll get back to the dock and look at the time and say "Hmm, I did that pretty fast today" or whatever might be appropriate. I'm always really tired by the time I get back to the harbor, so part of the value of this exercise is the opportunity to practice good stroke form with my body in such a state.
There's a storm system moving across the central U.S. that the weatherman on my tee vee has been talking about all week because of its potential for bringing Noah's-Ark-caliber flooding. The system arrived here in the Memphis area last night and it rained pretty steadily through lunchtime today. It felt like a bit of chore to go out and paddle in such weather, but of course I usually get at least somewhat wet anytime I paddle--it is a water sport, after all. So out I went. Having paddled hard both Thursday and yesterday, I kept the intensity low today. It was reasonably warm, fortunately, and I tried to relish the drenching rain. Tried, that is... I was still glad to get back to the dock and go home.
I'm curious to see what effect this storm system has on the Mississippi, seeing as how it's covered large portions of the Missouri, Ohio, and upper Mississippi basins. I've been watching the NOAA forecast of Memphis gauge readings, and over the last few days the predicted crest has been revised upward from 25.4 feet to 32.5 feet to 34.5 feet. Official flood stage on the Memphis gauge is 34 feet: the city of Memphis will be fine, but bottomland on the Arkansas side and along tributary rivers on the Tennessee side will be inundated.
Friday, April 28, 2017
Forging ahead
I'm thinking my next competition will be two weeks from tomorrow, and of course the big race here at Memphis is a mere seven weeks from tomorrow. So I'm starting to get back down to business.
Having paddled with Joe Tuesday and started a new strength routine Wednesday, I was ready to do a workout on the water yesterday. A storm front had moved through overnight and the morning was cooler and calm.
Paddling from the marina toward the mouth of the harbor, I warmed up for fifteen minutes and did three 8-stroke sprints. I paddled up the Mississippi to the south end of the Greenbelt Park, and then started my workout heading back downriver. The workout was ten two-minute pieces with two minutes recovery in between. I did the first two on the river and aimed for a pace of 12 miles per hour. By the third one I was back on the flatwater of the harbor, and my target pace was 7.5 mph.
I felt pretty good for most of the workout. As usual I tried to take the best strokes I could, with a good precise catch and full rotation from the waist up. By the sixth or seventh piece I was starting to feel pretty taxed. By the eighth piece I was well north of the marina and I turned around to do the last two heading south, back toward the dock. Up until then the southwest breeze had seemed light, but doing those last two pieces right into it was tough. I struggled to do 7.2 or 7.3 mph for those last two.
Anyway, it seemed like a good start for this period from now until the OICK race on June 17. With all that's been going on in my out-of-the-boat life my biggest challenge will be getting adequate recovery in between workouts.
Having paddled with Joe Tuesday and started a new strength routine Wednesday, I was ready to do a workout on the water yesterday. A storm front had moved through overnight and the morning was cooler and calm.
Paddling from the marina toward the mouth of the harbor, I warmed up for fifteen minutes and did three 8-stroke sprints. I paddled up the Mississippi to the south end of the Greenbelt Park, and then started my workout heading back downriver. The workout was ten two-minute pieces with two minutes recovery in between. I did the first two on the river and aimed for a pace of 12 miles per hour. By the third one I was back on the flatwater of the harbor, and my target pace was 7.5 mph.
I felt pretty good for most of the workout. As usual I tried to take the best strokes I could, with a good precise catch and full rotation from the waist up. By the sixth or seventh piece I was starting to feel pretty taxed. By the eighth piece I was well north of the marina and I turned around to do the last two heading south, back toward the dock. Up until then the southwest breeze had seemed light, but doing those last two pieces right into it was tough. I struggled to do 7.2 or 7.3 mph for those last two.
Anyway, it seemed like a good start for this period from now until the OICK race on June 17. With all that's been going on in my out-of-the-boat life my biggest challenge will be getting adequate recovery in between workouts.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Pascagoula results
Here are the results of this past Saturday's Pascagoula Run race. Each line includes the racer's overall place, name, time (hr:min:sec), boat class, and gender.
1 Jeb Berry 1:50:00.6 K1 Race (M)
2 Elmore Holmes 1:50:08.0 K1 Race (M)
3 Nick Kinderman 2:05:31.7 K1 Race (M)
4 William Wolfe 2:08:01.2 K1 Race (M)
5 Robert Brooks 2:16:42.5 K1 Long (M)
6 Kent Overmyer 2:18:14.1 K1 Fast (M)
7 David Waters 2:18:24.4 K1 Medium (M)
8 Ray Tipton 2:19:18.8 K1 Long (M)
9 Chet Jaynes 2:20:37.2 K1 Long (M)
10 David Richards 2:24:36.7 K1 Long (M)
11 Gerry Cross 2:25:57.7 K1 Medium (M)
12 Lauren Drummond 2:26:19.0 K1 Long (F)
13 Wayne Berry 2:30:33.7 K1 Medium (M)
14 Stanley Stark 2:30:48.7 K1 Fast (M)
15 Charles Carpenter 2:31:08.5 K1 Fast (M)
16 Hank Baltar 2:36:21.4 K1 Long
17 Nova Cross 2:37:54.6 K1 Medium (F)
18 David Seyfarth 2:42:48.6 K1 Medium (M)
19 Carly Somerset 2:43:16.1 K1 Long (F)
20 Roberto Lopez 2:43:58.9 K1 Long (M)
21 Nate Payne 2:44:33.5 K1 Long (M)
22 Donna Mellott 2:50:00.7 K1 Fast (F)
23 Chucky Clark 2:51:05.3 K1 Short (M)
24 Dianne Tipton 3:01:21.1 K1 Long (F)
25 Belinda Johnson 3:02:37.9 SUP Pedal (F)
26 Debbie Boggs 3:02:54.9 K1 Fast (F)
27 Bill Shaw/Sharon Knight 3:03:31.2 C2 Rec (Mixed)
28 Ryan Gillikin 3:04:04.1 K1 Medium (M)
29 Kelli Overmyer 3:06:24.4 K1 Long (F)
30 Pete Blank 3:13:22.2 K1 Medium (M)
31 Jimmy Krebs 3:17:22.6 K1 Short (M)
32 Bryce Alexander 3:17:30.1 K1 Short (M)
33 Laura Callaway 3:19:08.8 K1 Medium (F)
34 Mica Swanson 3:20:33.4 SUP Pedal (F)
35 Kaleb Smith 3:21:01.2 K1 Pool Toy (M)
36 Brenda Sims 3:21:42.0 K1 Medium (F)
37 Mark Gardiner 3:23:53.5 K1 Short (M)
38 Ann Godfrey 3:23:55.8 K1 Long (F)
39 Kelly Platt 3:23:57.0 K1 Long (F)
40 Gene Peters 3:28:33.6 K1 Short (M)
41 Elliot Cassel 3:32:50.7
42 Drew Walker 3:35:57.7 K1 Pool Toy (M)
43 Jim/Donna Underwood 3:36:42.4 K2 Pedal (Mixed)
44 Brian Holmes 3:45:19.4 K1 Medium (M)
45 Alice Baker/Susan Vandagriff 3:45:26.3 K2 Rec (Mixed)
46 Gloria Bailey 3:45:47.8 SUP Surf (F)
47 Peyton McKay/Sharufah McKay 3:48:45.7 C2 Rec (Mixed)
48 Hunter Blades/Douglas Smith 3:51:44.6 K2 Rec (Mixed)
49 Ethan Sumrall 3:53:16.9 K1 Pool Toy (M)
50 Keigm Richards 3:53:17.6 K1 Pedal (F)
51 Shaun Tucker 3:53:51.0 K1 Medium (M)
52 Lisa/Anna Wright 3:56:28.7 K2 Pedal (Mixed)
53 Bill Wright 3:56:49.6 K1 Medium (M)
54 John Barber 4:06:18.4 K1 Medium (M)
55 Bill Monroe 4:10:01.5 K1 Short (M)
56 Judd Poor 4:10:23.4 K1 Medium (M)
57 Stefanie Poor 4:10:45.9 K1 Medium (F)
58 Laurie Snow 4:27:05.3 K1 Short (F)
59 Carla Hudson 4:27:20.7 K1 Pool Toy (F)
60 Jessie Zenor 4:33:55.7
1 Jeb Berry 1:50:00.6 K1 Race (M)
2 Elmore Holmes 1:50:08.0 K1 Race (M)
3 Nick Kinderman 2:05:31.7 K1 Race (M)
4 William Wolfe 2:08:01.2 K1 Race (M)
5 Robert Brooks 2:16:42.5 K1 Long (M)
6 Kent Overmyer 2:18:14.1 K1 Fast (M)
7 David Waters 2:18:24.4 K1 Medium (M)
8 Ray Tipton 2:19:18.8 K1 Long (M)
9 Chet Jaynes 2:20:37.2 K1 Long (M)
10 David Richards 2:24:36.7 K1 Long (M)
11 Gerry Cross 2:25:57.7 K1 Medium (M)
12 Lauren Drummond 2:26:19.0 K1 Long (F)
13 Wayne Berry 2:30:33.7 K1 Medium (M)
14 Stanley Stark 2:30:48.7 K1 Fast (M)
15 Charles Carpenter 2:31:08.5 K1 Fast (M)
16 Hank Baltar 2:36:21.4 K1 Long
17 Nova Cross 2:37:54.6 K1 Medium (F)
18 David Seyfarth 2:42:48.6 K1 Medium (M)
19 Carly Somerset 2:43:16.1 K1 Long (F)
20 Roberto Lopez 2:43:58.9 K1 Long (M)
21 Nate Payne 2:44:33.5 K1 Long (M)
22 Donna Mellott 2:50:00.7 K1 Fast (F)
23 Chucky Clark 2:51:05.3 K1 Short (M)
24 Dianne Tipton 3:01:21.1 K1 Long (F)
25 Belinda Johnson 3:02:37.9 SUP Pedal (F)
26 Debbie Boggs 3:02:54.9 K1 Fast (F)
27 Bill Shaw/Sharon Knight 3:03:31.2 C2 Rec (Mixed)
28 Ryan Gillikin 3:04:04.1 K1 Medium (M)
29 Kelli Overmyer 3:06:24.4 K1 Long (F)
30 Pete Blank 3:13:22.2 K1 Medium (M)
31 Jimmy Krebs 3:17:22.6 K1 Short (M)
32 Bryce Alexander 3:17:30.1 K1 Short (M)
33 Laura Callaway 3:19:08.8 K1 Medium (F)
34 Mica Swanson 3:20:33.4 SUP Pedal (F)
35 Kaleb Smith 3:21:01.2 K1 Pool Toy (M)
36 Brenda Sims 3:21:42.0 K1 Medium (F)
37 Mark Gardiner 3:23:53.5 K1 Short (M)
38 Ann Godfrey 3:23:55.8 K1 Long (F)
39 Kelly Platt 3:23:57.0 K1 Long (F)
40 Gene Peters 3:28:33.6 K1 Short (M)
41 Elliot Cassel 3:32:50.7
42 Drew Walker 3:35:57.7 K1 Pool Toy (M)
43 Jim/Donna Underwood 3:36:42.4 K2 Pedal (Mixed)
44 Brian Holmes 3:45:19.4 K1 Medium (M)
45 Alice Baker/Susan Vandagriff 3:45:26.3 K2 Rec (Mixed)
46 Gloria Bailey 3:45:47.8 SUP Surf (F)
47 Peyton McKay/Sharufah McKay 3:48:45.7 C2 Rec (Mixed)
48 Hunter Blades/Douglas Smith 3:51:44.6 K2 Rec (Mixed)
49 Ethan Sumrall 3:53:16.9 K1 Pool Toy (M)
50 Keigm Richards 3:53:17.6 K1 Pedal (F)
51 Shaun Tucker 3:53:51.0 K1 Medium (M)
52 Lisa/Anna Wright 3:56:28.7 K2 Pedal (Mixed)
53 Bill Wright 3:56:49.6 K1 Medium (M)
54 John Barber 4:06:18.4 K1 Medium (M)
55 Bill Monroe 4:10:01.5 K1 Short (M)
56 Judd Poor 4:10:23.4 K1 Medium (M)
57 Stefanie Poor 4:10:45.9 K1 Medium (F)
58 Laurie Snow 4:27:05.3 K1 Short (F)
59 Carla Hudson 4:27:20.7 K1 Pool Toy (F)
60 Jessie Zenor 4:33:55.7
Fulfilling the need for strength
I've said many times before that strength work is my least favorite part of training, and because of that I've developed a give-and-take relationship with it. I try to follow a few simple guidelines:
1. Keep the routines short and simple. I focus on quality, not quantity. This way I'm not dreading spending a big chunk of my day doing tedious and sometimes uncomfortable exercises. I try to work in exercises for each general area of the body--legs, core, and arms/shoulders.
2. Good technique is more important than the amount of weight. Paddling is a highly technical sport and I think it's important to be precise in the gym as well as in the boat. And on a similar note, let's not forget that I'm a paddler, not a body builder, so those commercial gym slogans like "Exercise your right to look good" don't really resonate with me. I happen to think that accomplished paddlers do in fact "look good," but there's a difference between "show muscle" and muscle that actually performs useful tasks. A bulky body is generally not an asset in our sport, so I do stuff to bring about good lean muscle tone, "prehab" exercises to prevent injuries, and explosive power. Also, at age 49 I'm thinking more and more about the issues of aging, and I look for exercises that emphasize continued flexibility and range of motion.
3. Don't get all upset if you miss a session. Most of the time I try to do strength work three times a week, but if life gets in the way and I have to miss a session, I just tell myself it's not a big deal, and I'll get back on track the next time.
I do my strength work in the comfort of my own home, where I listen to whatever music I want and can play with my cats in between exercises. I've got some dumbbells, a rubber band, a pair of gymnast's rings, and a few other simple things, and that's more than I need for a good routine.
And so, now that all that has been said, I present you with my latest strength routine:
1. Stability ball rolls (demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 2:55 of the first video posted here)
2. Bicep curls with a dumbbell
3. Dead lift (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 2:55 of the third video posted here)
4. Rubber band "prehab" exercise (demonstrated by Daniele Molmenti at 8:35 of the second video posted here)
5. Stability ball exercise (demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:03 of the first video posted here)
1. Keep the routines short and simple. I focus on quality, not quantity. This way I'm not dreading spending a big chunk of my day doing tedious and sometimes uncomfortable exercises. I try to work in exercises for each general area of the body--legs, core, and arms/shoulders.
2. Good technique is more important than the amount of weight. Paddling is a highly technical sport and I think it's important to be precise in the gym as well as in the boat. And on a similar note, let's not forget that I'm a paddler, not a body builder, so those commercial gym slogans like "Exercise your right to look good" don't really resonate with me. I happen to think that accomplished paddlers do in fact "look good," but there's a difference between "show muscle" and muscle that actually performs useful tasks. A bulky body is generally not an asset in our sport, so I do stuff to bring about good lean muscle tone, "prehab" exercises to prevent injuries, and explosive power. Also, at age 49 I'm thinking more and more about the issues of aging, and I look for exercises that emphasize continued flexibility and range of motion.
3. Don't get all upset if you miss a session. Most of the time I try to do strength work three times a week, but if life gets in the way and I have to miss a session, I just tell myself it's not a big deal, and I'll get back on track the next time.
I do my strength work in the comfort of my own home, where I listen to whatever music I want and can play with my cats in between exercises. I've got some dumbbells, a rubber band, a pair of gymnast's rings, and a few other simple things, and that's more than I need for a good routine.
And so, now that all that has been said, I present you with my latest strength routine:
1. Stability ball rolls (demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 2:55 of the first video posted here)
2. Bicep curls with a dumbbell
3. Dead lift (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 2:55 of the third video posted here)
4. Rubber band "prehab" exercise (demonstrated by Daniele Molmenti at 8:35 of the second video posted here)
5. Stability ball exercise (demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:03 of the first video posted here)
Monday, April 24, 2017
Monday photo feature
Carly Somerset of Ocean Springs faces the agony of long-distance competition with a grin during the Pascagoula Run Canoe and Kayak Race on Saturday. Photo by Suzanne Nelson.
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Some post-race notes
I left Pascagoula around 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon and drove my sore, achy body all the way back to Memphis, arriving home at about 9:30. After sleeping the sleep of the dead overnight, I got up this morning and set about the business of cleaning out the car and putting things away. I usually like to do a recovery paddle the day after a race, but my fatigue, the chilly overcast weather outside, and an early-afternoon social commitment all kept that from happening. Instead I did some full-body stretching and soaked in the tub for a while, and I'll try to get down to the river in the morning.
During the race yesterday I had my G.P.S. device on board, and though I'd turned off the speed feature--that piece of data is one distraction I prefer to do without during a race--it was still giving me my mile splits. I noticed that as Jeb Berry and I navigated the first third or so of the race our splits were in the 8:30-8:40 range, but in the later stages the pace slowed to around 9:10 or 9:15. I was a bit surprised at how fast our early miles were--not much slower than the mile pieces I'd done in a workout two weeks earlier. The Gulf Coast region hadn't had much rain lately and I wasn't counting on much help from the current. As for the slower pace later on, I guess the tide might have been a factor: I checked the tidal chart online this morning and it showed that the tide was on a gradual rise (and therefore flowing up into the rivers and creeks) while the race was going on. Also, once we were out of the forested section of the Pascagoula we were more exposed to the wind. I never thought the headwind was particularly bad during the race, but it was definitely there. It picked up quite a bit more after Jeb and I had finished and I didn't envy the people still out on the course, particularly the stand-up paddleboarders and the paddlers in open canoes.
What's next for me? Well, there's a race on the Kentucky River south of Lexington next Saturday that I'd love to attend, but I'm still slammed with work here at home and I'm not sure if I can swing it. If I don't make it up there, then maybe a race on the Osage River up in Missouri will be next: it's the weekend of May 13. I've wanted to go to it each of the last two years, only to have injuries crop up that forced me to cancel at the last minute. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
During the race yesterday I had my G.P.S. device on board, and though I'd turned off the speed feature--that piece of data is one distraction I prefer to do without during a race--it was still giving me my mile splits. I noticed that as Jeb Berry and I navigated the first third or so of the race our splits were in the 8:30-8:40 range, but in the later stages the pace slowed to around 9:10 or 9:15. I was a bit surprised at how fast our early miles were--not much slower than the mile pieces I'd done in a workout two weeks earlier. The Gulf Coast region hadn't had much rain lately and I wasn't counting on much help from the current. As for the slower pace later on, I guess the tide might have been a factor: I checked the tidal chart online this morning and it showed that the tide was on a gradual rise (and therefore flowing up into the rivers and creeks) while the race was going on. Also, once we were out of the forested section of the Pascagoula we were more exposed to the wind. I never thought the headwind was particularly bad during the race, but it was definitely there. It picked up quite a bit more after Jeb and I had finished and I didn't envy the people still out on the course, particularly the stand-up paddleboarders and the paddlers in open canoes.
What's next for me? Well, there's a race on the Kentucky River south of Lexington next Saturday that I'd love to attend, but I'm still slammed with work here at home and I'm not sure if I can swing it. If I don't make it up there, then maybe a race on the Osage River up in Missouri will be next: it's the weekend of May 13. I've wanted to go to it each of the last two years, only to have injuries crop up that forced me to cancel at the last minute. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
New place, familiar face, hard-fought race
Friday's drive went smoothly enough, and I spent the night at my friend Nick Kinderman's house in Ocean Springs. Yesterday morning the race was scheduled to start at 8:30 AM, so we were up bright and early to have a little breakfast, drive over to Pascagoula, drop our boats at the start, drive our cars down to the finish, and catch the shuttle back up.
The Pascagoula River is the largest free-flowing watershed left in the United States, and I'd heard for years how beautiful its swampy environs are. Finally I would get to see for myself. Up at Little River Marina where the race would start, we found ourselves in forested bottomland; as we paddled downstream toward Mississippi Sound the scenery would transition into coastal marshes and the river would distribute itself into numerous channels.
I admired it all but knew I had to focus on the task at hand. My main competition for the overall title would most likely come from Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi. Over the last eight years or so I had beaten Jeb handily at times but had to pull every trick in the book to hold him off at other times. I think Jeb's work schedule sometimes allows him ample training time and sometimes allows him hardly any. Based on his performance last month at Ocean Springs, when he was right on my tail until the very end, I'm guessing he's had some good time in the boat in the last few months.
We lined up next to the marina dock, and the gun went off. I tried to take the first 200 meters or so out pretty hard, so that anybody wanting to ride my wake would have to work a bit to get on it. Soon enough I could see Jeb's bow in my peripheral vision.
We were escorted by motorized craft from several agencies--sheriff's department, the local EMS, and so on--and as we covered the early miles through wooded terrain we had to contend with their wakes. Several times I saw what looked like a favorable wave moving in and I sprinted for it, hoping to stretch my lead a bit, but I gained no significant advantage. At one moment near the 3-mile mark a boat alongside us suddenly accelerated and sent a series of steep waves our way, causing both Jeb and me to spin out a little and swamping my footwell with water. Jeb moved out to a several-boatlength lead as I fumbled to open my drain valve, and I had to invest some energy in moving back up onto his stern wake over the next few minutes.
Once I was back on Jeb's wake, I sat there for a good long while and pondered my tactical plan. I was pretty sure I didn't want the race to go down to a sprint in the final hundred meters, because I'd probably be outmatched by Jeb's raw speed in that situation. But I also didn't want to try to out-grind Jeb over many miles because he's good at that, too. I figured my best bet would be to log as much time on Jeb's wake as I could and shorten the race to a three-mile-ish affair-- that's the kind of distance I think I do best.
So I sat on Jeb's wake some, and occasionally did my gentlemanly duty of taking a pull myself. Around mile 9 I threw in a surge and seemed to open a couple of boatlengths on Jeb, but moments later we reached the most puzzling part of the course. By now we were in the marshy grasslands and there were numerous forks in the channel. At one such place the race organizers had posted a sign with an arrow pointing toward the left fork, but the arrow was so small and my eyesight is so lousy that I practically had to paddle right up to the sign to see what it was telling me. Then, shortly after this fork, the channel forked again, and this time there was no sign. Neither fork looked any better than the other, and I had to stop paddling and throw up my hands in bewilderment. There were some spectators nearby, as well as a police boat, and of course Jeb, but nobody seemed to know for sure which way to go. By some process of inductive reasoning we decided the left fork was the way to go, and happily, it would turn out we were correct. But my attempt at a breakaway had been smothered.
No worries, I thought; I'll just try again. I proceeded to throw in a number of surges, but Jeb held fast on my wake over my right shoulder. Soon we were approaching the final bend in the course that revealed the U.S. 90 bridge, just beyond which the finish line lay. I knew my last chance to drive up the pace, and erode Jeb's ability to beat me in a short sprint at the finish, was at hand. As the bridge came into view some powerboat wakes swept through our path from right to left and I began to paddle hard, hoping that my comfort in such conditions would give me an advantage. And in the short run, I think it did. But as we moved within a hundred meters of the bridge, Jeb's bow roared into view to my right and seconds later he was in the lead, and just like that I was pretty sure he had me beat.
One final uncertainty remained, however: we'd been told that the finish line would be marked by two buoys, and as we passed beneath the bridge those buoys were nowhere in sight. I thought I had seen them when we were still four hundred meters out, but what I thought were the buoys turned out to be some rocks on the bank (my long-distance eyesight is poor, don't forget). It was only when we'd passed the solid concrete bridge piling on our left that the buoys were revealed. Jeb continued sprinting straight ahead until he'd crossed the imaginary line that passed through the two buoys, while I, ever the good little rule-follower, made a hard-left turn so that I could paddle between the buoys, as racers are technically supposed to do because it assures that the scorers on the bank can see their boat numbers.
So... for one who insists on following the letter of racing law, I was the inaugural Pascagoula Run champion. But in this case the spirit of the law deserved to prevail. When a race finishes on open water, it's important that the buoys be visible from a long distance out, and yesterday they weren't. So Jeb didn't know any better than I did where those buoys were, and when they popped into sight at the last second he'd just done what his instinct told him what was best. In fact, he'd done exactly what he had to do to beat me: he'd withstood my attempts to surge away from him out on the course, stayed within striking distance, and then proved stronger and faster at the end.
Fortunately, that's how the scorers saw it, and they declared Jeb the overall winner. The race organizers, meanwhile, quickly realized the flaw in the buoy placement and instructed the motorized support boats to advise racers still out on the course of where they were. I paddled back north of the bridge to help. That's where I saw my gracious host Nick finish up a good effort, beating out William Wolfe and Robert Brooks for third place overall. Lauren Drummond of D'Iberville, Mississippi, was the first female across the finish line. The race organizers are still working to get the complete results posted online; I will link to them when they do.
According to my G.P.S. device, the total race distance was about 12.38 miles (19,968 meters). Other racers got different readings because of the many choices of lines all along the course. The advertised distance was 12.5 miles. Jeb and I finished the course in about an hour and 50 minutes; again, I'll share the official results here when they are available.
All told, I thought this was a good event. It was quite well organized despite the couple of course-marking glitches. With any luck there will be more editions of this race for me to attend in the future.
The Pascagoula River is the largest free-flowing watershed left in the United States, and I'd heard for years how beautiful its swampy environs are. Finally I would get to see for myself. Up at Little River Marina where the race would start, we found ourselves in forested bottomland; as we paddled downstream toward Mississippi Sound the scenery would transition into coastal marshes and the river would distribute itself into numerous channels.
I admired it all but knew I had to focus on the task at hand. My main competition for the overall title would most likely come from Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi. Over the last eight years or so I had beaten Jeb handily at times but had to pull every trick in the book to hold him off at other times. I think Jeb's work schedule sometimes allows him ample training time and sometimes allows him hardly any. Based on his performance last month at Ocean Springs, when he was right on my tail until the very end, I'm guessing he's had some good time in the boat in the last few months.
We lined up next to the marina dock, and the gun went off. I tried to take the first 200 meters or so out pretty hard, so that anybody wanting to ride my wake would have to work a bit to get on it. Soon enough I could see Jeb's bow in my peripheral vision.
We were escorted by motorized craft from several agencies--sheriff's department, the local EMS, and so on--and as we covered the early miles through wooded terrain we had to contend with their wakes. Several times I saw what looked like a favorable wave moving in and I sprinted for it, hoping to stretch my lead a bit, but I gained no significant advantage. At one moment near the 3-mile mark a boat alongside us suddenly accelerated and sent a series of steep waves our way, causing both Jeb and me to spin out a little and swamping my footwell with water. Jeb moved out to a several-boatlength lead as I fumbled to open my drain valve, and I had to invest some energy in moving back up onto his stern wake over the next few minutes.
Once I was back on Jeb's wake, I sat there for a good long while and pondered my tactical plan. I was pretty sure I didn't want the race to go down to a sprint in the final hundred meters, because I'd probably be outmatched by Jeb's raw speed in that situation. But I also didn't want to try to out-grind Jeb over many miles because he's good at that, too. I figured my best bet would be to log as much time on Jeb's wake as I could and shorten the race to a three-mile-ish affair-- that's the kind of distance I think I do best.
So I sat on Jeb's wake some, and occasionally did my gentlemanly duty of taking a pull myself. Around mile 9 I threw in a surge and seemed to open a couple of boatlengths on Jeb, but moments later we reached the most puzzling part of the course. By now we were in the marshy grasslands and there were numerous forks in the channel. At one such place the race organizers had posted a sign with an arrow pointing toward the left fork, but the arrow was so small and my eyesight is so lousy that I practically had to paddle right up to the sign to see what it was telling me. Then, shortly after this fork, the channel forked again, and this time there was no sign. Neither fork looked any better than the other, and I had to stop paddling and throw up my hands in bewilderment. There were some spectators nearby, as well as a police boat, and of course Jeb, but nobody seemed to know for sure which way to go. By some process of inductive reasoning we decided the left fork was the way to go, and happily, it would turn out we were correct. But my attempt at a breakaway had been smothered.
No worries, I thought; I'll just try again. I proceeded to throw in a number of surges, but Jeb held fast on my wake over my right shoulder. Soon we were approaching the final bend in the course that revealed the U.S. 90 bridge, just beyond which the finish line lay. I knew my last chance to drive up the pace, and erode Jeb's ability to beat me in a short sprint at the finish, was at hand. As the bridge came into view some powerboat wakes swept through our path from right to left and I began to paddle hard, hoping that my comfort in such conditions would give me an advantage. And in the short run, I think it did. But as we moved within a hundred meters of the bridge, Jeb's bow roared into view to my right and seconds later he was in the lead, and just like that I was pretty sure he had me beat.
One final uncertainty remained, however: we'd been told that the finish line would be marked by two buoys, and as we passed beneath the bridge those buoys were nowhere in sight. I thought I had seen them when we were still four hundred meters out, but what I thought were the buoys turned out to be some rocks on the bank (my long-distance eyesight is poor, don't forget). It was only when we'd passed the solid concrete bridge piling on our left that the buoys were revealed. Jeb continued sprinting straight ahead until he'd crossed the imaginary line that passed through the two buoys, while I, ever the good little rule-follower, made a hard-left turn so that I could paddle between the buoys, as racers are technically supposed to do because it assures that the scorers on the bank can see their boat numbers.
So... for one who insists on following the letter of racing law, I was the inaugural Pascagoula Run champion. But in this case the spirit of the law deserved to prevail. When a race finishes on open water, it's important that the buoys be visible from a long distance out, and yesterday they weren't. So Jeb didn't know any better than I did where those buoys were, and when they popped into sight at the last second he'd just done what his instinct told him what was best. In fact, he'd done exactly what he had to do to beat me: he'd withstood my attempts to surge away from him out on the course, stayed within striking distance, and then proved stronger and faster at the end.
Fortunately, that's how the scorers saw it, and they declared Jeb the overall winner. The race organizers, meanwhile, quickly realized the flaw in the buoy placement and instructed the motorized support boats to advise racers still out on the course of where they were. I paddled back north of the bridge to help. That's where I saw my gracious host Nick finish up a good effort, beating out William Wolfe and Robert Brooks for third place overall. Lauren Drummond of D'Iberville, Mississippi, was the first female across the finish line. The race organizers are still working to get the complete results posted online; I will link to them when they do.
According to my G.P.S. device, the total race distance was about 12.38 miles (19,968 meters). Other racers got different readings because of the many choices of lines all along the course. The advertised distance was 12.5 miles. Jeb and I finished the course in about an hour and 50 minutes; again, I'll share the official results here when they are available.
All told, I thought this was a good event. It was quite well organized despite the couple of course-marking glitches. With any luck there will be more editions of this race for me to attend in the future.
Friday, April 21, 2017
Tearing myself away to race
Later this morning I'll start the six-hour drive down to the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The inaugural Pascagoula Run is tomorrow: it's about a twelve-and-a-half-mile (20-kilometer) race that starts at Little River marina and finishes in Lighthouse Park in Pascagoula. I've long heard how beautiful the Pascagoula River is and I'm looking forward to paddling on it.
Out-of-the-boat concerns have continued to occupy my attention, but I did get down to the river Tuesday and yesterday, and did the current strength routine Monday and Wednesday. Yesterday I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints to polish my speed a bit ahead of tomorrow's race.
Out-of-the-boat concerns have continued to occupy my attention, but I did get down to the river Tuesday and yesterday, and did the current strength routine Monday and Wednesday. Yesterday I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints to polish my speed a bit ahead of tomorrow's race.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Monday photo feature
Casey Eichfeld of Drums, Pennsylvania, competes in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials for whitewater slalom at Charlotte. Eichfeld won that trials and raced in his second Olympic Games that year. He made the Olympic team for a third time last year, and is now aiming for a fourth (unprecedented for a U.S. slalom racer) in 2020. Photo by Mike Watson.
Sunday, April 16, 2017
Hoping to be back in action next weekend
I'm tentatively planning to race down at Pascagoula, Mississippi, this Saturday. In spite of all the out-of-the-boat distractions my training has felt pretty good lately, and I'd like to get another race under my belt at this point in the season.
After Thursday's hard workout I've kept things steady and moderately paced this weekend. A warm spell has moved into the Mid South, with Fahrenheit temperatures in the 80s, and I've been in summertime attire down on the river.
After Thursday's hard workout I've kept things steady and moderately paced this weekend. A warm spell has moved into the Mid South, with Fahrenheit temperatures in the 80s, and I've been in summertime attire down on the river.
Friday, April 14, 2017
Racing again soon?
The training has felt pretty good this week with another round of competitions coming up pretty soon. On Tuesday I paddled for 60 minutes, doing three 8-stroke sprints and then paddling a steady pace. The river was only two feet higher than it had been over the weekend but it seemed quite a bit higher than that. There were a lot of logs and branches and other woody debris floating in the water and I guess that made for a flooded feel.
Yesterday I returned to the riverfront for another pace workout. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on a set of ten half-mile pieces with four minutes recovery in between. My target time for each was 4 minutes 10 seconds, and the actual times were 4:12, 4:08, 4:08, 4:00, 4:06, 4:05, 4:04, 4:05, 4:07, 4:09. I got a bit overzealous on that fourth piece but otherwise stayed pretty close to the target. The workout was certainly tiring but I managed to paddle strong all the way through the last piece, and that was satisfying.
I did rounds of the current strength routine Monday, Wednesday, and today.
As for those upcoming competitions, I'm still trying to figure out which ones I will attend. I'd like to race on both the 22nd and the 29th but money is a bit tight right now because of my expensive rental property renovation, so... we'll see.
Yesterday I returned to the riverfront for another pace workout. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on a set of ten half-mile pieces with four minutes recovery in between. My target time for each was 4 minutes 10 seconds, and the actual times were 4:12, 4:08, 4:08, 4:00, 4:06, 4:05, 4:04, 4:05, 4:07, 4:09. I got a bit overzealous on that fourth piece but otherwise stayed pretty close to the target. The workout was certainly tiring but I managed to paddle strong all the way through the last piece, and that was satisfying.
I did rounds of the current strength routine Monday, Wednesday, and today.
As for those upcoming competitions, I'm still trying to figure out which ones I will attend. I'd like to race on both the 22nd and the 29th but money is a bit tight right now because of my expensive rental property renovation, so... we'll see.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Monday photo feature
The greater Memphis area was well represented down at Vicksburg on Saturday, so I feel somewhat less bad about not making it myself. Mike Womack took second place in the class for fast touring boats, while Tim Schramm and Jason Salomon were first and third in the race boat class. All three finished in the overall top five. Photo by some random passerby.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
Time well spent here at home
It felt odd not to be in Vicksburg yesterday morning. The annual Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race took place there, and because of a Friday evening work commitment this was the first one I've missed since 2009. Congratulations to overall winners Phil Capel of Sherwood, Arkansas (men) and Karen Kesselring of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas (women). The complete results are here.
Races took place elsewhere yesterday as well. It felt as though I were the only person sitting at home not racing. All the more reason to get out on my home water and work it as if there were no tomorrow.
The next several races I'm likely to attend are somewhat long, so I went down to the river yesterday planning to do some pace work. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I started the first of a few one-mile pieces. My goal time was 8 minutes, 30 seconds--about a 7.06 miles-per-hour pace. But a pretty stiff south wind was blowing and as I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor into that wind, I knew I wouldn't be going that fast in this first piece. I struggled to keep my speed above 6.5 mph and finished the mile in 8:57.
I left the harbor and started paddling up the Mississippi. I let myself recover from the first piece until I reached the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and then tried to keep my speed above 5 mph from the bridge up to the mouth of the Wolf River. It wasn't that hard at the current river level (21.5 feet on the Memphis gauge) because I had lots of good eddies along the Tennessee bank, not to mention that wind at my back. For much of my trip upriver I was above 6 mph and I even hit 7 mph once or twice.
When the Mississippi is flowing at a fairly high level it backs up into the Wolf for at least several miles, so yesterday I could count on flatwater with no current on the Wolf. When I reached the power lines that mark the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, I started my second one-mile piece. Now the wind was still mostly at my back, so I had no trouble maintaining a speed just over 7 mph. My time was right on target at 8:27.
Once the piece was over I continued up the Wolf at an easy pace for four minutes, then turned around and started my third mile. Now I was paddling into a headwind at times, but the Wolf's forested banks shielded me from the worst of it. When the wind pushed against me I tried to relax and keep my speed as close to 7 mph as I could so I wouldn't lose too much time. In the end I was just about on the dot again with a time of 8:28.
After a couple of hundred meters of easy paddling I was back at the power lines just above the Wolf's mouth. Doing a G.P.S.-regulated piece down the Mississippi wouldn't work because of the help I'd be getting from the big river's current, so I did something a little different: I timed myself from the power lines down to the H.D. Bridge. This stretch is the first two miles or so of the OICK race course. During the race each year I try to look at my split when I reach the bridge, and I think my fastest ever was around 10:40 or so. With the south wind blowing and fatigue setting in from the previous pieces, I wasn't counting on anything that fast yesterday; I figured anything under 12 minutes wouldn't be bad. Trying to paddle at the same intensity of my mile pieces, I reached the bridge in 11:32.
I was now seriously tired, but I had one piece left to go: another one-miler back in the harbor. For this one I would have the wind entirely at my back, so I knew that as long as I took good strokes and kept the pace right at 7.1 mph I would make my time goal. And I did, clocking 8:20. In retrospect, I think 8:30 was a good target pace for the workout: in a pace workout you want a target pace that's slightly out of your comfort zone, but not too far out because you have to be able to maintain it from the start of the workout to the finish.
When I finished the last piece I had just a half-mile or so back to the dock, and I paddled easy to cool down. The Rhodes College crew was out on the water in three four-man shells, and it was nice to see people besides myself pursuing excellence in human-powered craft in our lovely harbor.
If it hadn't been for the pesky wind, we'd have had what my friend Joe likes to call "chamber of commerce weather" yesterday--sunny and beautiful, in other words. This morning it was sunny and beautiful once again, but the wind was blowing even harder. I tried to stay relaxed and not let the wind alter my behavior as I set out for a hard-earned recovery paddle. From the marina I paddled north (downwind) first and spoke to some of the turtles who were back out sunning themselves. Then I turned around and paddled south into the wind, reminding myself that I was in no hurry to get anywhere and that paddling harder was unnecessary. I finished the 60-minute session with a wind-aided return to the dock.
Races took place elsewhere yesterday as well. It felt as though I were the only person sitting at home not racing. All the more reason to get out on my home water and work it as if there were no tomorrow.
The next several races I'm likely to attend are somewhat long, so I went down to the river yesterday planning to do some pace work. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I started the first of a few one-mile pieces. My goal time was 8 minutes, 30 seconds--about a 7.06 miles-per-hour pace. But a pretty stiff south wind was blowing and as I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor into that wind, I knew I wouldn't be going that fast in this first piece. I struggled to keep my speed above 6.5 mph and finished the mile in 8:57.
I left the harbor and started paddling up the Mississippi. I let myself recover from the first piece until I reached the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and then tried to keep my speed above 5 mph from the bridge up to the mouth of the Wolf River. It wasn't that hard at the current river level (21.5 feet on the Memphis gauge) because I had lots of good eddies along the Tennessee bank, not to mention that wind at my back. For much of my trip upriver I was above 6 mph and I even hit 7 mph once or twice.
When the Mississippi is flowing at a fairly high level it backs up into the Wolf for at least several miles, so yesterday I could count on flatwater with no current on the Wolf. When I reached the power lines that mark the start of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, I started my second one-mile piece. Now the wind was still mostly at my back, so I had no trouble maintaining a speed just over 7 mph. My time was right on target at 8:27.
Once the piece was over I continued up the Wolf at an easy pace for four minutes, then turned around and started my third mile. Now I was paddling into a headwind at times, but the Wolf's forested banks shielded me from the worst of it. When the wind pushed against me I tried to relax and keep my speed as close to 7 mph as I could so I wouldn't lose too much time. In the end I was just about on the dot again with a time of 8:28.
After a couple of hundred meters of easy paddling I was back at the power lines just above the Wolf's mouth. Doing a G.P.S.-regulated piece down the Mississippi wouldn't work because of the help I'd be getting from the big river's current, so I did something a little different: I timed myself from the power lines down to the H.D. Bridge. This stretch is the first two miles or so of the OICK race course. During the race each year I try to look at my split when I reach the bridge, and I think my fastest ever was around 10:40 or so. With the south wind blowing and fatigue setting in from the previous pieces, I wasn't counting on anything that fast yesterday; I figured anything under 12 minutes wouldn't be bad. Trying to paddle at the same intensity of my mile pieces, I reached the bridge in 11:32.
I was now seriously tired, but I had one piece left to go: another one-miler back in the harbor. For this one I would have the wind entirely at my back, so I knew that as long as I took good strokes and kept the pace right at 7.1 mph I would make my time goal. And I did, clocking 8:20. In retrospect, I think 8:30 was a good target pace for the workout: in a pace workout you want a target pace that's slightly out of your comfort zone, but not too far out because you have to be able to maintain it from the start of the workout to the finish.
When I finished the last piece I had just a half-mile or so back to the dock, and I paddled easy to cool down. The Rhodes College crew was out on the water in three four-man shells, and it was nice to see people besides myself pursuing excellence in human-powered craft in our lovely harbor.
If it hadn't been for the pesky wind, we'd have had what my friend Joe likes to call "chamber of commerce weather" yesterday--sunny and beautiful, in other words. This morning it was sunny and beautiful once again, but the wind was blowing even harder. I tried to stay relaxed and not let the wind alter my behavior as I set out for a hard-earned recovery paddle. From the marina I paddled north (downwind) first and spoke to some of the turtles who were back out sunning themselves. Then I turned around and paddled south into the wind, reminding myself that I was in no hurry to get anywhere and that paddling harder was unnecessary. I finished the 60-minute session with a wind-aided return to the dock.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Signs of the season
Joe and I enjoyed a calm, sunny, 70-degrees-Fahrenheit morning on Tuesday. We did a loop of the harbor in 80 minutes or so.
Last night a front moved through the region with some pretty vicious winds, and this morning the temperature was in the 50s on its way to a high in the mid 60s. A brisk northwest wind made things chilly indeed, but the sun shone and as far as the harbor's flora and fauna were concerned, it was still spring. The turtles were out in full force, sunning themselves on floating logs along the banks.
Typically when some turtles on a log see me coming, the majority of them file off into the water, acting very cute as they make little "ploop-ploop-ploop" sounds. But one or two turtles boldly remain on the log, not about to let somebody like me make them abandon their sunbathing bliss. Today I saw a log with nineteen--nineteen!--turtles on it, and not a single one of them fled. They just stood their ground, still as stone, and regarded me warily.
I love our turtles.
I warmed up by paddling to the north end of the harbor, and did three 8-stroke sprints. Then I did ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals. I felt a bit tired in the boat but tried my best to focus on technique. In particular, I tried to make a nice clean transition from inserting the blade into the water to pulling on the paddle. This isn't hard to do when paddling at a moderate pace, but when you're paddling hard it's easy to get a little sloppy with this transition if you're careless. It's also easy to get sloppy toward the end of a workout when fatigue is setting in, and I tried to avoid that today.
I did my current strength routine Monday and yesterday, and plan to do it again tomorrow.
Last night a front moved through the region with some pretty vicious winds, and this morning the temperature was in the 50s on its way to a high in the mid 60s. A brisk northwest wind made things chilly indeed, but the sun shone and as far as the harbor's flora and fauna were concerned, it was still spring. The turtles were out in full force, sunning themselves on floating logs along the banks.
Typically when some turtles on a log see me coming, the majority of them file off into the water, acting very cute as they make little "ploop-ploop-ploop" sounds. But one or two turtles boldly remain on the log, not about to let somebody like me make them abandon their sunbathing bliss. Today I saw a log with nineteen--nineteen!--turtles on it, and not a single one of them fled. They just stood their ground, still as stone, and regarded me warily.
I love our turtles.
I warmed up by paddling to the north end of the harbor, and did three 8-stroke sprints. Then I did ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals. I felt a bit tired in the boat but tried my best to focus on technique. In particular, I tried to make a nice clean transition from inserting the blade into the water to pulling on the paddle. This isn't hard to do when paddling at a moderate pace, but when you're paddling hard it's easy to get a little sloppy with this transition if you're careless. It's also easy to get sloppy toward the end of a workout when fatigue is setting in, and I tried to avoid that today.
I did my current strength routine Monday and yesterday, and plan to do it again tomorrow.
Sunday, April 2, 2017
Keeping it going
I'm getting down to the water on my regular schedule, but it's had a going-through-the-motions feel as my out-of-the-boat life continues to monopolize my attention. I think as long as I stick to the routine it'll all settle down eventually and I'll be able to give paddling the attention it deserves. One thing I should probably do is sit at my desk and draw up a more specific workout schedule so I won't just be winging it every time I get in the boat. It would also help for me to make up my mind on what competitions to attend. As I mentioned earlier, there are races later this month on consecutive weekends and I probably don't have the time or the money or the energy to go to both. One is back down on the Gulf Coast, and I know there will be people there I enjoy seeing. The other one is in eastern Kentucky, a region where I've never really raced before, and I like it when the sport takes me to new places.
This past week I did a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday; paddled in some fierce south winds on Thursday; and got in a decent but tiring 90 minutes yesterday. Even during periods like this when I feel a bit rudderless, I focus on taking good strokes. Always good strokes.
This past week I did a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday; paddled in some fierce south winds on Thursday; and got in a decent but tiring 90 minutes yesterday. Even during periods like this when I feel a bit rudderless, I focus on taking good strokes. Always good strokes.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Monday photo feature
I see lots and lots of pictures of paddlers in my Face Book feed. Whitewater paddlers, flatwater paddlers, ocean paddlers, racers, explorers, daredevils, floaters... you name it, I see it. For today's photo feature I just picked a photo at random off my feed. This is a guy named David Dehart doing a high-flyin' boof on Roaring Creek.
Trying to stay the course amid distractions
Though I did manage to paddle on my normal schedule in the last week, my mind was occupied with out-of-the-boat concerns. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but basically the activities I depend on for earning my living have really been piling it on lately. The good news is I think I made some real progress toward settling that stuff down soon, but there's a lot of work yet to do in the next several weeks. Oh, to be able to focus most of my attention on what really matters (paddling).
My paddling sessions for the week weren't anything special; in each one I warmed up and did several 8-stroke sprints and then paddled mostly steady. Yesterday's paddle was probably the highest-quality one I did: I paddled for 90 minutes and threw in several long surges both on the flatwater of the harbor and on the more turbulent Mississippi.
My paddling sessions for the week weren't anything special; in each one I warmed up and did several 8-stroke sprints and then paddled mostly steady. Yesterday's paddle was probably the highest-quality one I did: I paddled for 90 minutes and threw in several long surges both on the flatwater of the harbor and on the more turbulent Mississippi.
Sunday, March 26, 2017
A new strength routine
With my first race behind me and my second one probably about a month in the future, this week was a good time to start up a new strength routine. All but one of the exercises are drawn from videos I shared in my last post. Here's how it goes:
1. Rubber band row demonstrated at 5:44 of the Daniele Molmenti video
2. Planks on two stability balls, like this:
3. Rubber band push-outs demonstrated at 7:20 of the Daniele Molmenti video
4. One-foot lift demonstrated at 2:25 of the Michele Ramazza video
5. Rubber band standing fly demonstrated at 7:35 of the Daniele Molmenti video
1. Rubber band row demonstrated at 5:44 of the Daniele Molmenti video
2. Planks on two stability balls, like this:
3. Rubber band push-outs demonstrated at 7:20 of the Daniele Molmenti video
4. One-foot lift demonstrated at 2:25 of the Michele Ramazza video
5. Rubber band standing fly demonstrated at 7:35 of the Daniele Molmenti video
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Reposting some good exercise videos
This is a repeat of a post I made a little over a year ago. Below are several videos from which I have drawn exercises for my strength routines in the last several years. While I believe traditional "pumping iron" has its place, I'm always on the lookout for exercises that emphasize precise movements and full ranges of motion. Not only are these things important for paddlers, but also I think they promote "later-life" general fitness and wellness. I, for one, am not getting any younger.
Core strength is an asset for paddlers of all disciplines. Here's Chinese slalom racer Jing Jing Li demonstrating some simple core exercises one can do with a stability ball:
I love exercises that require little or no equipment. In this video, slalom kayak world and Olympic champion Daniele Molmenti of Italy shows us some "backpacker" exercises, so named because they're easy to do anyplace on the planet you might find yourself:
The guy in this video, Michele Ramazza, has excelled in "extreme" or "freeride" racing--downriver kayaking in pretty gnarly whitewater:
Core strength is an asset for paddlers of all disciplines. Here's Chinese slalom racer Jing Jing Li demonstrating some simple core exercises one can do with a stability ball:
I love exercises that require little or no equipment. In this video, slalom kayak world and Olympic champion Daniele Molmenti of Italy shows us some "backpacker" exercises, so named because they're easy to do anyplace on the planet you might find yourself:
The guy in this video, Michele Ramazza, has excelled in "extreme" or "freeride" racing--downriver kayaking in pretty gnarly whitewater:
Monday, March 20, 2017
Regrouping and looking ahead
In Saturday's race, as Jeb Berry and I were heading back toward the finish line, we saw a dolphin right before the Washington Avenue drawbridge. I had already seen several fish jump up out of the water and when the dolphin's fin broke the surface, I thought it was just another fish. But then the dolphin's body rose into view for about a second before diving back down below. That was pretty cool--something I'd never seen in the middle of a race before.
On Sunday morning I put in at the Ocean Springs beachfront and paddled for 60 minutes in Mississippi Sound near the entrance to the Back Bay of Biloxi. The nice thing about a recovery paddle is that I don't really have to "do" anything other than move my body and enjoy my surroundings. That wasn't hard to do on a day as gorgeous and sunny as Sunday was.
Back here at home I've had a sluggish Monday. I've had to address a list of assorted non-paddling-related chores today and it's made the whole day feel like kind of a bummer after a fun weekend of racing and visiting with friends.
One question I have to answer after any race is "What's next?" Well, here's a schedule of the races I'm aware of in the next couple of months:
April
1 Top of the Teche. Bayou Teche, Leonville to Arnaudville, Louisiana. A 7.7-mile race down a Class I river. Register
8 Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi. A 21-mile race down the Mississippi from Madison Parish Port to the Vicksburg front. Register
22 Pascagoula Run. Pascagoula River, Pascagoula, Mississippi. A 12.5-mile race finishing at Lighthouse Park in Pascagoula. Register
29 Bluegrass River Run. Kentucky River near Richmond, Kentucky. A 19-mile race down a scenic deep-water river. Register
May
13 Osage Spring 12. Osage River near Jefferson City, Missouri. A 12-mile race down a Class I river. Register
20 Chitimacha Race. Bayou Teche, New Iberia, Louisiana, to Chitimacha Nation. A 20-mile race down a Class I river. Register
It turns out I have conflicts the weekend of April 1 and the weekend of April 8, so I won't be making it to Louisiana or to Vicksburg. Each of the two races later in the month involves at least six hours of driving (one way), and because they are on consecutive weekends chances are I'll go to one of them, but not both. The same applies to the two races in May. With all the far-flung things I've got going on right now I have neither the time nor the energy to spend sitting in my car.
Right now the rest of the year looks like this (always subject to change, of course):
June
17 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee. The 36th edition of this classic. A 5000-meter race down the Mississippi, finishing at Mississippi River Park in downtown Memphis. Register
29 Music City SUP and Kayak Race. Cumberland River, Nashville, Tennessee. A 6-mile flatwater race.
August
5? The Paddle Grapple. Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina. A 6-mile flatwater race.
10-13 U.S. Canoe Association National Championships. Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa. Flatwater marathon races in numerous classes sanctioned by the USCA.
September
2 Big River Regional. Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.
9 Lower Atchafalaya Race. Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana. An 8-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.
October
7 Gator Bait Race. Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi. A 5.5-mile flatwater race.
On Sunday morning I put in at the Ocean Springs beachfront and paddled for 60 minutes in Mississippi Sound near the entrance to the Back Bay of Biloxi. The nice thing about a recovery paddle is that I don't really have to "do" anything other than move my body and enjoy my surroundings. That wasn't hard to do on a day as gorgeous and sunny as Sunday was.
Back here at home I've had a sluggish Monday. I've had to address a list of assorted non-paddling-related chores today and it's made the whole day feel like kind of a bummer after a fun weekend of racing and visiting with friends.
One question I have to answer after any race is "What's next?" Well, here's a schedule of the races I'm aware of in the next couple of months:
April
1 Top of the Teche. Bayou Teche, Leonville to Arnaudville, Louisiana. A 7.7-mile race down a Class I river. Register
8 Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi. A 21-mile race down the Mississippi from Madison Parish Port to the Vicksburg front. Register
22 Pascagoula Run. Pascagoula River, Pascagoula, Mississippi. A 12.5-mile race finishing at Lighthouse Park in Pascagoula. Register
29 Bluegrass River Run. Kentucky River near Richmond, Kentucky. A 19-mile race down a scenic deep-water river. Register
May
13 Osage Spring 12. Osage River near Jefferson City, Missouri. A 12-mile race down a Class I river. Register
20 Chitimacha Race. Bayou Teche, New Iberia, Louisiana, to Chitimacha Nation. A 20-mile race down a Class I river. Register
It turns out I have conflicts the weekend of April 1 and the weekend of April 8, so I won't be making it to Louisiana or to Vicksburg. Each of the two races later in the month involves at least six hours of driving (one way), and because they are on consecutive weekends chances are I'll go to one of them, but not both. The same applies to the two races in May. With all the far-flung things I've got going on right now I have neither the time nor the energy to spend sitting in my car.
Right now the rest of the year looks like this (always subject to change, of course):
June
17 Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee. The 36th edition of this classic. A 5000-meter race down the Mississippi, finishing at Mississippi River Park in downtown Memphis. Register
29 Music City SUP and Kayak Race. Cumberland River, Nashville, Tennessee. A 6-mile flatwater race.
August
5? The Paddle Grapple. Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina. A 6-mile flatwater race.
10-13 U.S. Canoe Association National Championships. Mississippi River, Dubuque, Iowa. Flatwater marathon races in numerous classes sanctioned by the USCA.
September
2 Big River Regional. Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.
9 Lower Atchafalaya Race. Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana. An 8-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.
October
7 Gator Bait Race. Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi. A 5.5-mile flatwater race.
Monday photo feature
If you want somebody to take your picture, sometimes you just have to refuse to leave until he or she does. The Battle On The Bayou race just saw its eighth edition Saturday, and I'm one of nine people who have participated in all eight. Row 1, l to r: Stan Stark, Carol Dearing, yours truly, David Waters, Doug Heller; Row 2, l to r: Jeb Berry, Nate Payne, Nick Kinderman, John Collins.
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Another race season has begun
It was sunny and beautiful yesterday morning as racers converged on a cove at the eastern end of the Back Bay of Biloxi for the Battle On The Bayou canoe and kayak race. This would be the eighth annual edition of this event, and for those who like to ask "What's new this year?" the most obvious answer would be the new race course. In past years paddlers started in this cove, turned up into Old Fort Bayou, and followed this coastal creek some nine and a half miles to a finish line next to The Shed barbecue joint. Looking to rein in the sprawl of the event, race director Mike Pornovets decided to make this year's course an "out-and-back" configuration, looping around an island about four miles up the bayou and returning to the same place it had started. This allowed all operations to be concentrated at one venue--the Gulf Hills Hotel just up the hill from the starting area--and eliminated the need for a shuttle to get racers from The Shed back to their cars.
When I arrived at the race site I found a familiar cast of characters assembled. There was little question who the favorite was to take the overall title: even though it's been quite a few years now since he made his three U.S. Olympic teams and won his medals at the world championships, Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, has kept himself in outstanding physical condition and continues to be a factor in races all over the country at the age of 56.
Another boat expected to be in the hunt was the K3 paddled by the 15-year-old Pellerin triplets of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Carson, Conrad, and Peyton Pellerin have grown up racing across the Gulf South region and in the past year they have surpassed my own racing ability. I'd last seen them in September at a 9-kilometer race up near Jackson, and while I was able to hang with them for most of that race their sprint off the starting line and their final surge toward the finish line were faster than I could handle. I came to Ocean Springs this weekend curious to see if they could sustain a higher rate of speed over the entire 8.25-mile course; if so, they would be out of my league.
I figured my own competition would come from the likes of Phil Capel of Sherwood, Arkansas; Shane Kleynhans of Brandon, Mississippi; Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi; and the Louisiana tandem of Randy Hargroder and Brad Rex.
Nearly 150 boats--kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddleboards--maneuvered onto the starting line, and just after nine o'clock the starting gun fired. Mike Herbert sprinted into the lead with the Pellerins in pursuit. I quickly found myself vying for the third position with Jeb Berry on my left and Shane Kleynhans on my right. As we rounded the tip of a sawgrass marsh and headed up into Old Fort Bayou, I settled onto Jeb's wake and we opened a couple of boat lengths on Shane, whose training has been limited this winter due to a knee-replacement surgery in early December.
I was hoping that if I could withstand the triplets' initial sprint I might be able to climb up onto their stern wake like I had done at Jackson last fall, but they were having none of that. Their rapid development has indeed continued through the winter and steadily they pulled away from the rest of us. As they approached the Washington Avenue drawbridge they appeared well within striking distance of Mike.
I let them go and focused my attention on Jeb, who as far as I could tell was alone on my stern wake. I threw in a number of surges during the first half of the race with the hope of dropping him, but he wouldn't drop. As we rounded the island for the return trip I let him take the lead for a while, and even though he told me he'd been working hard to stay on my wake, he wasn't paddling like he was on the ropes now. I sat on his wake and tried to save some energy for a strong finish.
The story up front, as recounted to me afterward, was that the triplets were hanging close enough to Mike that Mike decided to drop back and ride their wake for much of the race. By the time they entered the final stretch he'd had all the rest he needed to turn on his world-class speed and pull away to win by about eleven seconds. Despite Mike's convincing victory, I'm impressed by the Pellerin boys' accomplishment: I'd figured it wouldn't be long before they were able to hang with athletes of Mike's caliber, but I didn't think they would be there quite this soon. I look forward to rooting them on as they navigate the world of flatwater sprint racing and national teams and all that kind of thing.
I felt anything but rested after some ten minutes on Jeb's wake, but as the Washington Avenue bridge came back into view I knew it was time for me to make my case for third place overall. Once we'd passed under the bridge it was tempting to think we were "almost there," but we still had the better part of a mile to go. I tried to paddle as strong and efficiently as I could without blowing out everything I had too early. Finally, when we rounded the last turn and could see the finish buoys, I decided it was time and I began my last furious push. Even as I became more confident that I had third place in the bag, glances over my shoulder revealed Jeb's bright yellow boat still there, closer than I would have liked. At last we crossed the line two seconds apart, according to the official results.
Shane came into the finish about seventy seconds later--not a bad effort for him considering his recent medical ordeal. The Hargroder-Rex K2 came in several minutes behind Shane, and Henry Lawrence of Brandon, Mississippi, completed a very respectable effort shortly thereafter. Phil Capel was the first non-race-boat finisher, winning the class for fast touring kayaks. The top overall female finisher was Lauren Drummond of D'Iberville, Mississippi. The complete results are now posted here.
I spent another night at Nick's house in Ocean Springs, and this morning I'm a bit sore in my midsection but otherwise feeling pretty good. It appears to be a lovely day and in a little while I plan to do a nice recovery paddle before hitting the road back to Memphis.
When I arrived at the race site I found a familiar cast of characters assembled. There was little question who the favorite was to take the overall title: even though it's been quite a few years now since he made his three U.S. Olympic teams and won his medals at the world championships, Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, has kept himself in outstanding physical condition and continues to be a factor in races all over the country at the age of 56.
Another boat expected to be in the hunt was the K3 paddled by the 15-year-old Pellerin triplets of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Carson, Conrad, and Peyton Pellerin have grown up racing across the Gulf South region and in the past year they have surpassed my own racing ability. I'd last seen them in September at a 9-kilometer race up near Jackson, and while I was able to hang with them for most of that race their sprint off the starting line and their final surge toward the finish line were faster than I could handle. I came to Ocean Springs this weekend curious to see if they could sustain a higher rate of speed over the entire 8.25-mile course; if so, they would be out of my league.
I figured my own competition would come from the likes of Phil Capel of Sherwood, Arkansas; Shane Kleynhans of Brandon, Mississippi; Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi; and the Louisiana tandem of Randy Hargroder and Brad Rex.
Nearly 150 boats--kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddleboards--maneuvered onto the starting line, and just after nine o'clock the starting gun fired. Mike Herbert sprinted into the lead with the Pellerins in pursuit. I quickly found myself vying for the third position with Jeb Berry on my left and Shane Kleynhans on my right. As we rounded the tip of a sawgrass marsh and headed up into Old Fort Bayou, I settled onto Jeb's wake and we opened a couple of boat lengths on Shane, whose training has been limited this winter due to a knee-replacement surgery in early December.
Jeb Berry and me. Photo by Doug Heller.
I was hoping that if I could withstand the triplets' initial sprint I might be able to climb up onto their stern wake like I had done at Jackson last fall, but they were having none of that. Their rapid development has indeed continued through the winter and steadily they pulled away from the rest of us. As they approached the Washington Avenue drawbridge they appeared well within striking distance of Mike.
I let them go and focused my attention on Jeb, who as far as I could tell was alone on my stern wake. I threw in a number of surges during the first half of the race with the hope of dropping him, but he wouldn't drop. As we rounded the island for the return trip I let him take the lead for a while, and even though he told me he'd been working hard to stay on my wake, he wasn't paddling like he was on the ropes now. I sat on his wake and tried to save some energy for a strong finish.
The story up front, as recounted to me afterward, was that the triplets were hanging close enough to Mike that Mike decided to drop back and ride their wake for much of the race. By the time they entered the final stretch he'd had all the rest he needed to turn on his world-class speed and pull away to win by about eleven seconds. Despite Mike's convincing victory, I'm impressed by the Pellerin boys' accomplishment: I'd figured it wouldn't be long before they were able to hang with athletes of Mike's caliber, but I didn't think they would be there quite this soon. I look forward to rooting them on as they navigate the world of flatwater sprint racing and national teams and all that kind of thing.
You don't see too many K3s out on the race circuit, but we've got a good one here in the South: the Pellerin boys from Louisiana. I think that's Conrad in the bow and Peyton in the stern; I know it's Carson seated amidships. Mike Herbert (foreground) doesn't often get challenged at races in this part of the country, but the Pellerins are working to change that. Photo by Doug Heller.
I felt anything but rested after some ten minutes on Jeb's wake, but as the Washington Avenue bridge came back into view I knew it was time for me to make my case for third place overall. Once we'd passed under the bridge it was tempting to think we were "almost there," but we still had the better part of a mile to go. I tried to paddle as strong and efficiently as I could without blowing out everything I had too early. Finally, when we rounded the last turn and could see the finish buoys, I decided it was time and I began my last furious push. Even as I became more confident that I had third place in the bag, glances over my shoulder revealed Jeb's bright yellow boat still there, closer than I would have liked. At last we crossed the line two seconds apart, according to the official results.
Shane came into the finish about seventy seconds later--not a bad effort for him considering his recent medical ordeal. The Hargroder-Rex K2 came in several minutes behind Shane, and Henry Lawrence of Brandon, Mississippi, completed a very respectable effort shortly thereafter. Phil Capel was the first non-race-boat finisher, winning the class for fast touring kayaks. The top overall female finisher was Lauren Drummond of D'Iberville, Mississippi. The complete results are now posted here.
I spent another night at Nick's house in Ocean Springs, and this morning I'm a bit sore in my midsection but otherwise feeling pretty good. It appears to be a lovely day and in a little while I plan to do a nice recovery paddle before hitting the road back to Memphis.
I wasn't the only Memphian in Ocean Springs this past weekend. Mike Womack made the trip down and took third place in the men's "K1 Fast" class. Another Memphian present was Fred Hatler, who finished in the top third of the overall field. Photo by Doug Heller.
Saturday, March 18, 2017
Ocean Springs pre-race
Well, it's race day for the first time in 2017. I got to Ocean Springs around 3:30 yesterday afternoon. After checking in at the race HQ, I went down to the water and paddled for 40 minutes.
I've been paddling my old surf ski all winter while the new boat I bought last summer has sat in my garage. So the main purpose of yesterday's paddle was to make sure everything on the new boat was adjusted the way I like it. Once I got to feeling comfortable I did four 12-stroke sprints and worked the kinks out of my muscles from the six-hour drive.
I spent last night at the home of my friend Nick Kinderman, who is in fact the founder of the Battle On The Bayou race and served as its director for five years before handing it off to Mike Pornovets. We're up bright and early this morning and having a bit of coffee and breakfast before heading out to the race site. With any luck I'll have all kinds of fun stories to share here after it's all over.
I've been paddling my old surf ski all winter while the new boat I bought last summer has sat in my garage. So the main purpose of yesterday's paddle was to make sure everything on the new boat was adjusted the way I like it. Once I got to feeling comfortable I did four 12-stroke sprints and worked the kinks out of my muscles from the six-hour drive.
I spent last night at the home of my friend Nick Kinderman, who is in fact the founder of the Battle On The Bayou race and served as its director for five years before handing it off to Mike Pornovets. We're up bright and early this morning and having a bit of coffee and breakfast before heading out to the race site. With any luck I'll have all kinds of fun stories to share here after it's all over.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Tuning up to race
Tuesday was definitely not the sort of day that beckons paddlers out onto the water. When I got down to the riverfront it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit and overcast, with tiny snowflakes swirling around in the frigid north wind. Fortunately my mission was a simple one: warm up do some short sprints, cool down, and go home. And that's what I did: I paddled for 60 minutes, in the middle of which I did eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals. As usual on a cold day, once I was in the boat paddling I felt fine; standing on the dock before and after was the not-so-pleasant part.
Yesterday I did the strength routine for the last time before this Saturday's race. I've been doing this routine for about a month now, so next week I'll draw up a new one.
Today was supposed to warm up into the low 50s, but a busy schedule compelled me to go to the river this morning while it was still nippy. I paddled for 50 minutes, in the middle of which I did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.
Overall I'm feeling pretty good and I'm excited to get together with some fellow paddlers at last. The plan is to leave mid-morning tomorrow and get to Ocean Springs in the mid afternoon.
Yesterday I did the strength routine for the last time before this Saturday's race. I've been doing this routine for about a month now, so next week I'll draw up a new one.
Today was supposed to warm up into the low 50s, but a busy schedule compelled me to go to the river this morning while it was still nippy. I paddled for 50 minutes, in the middle of which I did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.
Overall I'm feeling pretty good and I'm excited to get together with some fellow paddlers at last. The plan is to leave mid-morning tomorrow and get to Ocean Springs in the mid afternoon.
Monday, March 13, 2017
Monday photo feature
My first race of the season is this Saturday, but fellow Memphians Joe and Carol Lee Royer already have a couple of races in the books. They have a vacation home in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and often participate in races when they are down there. This past weekend they teamed up for the Pickle Race on the Hillsborough River. Photo by Linda Gerber Adams.
Sunday, March 12, 2017
"Brr," sort of
It was the top story on our ever-sensational local TV news: after a long string of days with Fahrenheit temperatures in the 60s and 70s, Saturday's weather forecast called for a high of only about 45 degrees, with rain turning to a (gasp) "wintry mix" by evening.
So went the latest chapter in this very weird winter, and I confess I got caught up in the hype a little bit, inasmuch as I dreaded leaving my comfy home and subjecting myself to the hostile elements out on the river yesterday morning.
I drove downtown and braced against a penetrating northeast wind as I walked down to the marina under overcast skies. I sought out the most protected nook I could find to shed my winter coat and don my paddling shell. I affixed my pogies to my paddle for the first time in quite a while. Then I got in my boat... and realized the weather was not that bad. The wind was a pest, sure, but the air temperature was about 44 degrees. How easily I forget that I paddled in temperatures some 25 degrees colder just two months ago. This mostly-mild winter since then has softened me up.
I did ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals. It's a workout that's been feeling good this season and I thought this would be a good time to do it again, when my confidence needed a little boost.
My cold seems to be running its course, and my back continues to feel better aside from a bit of morning stiffness. When I returned to the river this morning it was a bit colder (39 degrees) and the wind was about the same, but the sun was shining brightly, and that always takes the chill off. I paddled for 60 minutes, doing four 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals halfway through. I plan to do something similar both Tuesday and Thursday this week in hopes of going down to Ocean Springs feeling sharp.
So went the latest chapter in this very weird winter, and I confess I got caught up in the hype a little bit, inasmuch as I dreaded leaving my comfy home and subjecting myself to the hostile elements out on the river yesterday morning.
I drove downtown and braced against a penetrating northeast wind as I walked down to the marina under overcast skies. I sought out the most protected nook I could find to shed my winter coat and don my paddling shell. I affixed my pogies to my paddle for the first time in quite a while. Then I got in my boat... and realized the weather was not that bad. The wind was a pest, sure, but the air temperature was about 44 degrees. How easily I forget that I paddled in temperatures some 25 degrees colder just two months ago. This mostly-mild winter since then has softened me up.
I did ten 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals. It's a workout that's been feeling good this season and I thought this would be a good time to do it again, when my confidence needed a little boost.
My cold seems to be running its course, and my back continues to feel better aside from a bit of morning stiffness. When I returned to the river this morning it was a bit colder (39 degrees) and the wind was about the same, but the sun was shining brightly, and that always takes the chill off. I paddled for 60 minutes, doing four 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals halfway through. I plan to do something similar both Tuesday and Thursday this week in hopes of going down to Ocean Springs feeling sharp.
Friday, March 10, 2017
Pushing through the doldrums
I paddled with Joe on Tuesday, and he made an astute observation: "Sometimes when you've had a good winter of training, you start to feel a little burned out before the race season even begins."
And that's where I am at the moment. Just a few weeks ago I was feeling great and couldn't wait until my next time in the boat. Even my strength routines seemed fun and invigorating. But in the last several weeks more weight has descended onto my shoulders. Much of it has to do with my non-athletic life, with the ongoing renovation of a rental property I own and some new jobs in the workshop. But I also have had some back soreness recently (it has improved, happily, but some morning stiffness still lingers) and this week I came down with my third cold of the winter (I'm a guy who has averaged zero to one cold per winter in the last decade or so). This one is not as bad as the previous two, but it has impacted my energy level some.
Under normal circumstances I like to train through the early-season races, but I'm trying to get some extra rest for the race at Ocean Springs next weekend because my body needs it in general. I skipped the usual round of the strength routine on Wednesday, and yesterday I paddled for only 40 minutes, doing four 12-stroke sprints but otherwise keeping the intensity low. Today I'm feeling a bit more pep in my step and I did the strength routine with no trouble. My plan between now and next Saturday is to get down to the river on my regular schedule but work on speed and keep the sessions short in duration.
And that's where I am at the moment. Just a few weeks ago I was feeling great and couldn't wait until my next time in the boat. Even my strength routines seemed fun and invigorating. But in the last several weeks more weight has descended onto my shoulders. Much of it has to do with my non-athletic life, with the ongoing renovation of a rental property I own and some new jobs in the workshop. But I also have had some back soreness recently (it has improved, happily, but some morning stiffness still lingers) and this week I came down with my third cold of the winter (I'm a guy who has averaged zero to one cold per winter in the last decade or so). This one is not as bad as the previous two, but it has impacted my energy level some.
Under normal circumstances I like to train through the early-season races, but I'm trying to get some extra rest for the race at Ocean Springs next weekend because my body needs it in general. I skipped the usual round of the strength routine on Wednesday, and yesterday I paddled for only 40 minutes, doing four 12-stroke sprints but otherwise keeping the intensity low. Today I'm feeling a bit more pep in my step and I did the strength routine with no trouble. My plan between now and next Saturday is to get down to the river on my regular schedule but work on speed and keep the sessions short in duration.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Monday photo feature
Robert Nykvist snapped this photo of me during the 2013 Battle On The Bayou race down at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. One of the things I like about this shot is the vegetation on the bank. Ocean Springs is not the tropics, but the flora and fauna are definitely a bit different from what I'm used to some 400 miles to the north. I'm looking forward to the change of scenery a week from this Saturday.
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