Monday photo feature

This is my dock this morning, at which time the Mississippi River's level was 4.2 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge.  That's my boat in the white cover in the left side of the photo.

At more "normal" levels there's at least 50 meters of water between the dock and the bank, but right now you can almost jump across.  If the water drops another couple of feet or more, the dock will run aground.  (The all-time recorded low reading on the Memphis gauge is -10.7 feet in July of 1988.  I don't think this marina was in place back then.)

As I was paddling on Saturday morning, I saw a boat using sonar to take depth readings near the mouth of the harbor, where a lot of silt gets deposited.  I knew a dredge wouldn't be far behind.  Sure enough, by yesterday morning the lower reach of the harbor was crisscrossed with pipes and the dredge boat was firing up its cutterhead.  That's the mouth of the harbor way off in the distance in this photo, but unless you're Steve Austin with his bionic eye I don't think you can see the dredging apparatus.

"Crunch!" Sigh.

I went down to the river yesterday intending to keep the intensity moderate.  As I paddled toward the mouth of the harbor I focused on my stroke mechanics, making sure I was inserting the blades fully and firing all the relevant muscles, from my feet up through my shoulders and arms, in unison.  As I ventured out onto the Mississippi I found rather choppy conditions even though the weather was calm--there were a fair number of fishing boats and small pleasure craft about.  I tried to keep taking good strokes on this less-stable platform.

I ferried over to the Arkansas side and worked my way upriver.  Here there are wing dams built by the Corps of Engineers to direct water into the main shipping channel, and at the current low water level (-3.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday) they are exposed.  The dams are basically just piles of rocks, and most of the time I can read where the deep water is around them, but yesterday I apparently wasn't giving them a wide enough berth because I suddenly felt and heard that awful Crunch!  that every paddler of a lovely composite boat fears.

It was my rudder that had taken the impact, and just like that I found myself with no steering.  The rudder was stuck so that my boat pulled sharply to the right, and I had to use sweeps and backstrokes and stern pries to muscle the boat alongside the wing dam so I could hop out and inspect the damage. The rudder's tip was a tattered mess, and the post was bent so that it couldn't swivel like it should.  I tried to bend it back into a state of functionality but couldn't get the needed leverage.  In the end I forced the rudder into a straight-ahead position so that at least I'd have a skeg.

I didn't really doubt that I would get back across the river, but I knew it would be a chore.  I was upstream of the mouth of the harbor, so I pointed my boat at the east (Tennessee) bank and began to paddle, letting the current carry me downriver.  An upstream-bound barge rig had just passed, and there were some good-looking waves in its wake, but without a rudder I'd have to pass up that bit of fun and frolic.  Instead I employed the trusty whitewater skill of using the waves to steer the boat: even a 21-foot surf ski can turn pretty easily when it's up on the crest of a wave.

Soon enough I was back in the harbor, pointed at the marina some 2000 meters distant.  The boat was pulling ever so gradually to the right, so once in a while I had to do some corrective strokes to get back on course.  Back at the dock I put the boat away and walked up to the parking lot grumbling I can't believe I did that through clenched teeth.

And I guess that raises the obvious question: why did I paddle into water of uncertain depth in the first place?  My answer is pretty simple.  Deep down I'm a whitewater-river kind of guy, and I enjoy messing around in the eddies and whirlpools and boily water created by wing dams and bridge pilings and stuff.  Yes, I know boats are expensive and repairing them is a chore, and for that reason I am in fact quite careful most of the time.  But I'm not going to let fear of a little boat damage stop me from paddling the way I want to paddle.  A wildwater racer I know summed it up best.  "Wildwater" is downriver racing through rapids, and as you might guess, such racers lead the paddling world in banged-up boats.  I once asked Michael Beavers, who raced on several U.S. wildwater teams in the C1 class, if the possibility of hurting his boat was ever in the back of his mind during training and racing, and he just shrugged and said "You gotta learn proper boat disrespect."

And so, I got over my frustration quickly and was feeling pretty chill by the time I was heading back to the river this morning.  I took a spare rudder with me, along with the necessary tools for making the swap, and in no time my boat was functional again.  I'll take the damaged rudder back to the shop, where I'll bend the post back straight, grind off the raggedy stuff, fill the gouged-out parts with some thickened epoxy, cover it with a new piece of carbon fiber, and sand it nice and smooth, good as new.  Ain't nothin but a little rudder, after all.

In 60 minutes of paddling today I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints and then paddled a healthy tempo out on the river.  I stayed in the deep water.  Yes, I've learned my lesson, at least for a little while.

Hanging on a little longer

It's low-water season on the Mississippi River.  The level was two and a half feet below zero on the Memphis gauge when I paddled on Tuesday and -3.5 feet yesterday.  It's still plenty of water for paddling, but the commercial (barge) traffic has more trouble.  We'll likely see some dredges in operation soon if the water continues to drop.

That's the least of my worries as I try to keep myself sharp for one more race on October 7.  I've been racing well and feeling fit and strong for more than three months now, but the average human being can sustain that for only so long.  Both my body and my brain are ready for this season to be over.

I did a round of the new strength routine on Wednesday.  Having done lunges in the previous routine, I thought my body would be pretty well conditioned to handle the Hindu squats.  But when I woke up yesterday my quadriceps muscles were big-time sore.  I guess the squats hit a muscle group that's just different enough from what the lunges hit.

On Tuesday I did a pretty typical 60-minute paddle, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then paddling a healthy pace out on the river before taking it back in.

I believe our "Thursday evening sprints" have petered out for this year, as participants have kids back in school and are tapering off for late-season races and stuff like that.  But I want to get in a couple more good sprint workouts myself in these next two weeks, and that was my plan as I headed down to the river yesterday afternoon.  I really didn't feel like doing it, and it took all the discipline I've got to make it happen.

The stretch in the harbor between the southern edge of the monorail bridge and the southern edge of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge is right at 450 meters (when I measured it with my G.P.S. device several weeks ago, it came to about 450.62 meters).  My plan was to do this sprint four times, like we typically do during Thursday evening sprints.  I would take five minutes for recovery in between, during which I'd paddle back to the monorail bridge to start the next one.

I knew as soon as I started the first sprint that it would be a tough workout.  My sore thighs were screaming, and the afternoon heat (above 90 degrees Fahrenheit) wasn't giving me a break.  I managed to keep it together for two sprints, but by the third I could feel myself falling apart a little bit.  The fourth was a true struggle.  In the end my times were 1:59, 1:58, 2:01, and 2:05.  Historically anything under two minutes is a very good effort for me, so I was happy, at least, that I'd managed two sub-two clockings.

450 meters is 90% of 500 meters, so by dividing each of the above times by .9, I get my projected 500-meter times: 2:12, 2:11, 2:14, and 2:19.  Those times won't win me a spot on the flatwater sprint national team, but seeing as how I'm a 50-year-old guy who was feeling not so in-the-pink yesterday, I'll take them.

My thighs are still sore this morning, but not as bad as yesterday.  I did the strength routine again but went easy on the Hindu squats.

A new strength routine

Here's a re-post of something I posted a few months ago regarding my approach to strength work.  Maybe I'll start re-posting it every time I post a new strength routine.  Below it is the routine I plan to do for the next little while.

*****

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.  Hindu pushups

2.  Hindu squats

(Hindu pushups and Hindu squats are both demonstrated in this video)

3.  Pullups

4.  Core exercise on a stability ball, demonstrated by Jing Jing Li at 1:35 of her video that's posted here.

Monday photo feature

Here I am working on my "J lean" during an offside surf in Five Boat Hole on the lower Gauley River in West Virginia in 1994.  Jason Salomon of Memphis hones his surfing skills behind me.  That's an old Gyra-Max C1 I'm paddling.  I look so young!!!!!!!!

"Gauley season" takes place every September during the annual drawdown of Summersville Reservoir upstream.  That means it's Gauley season right now, and once again I'm missing it.  Part of the reason is that I don't have a good boat for it since my main whitewater boat got stolen last year.  And part of the reason is that I'm all consumed with mindless chores here at home and out of touch with the whole world of whitewater.  I want to re-connect, and sooner or later I will.

I'm trying to remember who took this photo.  I remember handing my camera to somebody on the river-left bank... it might have been Greg Raymond, or it might have been Dennis Rhodes... I'm not sure.

A quiet week

After the previous weekend's taxing trip down to the Bayou country and back I was ready for a mental break as much as a physical one.  I did get in my boat last week, but my mind was on other things.  My next race (and most likely my last for 2017) is in three weeks, and I'm just trying to maintain a decent fitness level so that I can give it an effort I'll feel good about.

Paddling last week was unstructured aside from a set of 8-stroke sprints each time out.  I paddled hard when I felt like it and coasted when I felt like it.  I did this strength routine on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; I plan to draw up a new one to start doing this coming week.

Monday photo feature

Mr. F.C. "Butch" Felterman, the donor of the prize money for the Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races on Saturday, addresses the competitors as event director Ray Pellerin looks on.  By coincidence, Saturday was Mr. Felterman's 90th birthday.  The flags flying in the background represent the communities involved in the Tour du Teche series of races.  Photo by Denise D'Abundo.




CORRECTION  In this photo feature back on August 21, I mis-identified Calvin Hassel's partner as Jody Runyon.  It is in fact Bill Torongo.  The correction has been made.  My Training Blog by Elmore regrets the error and is happy to set the record straight.

Bayou racing, Part 4: recovery begins

The gossip mill had indicated that I might be asked to join a K4 for the "big boat" race, the last of the three events of the day.  But the invitation never came, and that was okay with me, for after two six-mile races I was thoroughly tired and wicked sore.  If I had been asked, I would have done it--we paddlers rarely get paid for what we do, so it would have been worth suffering for 50 more minutes to put a few more dollars in my pocket.  But it's just as well that I didn't have to make that decision.

The "big boat" race was won by the K4 consisting of Brad Pennington, Andrew Korompay, Brian Poda, and Robin Lashway.  Their time was 47 minutes, 16 seconds.  In second place was a K3 paddled by Randy Hargroder, Jeff Schnelle, and Brad Rex.  Another K3 consisting of Carson, Conrad, and Peyton Pellerin took third.  The results are posted here.

I could have used a nap upon the conclusion of racing, but instead I got in my car and began the long drive home.  Getting back over to Interstate 55 north, the road that would take me home to Memphis, involved driving east on U.S. 90 almost all the way to New Orleans.  A landscape dominated by water, much like a mountainous landscape, offers few direct routes to anywhere.

The last leg of my drive, north of Jackson, Mississippi, was particularly tough.  Keeping some blood circulating in my legs was a challenge, and I had to point the air conditioner right on me to discourage dozing off at the wheel.  When I finally pulled into my driveway in the beautiful Binghampton section of Memphis, I was nearly catatonic.  I grabbed only those things I would need to get ready for bed, went upstairs and took a badly-needed shower, and hit the hay.

I spent this morning relaxing, unpacking the car, putting my boat and gear away, and updating this blog for my beloved readers.  This afternoon I was feeling a bit more energetic (though still very sore), and headed down to the riverfront for an easy 40-minute paddle.  I did some thorough stretching before getting in the boat, and once in the boat I paddled slowly but deliberately, encouraging blood flow in all the fatigued muscles.

Bayou racing, Part 3: racing solo

When I got in my boat to warm up for the solo race, I was definitely feeling some strain in my shoulders from the tandem race.  My "top gear," for sprinting off the starting line and so on, was diminished as well.  There was nothing I could do but make the best of it.

I found a place at the start alongside nine other racers, and at eleven o'clock sharp we took off.  Brad Pennington and Andrew Korompay were considered the class of the field, and as expected they sprinted into the lead immediately.  I attempted to maintain contact, first on the "diamond" wake between their boats, and then on one of them's stern, but they steadily began to pull away.  Jeff Schnelle, my partner in the tandem race, was just over my left shoulder.  I settled in and tried to determine just how quick a pace I could maintain for the full six miles.  I was beginning to open a gap on Jeff, but I didn't want to get over-enthusiastic about it.

Up ahead Brad and Andrew were increasing their lead ever more: at each buoy turn I checked my watch to measure their lead, and from buoy to buoy their 30-second lead became 60 seconds, and then 60 seconds became 90 seconds, and so on.  It looked like my best hope was to stay alone in third place and hope I didn't die.  The wind, blowing from upstream, had picked up since the first race, and that didn't help.

I spent the next half-hour paddling as hard, yet as efficiently, as I could.  At each buoy turn I could see that I'd added a bit to my lead over Jeff and the rest of the field, and that was encouraging.  And so it went until I made the last buoy turn.  With a half-mile to go I knew I could surge as hard as I could, for even if I bonked completely I would still make it to the finish line.

Brad and Andrew had spent the entire race together, trading wake rides.  When the finish line came into their sights, it was Andrew who sprinted away for the victory and the $500 first prize with a time of 50 minutes, 13 seconds.  Brad took second, and $250, three seconds later.  Nearly three minutes later I finally moved my boat across the line for third place and a hundred bucks... not bad for less than an hour of work.  Jeff finished a respectable fourth.

Janet Perry of Saint Charles, Illinois, was the female winner with a time of one hour, four minutes, 22 seconds.  Denise D'Abundo of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, came in second about three minutes later.

The complete results are posted here.  It would appear that Denise Dugal of Lafayette, Louisiana, schooled us all, and on some level perhaps she did.  But she was the lone entrant in the two-mile "recreational" race, and was lumped together with us six-milers by the Web Scorer computer algorithm.

Bayou racing, Part 2: racing tandem

The first annual Lower Atchafalaya River Sprint Races would consist of three six-mile events: one for tandem boats at 9 AM, one for solo boats at 11 AM, and one for "big boats" (three or more paddlers) at 1 PM.  A single benefactor, Mr. F.C. "Butch" Felterman of Patterson, had donated a $5000 purse, and as a result each race offered, for men and for women, a $500 prize for first place, a $250 prize for second place, and a $100 prize for third place.

Several racers of repute came to Patterson hoping to raise their net worth a little.  Notable among them were Brad Pennington of Houston, an accomplished flatwater sprint and marathon racer, and Andrew Korompay of Kingwood, Texas, a former member of no less than the internationally-dominant Hungarian national team.  The organizers had hoped for an even greater turnout of paddling talent, and I suspect the main reason they didn't get it was simply that the word didn't really get out: the addition of the prize money hadn't been announced until just several weeks prior.  Participation was particularly sparse on the women's side.  Hopefully more racers will have this event on their 2018 calendar now that some paddlers have walked away from the 2017 edition a little bit richer.

I had myself a partner for the tandem race: Jeff Schnelle of Irma, Wisconsin.  Jeff and I had seen each other a month earlier at the USCA Nationals up in Iowa; a dealer for a couple of boat manufacturers including Epic Kayaks, Jeff had made the trip down to deliver a boat to a customer, and he had Epic's new tandem surf ski with him for us to paddle.  So as soon as the pre-race meeting was over we quickly put the boat in the water for a warmup.  After practicing a couple of starts and getting a feel for each other's stroke rhythm, we paddled up to the starting line.

The gun went off at nine o'clock sharp, and we got a pretty good start off the line.  In short order we were among the top three boats: to our right was the team of Brad Pennington and Andrew Korompay, and right in front of us was the team of Pellerin brothers Carson and Conrad.  As the first half-mile of the race passed beneath us I was a little surprised that these two teams didn't leave us in the dust.  Both were paddling ICF K2s, presumably much faster boats than the stable tandem surf ski Jeff and I were in.  And both teams were made up of what I would consider very solid paddlers: I have mentioned Brad and Andrew's CV above, and the Pellerin boys are strong 16-year-olds whom I have watched improve rapidly over a few years.

By the time we reached the first buoy turn Brad and Andrew had opened a lead of several boat lengths while Jeff and I sat on Carson and Conrad's stern wake.  Even though our boats were similar in length, Jeff and I made a much tighter turn and just like that we were on the brothers' left-side wake.

The course was three laps of a two-mile loop.  Having just rounded the buoy positioned a half-mile upriver from the start/finish line, we now headed downstream toward a buoy a half-mile below the start/finish.  There might have been a small bit of current helping us in this direction, but not much.  Technically we were racing on Bayou Teche, but the event's "Lower Atchafalaya" moniker was apt because down here the main Atchafalaya and all its tributaries and distributaries are part of the same mass of marshy swampland moving toward the Gulf of Mexico.

As we covered the mile from the top buoy to the bottom buoy Jeff and I held a comfortable spot on Carson and Conrad's side wake.  Brad and Andrew increased their lead on us a bit but were still not dominating the way I'd thought they might.  As we approached the bottom buoy the Pellerins threw in a surge that knocked us back to their stern wake, and I thought they were hoping to break away soon.  But once again Jeff and I made the turn tighter and were back on their side wake when it was over.  I was hoping our tenacity might be getting in the brothers' heads a bit.

Overall I was pleased with how Jeff and I were doing so far.  One reason was that our boat was proving faster than I'd expected: Epic has long manufactured a longer, tippier tandem ski that's intended for more elite-level racers, and I'd assumed that paddling this ski, made for the not so highly-skilled athlete, would be a drag by comparison.  But it was holding its own quite well.

Another reason is that racing in team boats in general is hard.  For the person used to racing solo, where anything he does affects nobody but himself, paddling a team boat can be a real psychological adjustment.  Not only is the boat itself bigger and heavier, but also you've got the extra weight of the person or people in the boat with you, and you can feel that extra inertia with every stroke.  Paddling in sync, so that the power of all the boat's paddlers is concentrated into every stroke, is paramount.

To our right Carson and Conrad were demonstrating beautiful synchronized paddling.  The two have grown up paddling team boats, usually a K3 with their brother Peyton, and it showed.  Jeff and I, who had never paddled together until 15 minutes before race time, probably looked sloppy by comparison.  I was in the bow so that I couldn't see how in sync we were, but I think he was faster to pull on the paddle after the catch than I was, because I could often feel that burst of power a split-second before I pulled myself.  But all told, I think we were making a competent go of it.

Up ahead of us Brad and Andrew looked anything but fluid, and I was a bit surprised considering how good they are as individuals, but even elite-level paddlers don't always mesh in a K2.  A few years ago Mike Herbert's wife Christel told me that the U.S. team coaches once tried putting Mike in a K2 with Greg Barton.  That would seem like a no-brainer, teaming up the two most successful international racers the U.S. has ever had.  But the two men's paddling styles were so different that the experiment was a flop.

We made another buoy turn and came back down to the start/finish line to mark the halfway point of the race.  Shortly after that Jeff and I broke away a bit from the Pellerins.  Carson and Conrad moved over so that they were off our left shoulders, and I thought maybe they were hoping to be on the inside of the next buoy turn; but Jeff and I threw in a little surge and soon we had increased the gap.  When we rounded the bottom buoy I could see that it would be a tall order for the boys to pull back even with us.

Jeff noticed it too, and he asked me if we should start trying to reel in Brad and Andrew.  "Yes, but slowly," I replied.  The Texans were a tantalizingly short distance up ahead, certainly, but I didn't want to get too zealous about going after them.  I had at least one more race to do, and I didn't want to blow myself out completely in this one.  Brad and Andrew had more racing to do as well, and I had a feeling they were holding something back themselves.  If they saw Jeff and me making a run they would likely surge away from us, and Jeff and I would have spent a lot of energy with nothing to show for it.  Then again, I didn't want to be a wuss or be afraid to take chances... and so in my usual wishy-washy fashion I advised that we go about it with caution.

As we moved into the final lap I think we did close the gap a bit.  We picked up the pace a little more as we approached the bottom buoy for the last time, and then, with a half-mile left, we surged hard.  We gained some more ground--partly because Brad and Andrew drifted over to the left quite a bit, adding some distance for themselves--but with a couple hundred meters left I could tell it wouldn't be enough.  Brad and Andrew crossed the line in a time of 48 minutes, 21 seconds.  They would split the $500 first prize ($250 apiece).  Jeff and I came in 21 seconds later for a second-place payday of $125 each.  We urged Carson and Conrad across the line about two minutes later.

There was only one female pair entered in this race: Jill Tamperello of Berwick, Louisiana, and Beth Felterman of Patterson.  One must show up to win, and that's exactly what these ladies did.  Hopefully there will be a bit more competition for the female title in the future.

The complete results are posted here.

It would be just over an hour before my next race, so I headed back to my car to dry off, drink some fluids and eat an orange and a banana, and relax for a bit.

Bayou racing, Part 1: pre-race

I made it down to the riverfront Friday morning for a quick 30 minutes in the boat.  I warmed up, did four 12-stroke sprints, and cooled back down.

I went back home, put my gear in the car, loaded my boat, and headed for Interstate 55 south just before lunchtime (I ate my lunch in the car).  I was determined to make this race trip a quick down-and-back affair even though I knew it would be an exhausting one, the race site located at least seven hours away.

Andre Pellerin, whose triplet sons Carson, Conrad, and Peyton are growing up in the same universe of canoe and kayak racing in which I find myself, had invited me to spend the night at their house in Breaux Bridge.  I arrived there around seven o'clock, and for the next 12 hours or so I'd be immersed in their world.  We drove the 16-year-old boys to their high school's football game, and then Andre and I went out to eat.  I was hungry and I eagerly wolfed down a 10-inch sausage pizza at a place called Buck & Johnny's.  It was utterly yummy but it left my digestive system with a formidable overnight chore.

After supper we retrieved the boys (Breaux Bridge High had been denied victory on the gridiron, sadly).  We went back to the Pellerin compound and got ready for bed.  Conrad and Peyton went to sleep in their grandparent's house a few dozen yards away so that we'd have room for several house guests.  Brad Pennington, Andrew Korompay, and Brian Poda, strong racers from the Houston area, were due to arrive in the early morning hours.  I quickly fell asleep myself and though I think I woke up briefly when the Texans arrived, I got a pretty solid night's sleep.

That was a good thing because we were up and at 'em before six the next morning.  The race site was more than an hour away in the little village of Patterson, and we were breakfasting on the run.  I'm normally persnickety about my race-morning routine and it was a challenge to give myself over to the Pellerins' more hectic schedule, but that's typically the price when you accept an offer of a free place to stay.  We stopped at a doughnut shop and I got myself a simple doughnut and a cup of coffee that I supplemented with some fruit I'd brought along.  The drive down to Patterson went smoothly enough even though Andre had a habit of barreling his truck-and-boat-trailer rig through intersections with a half-second of yellow light left, meaning I had to run a seconds-old red light to keep up with him.  All I need is a moving violation on my record.

But we arrived in Patterson without any blue-light detentions.  The first person to greet us was race director Ray Pellerin, Andre's father and the triplets' grandfather.  "Mister Ray" is one of the true workhorses in our sport: he is the founder and organizer of the Tour du Teche series of races that take place throughout the year in the Louisiana Bayou country, culminating in the multi-day ultra-marathon Tour de la Riviere Rouge, Tour du Teche 135, and 410 de Louisiane events in October.  I honestly can't think of a finer pillar of his community than Mister Ray: he recognizes what an asset canoe and kayak racing can be to a region, and he has taken it upon himself to bring paddlers to the Bayou country to celebrate the beauty and culture one can find there.  As a shorter-distance athlete I haven't made it to many of these races, sadly, but there is a 7.7-mile race (the "Top of the Teche") in the spring that I've done once and would like to do again, and when this new 6-mile "sprint" event was announced earlier this year I put it on my calendar right away.

And so here I was, ready to get down to business.  Task One was to find the restroom, and happily there was no line at the lone port-a-let on the race site.  A while later I emerged feeling that I just might be race-ready.

Racing this Saturday, healthy or otherwise

I'm now officially registered for the Lower Atchafalaya Sprint Races this Saturday.  There will be several different races for different classes, and I think I'm going to join a friend in the tandem race as well as race solo like I normally do.  The distance for each race is six miles--not really a "sprint" in my opinion, but the organizers of this race also organize annual races measured in the hundreds of miles, so I guess six miles is a sprint to them.

Sprints are what I've continued to do in the boat, at any rate.  Yesterday I did six 12-stroke sprints during a 60-minute session.  I've also done the strength routine both Monday and yesterday.  I'll skip it tomorrow since I'm racing on Saturday.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I haven't had any injuries that made me miss time in the boat this season.  But the aches and pains have been getting to me lately.  Maybe I just need to resign myself to a life of aches and pains as long as I insist upon doing hard athletic stuff at age 50 and beyond.  But I welcome relief wherever I can find it.  I woke up Monday with acute soreness and tightness in my lower back--so bad that I could hardly bend over at all.  That discomfort has eased since then, but now I've got a knot up in my right shoulder and neck area.  Yargh.  I've dealt with these things for years now, and they always get better eventually, but that doesn't mean I'm growing to like them.

Monday photo feature

My niece Ada and nephew Joel explore a foggy White River near Calico Rock, Arkansas, in the summer of 2008.

Keeping it speedy late in the season, and learning from another sport

Yesterday I got in the boat for 60 minutes, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then heading out onto the Mississippi.  I paddled a mile or so upstream and met a barge rig coming downriver, but this one wasn't producing anything like the sweet waves I rode on Thursday.  I followed it back down to the mouth of the harbor, and mostly got pitched around in boily water.

I've mentioned the gar that have been populating the Memphis riverfront all summer.  They're generally docile and non-threatening, but many of them are quite impressive in size.  As I was paddling out of the harbor yesterday I saw one break the surface about 20 meters in front of me, and it looked like a dolphin coming up for air.

I haven't pulled the registration trigger yet, but I do think I will be going to this race in Louisiana next Saturday.  I've been thinking about how best to prepare: at this point in the season I think the main objective is to maintain fitness, not build it, so whatever workouts I do the rest of this season will be moderate in volume but high in quality.  And so today some hard short sprints were on the agenda in a session of 60 minutes overall.  I warmed up for ten minutes and then did six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals near the mouth of the harbor.  Then I paddled up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and back, maintaining a brisk but comfortable tempo.

Back in the harbor I paddled up to the monorail bridge and timed myself in a sprint from there to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  I had broken two minutes in this sprint once or twice in the past, but most of the times I do it my time is closer to 2:10.  Today my time was 1:58.  It was a nice mental boost to know I'm still moving the boat pretty well.

(As measured by my G.P.S. device, the distance from the southern edge of the monorail bridge to the southern edge of the HDB is 0.28 mile.  Using the international standard of 1609.344 meters to one mile as a conversion factor, that's about 450.62 meters.)

In the summertime I'm a regular listener to Saint Louis Cardinals baseball games on the radio, and as such I find myself thinking a lot about the technical challenges faced by both paddlers and baseball players.  The Cardinals have a player who's built a career as a good hitter but has struggled mightily at the plate this season.  Discussing his troubles during yesterday's game at San Francisco, the radio announcers pointed out that he seems to be swinging only with his arms, and not getting his entire body involved from the feet up.  The announcers went on to say that pitchers, too, often struggle when they don't use their entire bodies to throw pitches.

The point I'd like to highlight here is that technical issues must constantly be worked on.  Players at the major league level are the best in the world at the game of baseball, and yet even for them perfect technique is not automatic.  When a player is "hot" it usually means that all parts of his body are moving together in perfect harmony, but when he's "in a slump" everything seems to fall apart.  This Cardinals player actually got sent down to the minor leagues for a while this season so he could work on his batting technique out of the spotlight.

Paddling is, of course, a full-body endeavor as well, and doing it right requires ongoing concentration.  I've mentioned in the past that sometimes my 8-stoke or 12-stroke sprints feel fluid and natural and other times they feel like a sloppy mess.  Sometimes all it takes to make them go better is for me to say to myself "Use your feet!" or something like that.

Anyway... that's my "deep thought" for now as I try to finish up a pretty successful race season on a high note.

Storms and surfing

I was still feeling really tired and sluggish on Monday, so I made it a rest day.  I didn't paddle and I didn't do the strength routine that I normally do on Mondays.

By Tuesday morning I was feeling a bit more energetic, but I didn't want to push my luck, so I paddled for just 40 minutes.  That was enough time to get loose and do three 8-stroke sprints and a couple of surges.

On Wednesday I did the strength routine, and yesterday I got back in the boat for a 70-minute paddle.  Yesterday was the day that Tropical Depression Harvey was to make its trip through the greater Memphis area, and Thursday evening sprints had been called off to spare us all the negotiation of flooded streets to get out to Shelby Farms.  But in the mid morning there was no more than an occasional light drizzle falling.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then headed out onto the Mississippi to see what was going on.

What was going on was a barge rig coming downstream that was producing some premium surfing waves in its wake.  This rig was unusual in that it wasn't moving that fast--usually they pull away from me quickly, taking their best waves with them--and yet its screws were churning up good surfing waves.  So I was able to surf without working too hard, and could have continued doing so for miles and miles if I'd wanted.  As it was, I surfed from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge until we were down below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, and then I decided I should bring the fun to a close before I was faced with too long a paddle back upriver.  I worked my way up the bank alongside Tom Lee Park until I was safely back in the harbor's flatwater.

At this time some heavier rain moved in, and I paddled that last 2000 meters or so back to the dock in a drenching downpour.  But I was unconcerned--paddling is a water sport, after all.  By the time I was back on the dock and in dry clothes the rain had backed off enough that I could walk up to the car without getting too soaked.  The rain was coming down in earnest by the time I got home for lunch, and would continue on into the night.

The rain was gone by the time I woke up this morning.  As the city dried out I did another round of the strength routine.

Monday photo feature

Lee Sanders of Nashville, Tennessee, races slalom on Alabama's Mulberry Fork of the Black Warrior River in the spring of 1997.

Heeding my body's message

Yesterday I was still feeling fatigued from the Thursday evening sprints and I went down to the river intending to do an easy 60-minute paddle.  But as I was leaving the harbor there was a barge rig coming upriver creating some good-looking waves, and no paddler in his right mind can pass up the opportunity to surf.  So I ferried out there and threw down the necessary sprints to get some good rides.

Other than that I kept the intensity pretty low and figured that by today I'd be rested up enough to do a good workout.  And as I headed down to the river this morning I was feeling ready to go.  But my body wasn't keen on doing what I'd planned.

After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I planned to do six half-mile pieces at an average speed of around 7.5 miles per hour, with four to five minutes recovery in between.  But I was hurting big-time by the fourth one and I ended up quitting after the fifth.  I'm usually quite consistent during workouts like this, but today my times were sort of all over the place: 4:08, 3:49, 4:01, 3:55, and 4:03.

I don't think this is something I need to get all worried about; I think my body was simply telling me it needed more rest than I'd given it lately, and so I listened.  Part of being an athlete is knowing when it's best to deviate from the planned training regimen.

On the motion of celestial bodies and my own body

As the eclipse was moving across the greater Memphis area on Monday I was out on the Mississippi River.  This area was not in the path of totality, but the moon was to block 93 to 94 percent of the sun's rays, the closest thing to a total eclipse I've ever seen.  I put my Go Pro camera on the boat and aimed it high enough (I thought) to capture the sun in the sky.  I wasn't expecting any photographic miracles from a Go Pro camera, but I was hoping that with the shutter clicking every ten seconds, I might get something interesting.

Well, that endeavor was basically a bust, as it turned out I didn't have the camera pointed high enough after all.  I also overestimated how dark it would get: as the eclipse peaked it was sort of dim, but not really dark.  6 to 7 percent of the sun's light is still a lot of light, it turned out.  Here I am hanging out just above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge as the eclipse peaked:

I was hoping the bridge lights would come on, but they didn't.  But I did get some looks at the sun through my protective glasses, and that was interesting.  And even a bad time on the river is worthwhile in my book.

On Tuesday I paddled with Joe for the first time in quite a few weeks.  We did our usual loop of the harbor in 80 minutes or so.  I did the current strength routine on Monday and Wednesday.

All told, 2017 has been injury-free for me, which is to say that I haven't had any ailments that have kept me out of the boat.  But I've had periods where I've dealt with tightness and soreness, and I'm going through such a period right now.  My lower back has been quite sore for a few weeks now, particularly first thing in the morning.  As I mentioned recently, I think that nationals course up in Iowa was tough on it.

I've also been tight in my entire right side for at least several months.  I suspect it's related to the plantar fasciitis in my right foot.  I haven't mentioned the foot condition in a while--lately it's been mild--but it's still there.

My main strategy to cope with it all has been to stretch thoroughly almost every day and to be "mindful," to use a current buzzword, of my entire body as I go through each day.  I've been feeling a certain fatigue since I got home from my trip last week, and I think it's largely mental, the impact of a long season.  As I said on Sunday, I'm looking to attend two more races this year, and I hope I'll have the energy to give them my best.

Last night I went out to Shelby Farms for Thursday evening sprints, and my results were mostly encouraging.  My form felt a bit sloppy during at least two of the sprints, but I was pleased with the way my body responded to the demand of four 500ish-meter sprints followed by a fast almost-two-mile lap of the lake.  My sprint times were consistent--around two minutes, fifteen seconds for each.

My lower back was as stiff as ever when I woke up this morning.  In the late morning I stretched as much of my body as I could and then did another round of the strength routine.  I'm still sore but feel a greater range of motion.  And that's the goal on so many levels: stay in motion.

Monday photo feature

Calvin Hassel of Grand Island, Nebraska, seen here paddling in the bow with Bill Torongo manning the stern, is a living legend of North American style marathon canoe racing.  When I conducted this interview with him in 2005, he had won 38 USCA national titles in solo and tandem classes.  By now the total must surely top 50.

Hassel fell short of adding to the total at the 2017 nationals at Dubuque, Iowa, a week ago, while a Michigan paddler named Mike Davis looked like his heir apparent.  Hassel took second to Davis's first in the C1 class, and Davis and Kyle Stonehouse won the C2 class convincingly over Hassel and Torongo.  Davis and his wife Rebecca teamed up to win the C2 Mixed class, in which Hassel did not race this year.

So even a living legend is not immortal.  But in a career spanning several decades Hassel has given this rather obscure discipline that is not contested internationally a bona-fide superstar.

Race schedule update

Here's a look at what's left of my 2017 race season.  The races listed are the ones that have been on my radar; I will most likely make it to two of them--the one in Louisiana on September 9 and the one in Mississippi on October 7.  I think I'm at my best in races that are less than an hour, and these two meet that criterion.

September
2  Big River Regional.  Mississippi River, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  A 12-mile race down the Mississippi.  Register

3  Rock Island Paddle Rampage.  Center Hill Reservoir near Walling, Tennessee.  A 14-mile flatwater race.  Register

9  Lower Atchafalaya River Sprint Race.  Atchafalaya River, Patterson, Louisiana.  An 6-mile race on this major distributary of the Mississippi River.  Register

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.  Register


October
7  Gator Bait Race.  Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Mississippi.  A 5.5-mile flatwater race.  Register

Riding out the summer

It took me all week, but I'm feeling more or less back to normal after the big racing trip.  I did the new strength routine just one time through on Wednesday, and then did it the normal two times through on Friday.

In the boat I haven't done anything special; I'm just trying to settle back into a normal routine.  On Thursday, yesterday, and today I paddled for 60 minutes, warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints and then paddling as hard or as easy as I felt like paddling.  All three days I paddled strong at least some of the time.  As I was paddling out of the harbor today there was a Corps of Engineers rig churning upriver--it looked like a dredge or something similar--and there were some nice glassy-smooth waves coming off her bow.  I got several brief but fun rides.

It's been pretty hot since I got home.  For most of my trip the weather was delightfully mild with cool, dry air, but the first thing I noticed when I got home last Monday was how much more humid it was in Memphis.  It went on to be a pretty typical August week and I hope fall will come sooner rather than later.  Doing some re-mount practice has helped me cope with it while out paddling: I flip and then just lie there in the cool water for a couple of minutes before re-mounting.

The Mississippi River is settling into its usual low water levels for late summer and fall.  The Memphis gauge reading this morning was 1.9 feet, and the forecast has it dropping below zero in several days.  High-water periods are fun because of the expanded exploring opportunities, but low water can be nice in its own way.  I believe the water is cleaner when the river is low because it's not picking up pollutants in flooded farmland and dump sites and what have you.  The water is still muddy--the Mississippi is always muddy--but I think it's a "cleaner" muddy.

When I go out and paddle on the river I see all kinds of little things and most days I don't give them much thought, but once in a while I'll pause to observe some aspect of that environment and appreciate just how beautiful it is.  Today that "aspect" was the water as it rushed past the pilings of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  Flowing water, from Class VI mountain creeks down to meandering Class I streams in the flatlands, is just so beautiful.  I remember being a summer camper going on canoe trips, thinking that even the easy rivers we paddled were just such pleasant places to spend hot summer days.  The older I get the more I appreciate the fact that I still get to do this.

A new strength routine

I'm trying to get back into life here at home, and that includes some strength work.  Here's my routine for the next little while:

1.  Rubber band exercises for arms and shoulders

2.  Lunges with dumbbells

3.  Dips

4.  Lateral abdominals (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 3:53 of the last video on this page)

5.  Bent-over rows

Recovering; going for all 50

I've been wicked sore in my midsection since I finished the race on Sunday.  That course took us against a fair amount of current and through a lot of shallow water, and I think that extra resistance took its toll on my body.  I was ready for a recovery paddle today.  I did a thorough round of stretching on the dock and then paddled easy for 40 minutes.  My core muscles protested, but I'm hopeful that getting some blood flowing in them will speed up the recovery.

Remember my "fifty states project"?  By participating in the USCA Nationals at Dubuque I added Iowa to the list of states I've paddled a boat in.  I also "solidified" the status of Illinois on the list: I had paddled on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River across from Saint Louis, and on Lake Michigan at Chicago, but when I paddled on Carlyle Reservoir last week it was my first time paddling in the interior of Illinois.  It's fussy, I know, but I can be pretty fussy sometimes.

Here's the updated list.  States marked with an asterisk (*) are the ones I have merely visited.  States marked with a pound sign (#) are the ones I have visited and paddled a boat in.  As you can see, Alaska is the only state I haven't yet visited.

Alabama#
Alaska
Arizona*
Arkansas#
California#
Colorado#
Connecticut#
Delaware*
Florida#
Georgia#
Hawaii#
Idaho#
Illinois#
Indiana#
Iowa#
Kansas*
Kentucky#
Louisiana#
Maine*
Maryland#
Massachusetts#
Michigan#
Minnesota*
Mississippi#
Missouri#
Montana#
Nebraska*
Nevada*
New Hampshire#
New Jersey*
New Mexico#
New York#
North Carolina#
North Dakota*
Ohio#
Oklahoma*
Oregon#
Pennsylvania#
Rhode Island#
South Carolina#
South Dakota*
Tennessee#
Texas#
Utah#
Vermont#
Virginia#
Washington#
West Virginia#
Wisconsin#
Wyoming#

Nationals results

Right now I've seen the results for the last day of the USCA Nationals posted online.  Eventually the results for the entire event should be posted on the USCA website, and I'll link to them here whenever I see them.

For now I'll post the results of the class I competed in, men's K1 Unlimited.  But let me remind you that there were all kinds of boat classes competing over the weekend--everything from North American style marathon canoes to outrigger canoes to ICF-spec kayaks to surf skis to standup paddleboards.  If you are a canoe and kayak racer of any kind, the USCA Nationals is an event you should attend at least once.

Here are the results of my class:

Men's K1 Unlimited, Sunday, August 13, 2017

1 Herbert, Mike (18-39) 1 hour, 28 minutes, 53 seconds

2 Peterson, Ryan (18-39) 1:29:09

3 Florov, Kiril (50-59) 1:37:36

4 Holmes, Elmore (40-49) 1:37:47

5 Glover, Dale (40-49) 1:41:08

6 Schnelle, Jeff (50-59) 1:41:55

7 Westrum, Robert (50-59) 1:43:45

8 Lucas, Hansel (18-39) 1:43:54

9 Sweeney, Michael (60-64) 1:44:21

10 Evans, Jason (18-39) 1:45:27

11 Taylor, Phillip (50-59) 1:49:37

12 Stover, John (75 and over) 1:52:57

13 Woodruff, William (65-69) 1:54:12

14 Baumert, Daniel (60-64) 1:54:17

15 Leszek, Ed (70-74) 1:54:32

16 Ammon, Brian (50-59) 1:55:03

17 Scofield, Ralph (70-74) 2:03:27

18 Friedrichsen, Jed (60-64) 2:07:30

19 Knight, Stephen (65-69) 2:17:33

Note: Mike Herbert is in fact 56 years old, but he elected to compete in the "Open" (18-39) age group.  Mike's a guy who likes to try to beat 'em all, and he often succeeds, as he did yesterday. His time of 1:28:53 was the fastest time recorded on the course for the entire weekend.

Monday photo feature

Adam Davis of Memphis competes in the Music City SUP and Kayak Race on Percy Priest Reservoir at Nashville back on July 29.  Davis finished a respectable fourth place among all kayaks.  Photo by Hector Mendoza.

Competing for a national title

I got up bright and early this morning, and after making a quick breakfast and breaking camp I headed over to the start/finish area to prepare my boat and gear for battle.  To me the "known quantities" among the competition were Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas; Kiril Florov of Chicago, Illinois; and Scott Cummins of Louisville, Kentucky.  All three had raced K1 ICF yesterday and I had a pretty good idea what to expect from them today; plus, Scott had beaten me narrowly in Nashville two weeks ago and I had returned the favor on Fontana Reservoir last weekend, so I figured we'd be keeping each other company for much of today's race with the hope of claiming the tiebreaker.

Here's an aerial view of the course:

That's Chaplain Schmitt Island at the top, with the Mississippi River flowing north to south to the right.  The island is separated from the rest of Dubuque by Lake Peosta Channel.  The starting line was near the north end of Chaplain Schmitt Island, and we would follow the white line down Lake Peosta Channel to where it re-enters the Mississippi, then down the river to a buoy turn, then back up the Mississippi and up along the east side of the island back to where we'd started.  Then we would repeat that loop.  Then, finally, we would do a lap of the island only, without going downriver to do that buoy turn a third time.  The advertised total distance was 13 miles.

Other classes competing today were men's solo canoe, women's tandem canoe, and standup paddle board.  The classes started at five-minute intervals and K1 Unlimited was nearly the last to start, so we would be catching up with a lot of boats in other classes as the race went on.  We watched the classes start before us, and then it was our turn.  When the gun went off I did the same thing I always try to do: get a good quick start and establish good position early.

Mike and Kiril took the early lead, as I'd expected, but I was surprised when they didn't leave me in the dust right away.  I was able to sit on Mike's left-side wake for several minutes (Mike later told me that since he'd already raced hard both Friday and yesterday, he'd planned to race conservatively today).  Scott enjoyed an even better position on the "diamond" between Mike and Kiril. Over to the right a guy none of us knew (Ryan Peterson of Minnesota, we later found out) was matching our early pace in a training-weight surf ski with an overstern rudder.

Before long Mike and Kiril broke contact with Scott and me, and my old nemesis-friend and I settled into our familiar wake-trading routine.  Ryan managed to stay with the leaders, and Scott and I figured that (a) he was legitimate, or (b) we'd catch back up to him later.  By the time we had paddled out of Lake Peosta Channel onto the main Mississippi, heading down to the buoy turn for the first time, Mike and Ryan had dropped Kiril and Scott and I discussed possible tactics for reeling Kiril in.

We reached the buoy and had to make the turn in heavy traffic because we'd caught up with some of the slower boats in the classes that had started before us.  After a bit of mayhem and chaos we were headed back upriver.  We worked our way up the river-right bank until we were back at the lower end of Chaplain Schmitt Island, and then we continued up the main river channel, rounding the island in a counterclockwise direction.  At this point Scott was sitting on my stern wake, and shortly after we'd passed under the Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge, we heard an awful CRUNCH!  Scott's boat had hit something and he moaned in anguish over what the damage might be.  But he seemed to be keeping the pace just fine and I advised him to "race now, fret over equipment later."

We reached the top of the island and turned into Lake Peosta Channel.  We had just caught several C1 racers and I cut to their inside so I could catch a bit of fast-moving water that I knew about along the bank.  Scott went to their outside, and in a matter of seconds I had a four- or five-boatlength lead on him.  A minute later I was crossing the start/finish line for the first time and Scott was nowhere in my peripheral vision.  Even having caught the fast water and put a couple of boats between us, I felt that I'd dropped Scott too easily and I wondered whether he was okay.

I soldiered on without my drafting partner.  I was now in fourth place overall in the K1 Unlimited class behind Mike, Ryan, and Kiril.  There were still many boats from the other classes ahead of me and Kiril was the only one of those three I could see.  As I approached the buoy turn for the second time I saw the first two coming back upstream and Ryan was leading with Mike sitting on his wake.  Once I'd rounded the buoy myself I finally had a chance see where Scott was, but he was nowhere in sight.  Evidently he'd dropped out of the race.

No other K1 Unlimited racers were anywhere near me and I tried to paddle as efficiently as I could, keeping the boat moving while conserving energy.  The course was taxing because of the bottom drag in the many shallow sections, but I felt I could continue a solid pace for what was left of the race.  With Mike, Ryan, and Kiril all solidly ahead of me it felt as though fourth place was the way it was going to be for me.

When I crossed the start/finish line the second time there was just that island-only lap left to go--a distance of about two miles.  Scott was over on the bank rooting me on, so obviously his equipment problems had been more than just a nuisance.  It was here that I realized that I'd made up some ground on Kiril, and that maybe a third-place finish was not so farfetched for me after all.  As we made our last trip down Lake Peosta Channel I tried to pick up the pace a bit to see if I could reel Kiril in.  Then, down where this channel rejoins the main Mississippi, things got even more interesting.  There was a big mud flat here and one could choose to go either inside of it, close to the island, or outside of it.  Kiril chose to go outside.  That was the slower way to go, because of both the extra distance and the greater exposure to the Mississippi's current, but it was also the safer way because the inside route was mere inches deep in places.  I think Kiril thought he had third place in the bag and was being conservative.

I, meanwhile, had nothing to lose.  I knew the bottom was all mud in this area and there was little chance of damaging my boat, and I also knew that if I followed Kiril around the outside of the mud flat I would have almost no chance of catching him.  So inside I went.  There was one spot where my paddle blades sank in the mud, but otherwise I came through unscathed.  And once I was headed upriver along the eastern side of the island, there was Kiril just a handful of boatlengths up ahead.  The race was on.

I began to throw in surges at the rate of "10 strokes on, 20 strokes off."  It was exhausting, but I could tell that I was a little bit closer after each surge, so I stuck with it.  Finally, right as we reached the upstream end of Lake Peosta Channel, with some 600 meters to go to the finish, I was right on the left side of his stern.  He saw me as we made the turn and realized he'd better put the pedal to the metal.  He opened a boat length on me, but I knew he couldn't sprint hard for all of the remaining distance, and I worked hard to keep it close.  With maybe 200 meters to go I was back on his stern, but he threw in another hard sprint and opened a gap once again.  By the time we were within 50 meters my muscles were screaming and I knew he had me.

Back on dry land I commiserated with Scott about his having to drop out.  His rudder had taken the hit, it turned out, and it was barely functional and snagging a lot of grass to boot.  Scott was pretty philosophical about it--equipment problems are a part of any sport, after all.

Mike had taken the overall title, beating Ryan by about 20 seconds.  It was the third national title in as many days for Mr. Herbert: he and his daughter Savanna had won the C2 Standard Mixed class on Friday, and he had won the K1 ICF class yesterday.  I, meanwhile, was the top finisher in the 40-49 age group, and as a result I was given a first-place medal and a shirt that says its wearer is... a national champion!!!!  I never thought I'd see the day...

The race organizers said they will be posting the results soon.  I will link to them here whenever I find them.

Trying to get back into that racing state of mind

I got up Friday morning and drove from the Quad Cities to Dubuque via the "scenic byway" route along U.S. 67 and U.S. 52.  The trip took a couple of hours, and I arrived at the site of the USCA Nationals just as the first day of marathon racing was finishing up.  Classes that raced on Friday were mostly mixed tandem in both canoe and kayak.

I picked up my race packet and then went over to the site I'd reserved in the city campground, located across Chaplain Schmitt Island from the race headquarters.  I found myself camping in yet another picturesque spot, right on the Mississippi River just upstream of the Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge.

I spent yesterday morning watching the women's solo canoe, men's tandem canoe, men's tandem kayak, men's ICF kayak, and women's "unlimited" kayak classes.  I shot a few pictures and cheered on the people I knew.  Once the racing was over I got in my boat and paddled a lap of the course.  It seemed to have a little of everything to challenge (torture?) a racer: shallow water, lots of floating grass, squirrelly currents, rocks lurking beneath the surface, and more.  The guys who had raced in the K1 ICF class told me it was a very difficult course for their craft but that surf skis like mine should fare better in the K1 Unlimited class the next day.

And so I turned in fairly early last night so I could get up early this morning.  The races are starting at 8:30 AM this year--earlier than I typically like to get going, but then again it's nice to have it all over with well before lunchtime.

On to the Midwest

This trip is starting to feel like a reservoir tour.

There is certainly no shortage of reservoirs to choose from, for our nation spent much of the previous century on a veritable drunken spree of dam building.  During the first half of this vacation trip I visited Percy Priest, James, Mountain Island, Norman, and Fontana.

When I fled the rain in the mountains Monday I ended up camping at Rock Island State Park, located on a spit of land curiously nestled in between two reservoirs, Great Falls and Center Hill.  I first visited this area in the mid 1980s with a summer camp friend whose family owned a cabin on the Collins River, one of the rivers impounded to create Great Falls Reservoir.  I immediately found it to be an exceptionally picturesque place: with its rivers and steel-truss bridges and railroad line it reminded me of Hardy, Arkansas, where my family had taken summer trips when I was little.  The area was also a haven for lovers of water-sports of all kinds: during the visit I did some water-skiing with my friend's family--that's an obvious thing to do on a reservoir--but we also got to paddle some whitewater!

Great Falls Dam is one of the more interesting dam projects I've ever seen.  It was constructed right at the confluence of the Collins and Caney Fork Rivers, at the top of a series of waterfalls.  The pool elevation of the resulting reservoir allows water to be dropped through a pipe into a powerhouse at the bottom of the falls.  One sad result of the dam is that the falls are dewatered much of the time, but down below the powerhouse is a short stretch of whitewater that includes a couple of world-class playspots before it peters out into Center Hill Reservoir.  That's where my camp friend and I had some fun during that mid-80s visit.

This week I had nothing but my surf ski on the car, so I stuck to the flatwater up above the dam.  Tuesday morning I put in at a public access on the Collins River and paddled for 80 minutes, going past the dam and a mile or two up the Caney Fork before turning around and going back to where I'd put in.  While on the water I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.

With the important business of paddling out of the way it was time to make another step toward the Midwest.  I set my sights toward another reservoir, Lake Barkley in southwestern Kentucky.  Several hours later I was setting up camp at a place called Eureka Campground, as in "Eureka!  This place is actually nice!"  It's a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers campground, you see, and Corps campgrounds, while offering all the amenities one could want, like showers and flush-toilets and playgrounds and stuff, tend to be sterile industrial/institutional places.  The fact that Eureka is located next to Barkley Dam led me to expect lots of concrete poured over terrain that had been bulldozed into submission.

What I found instead was as nice a developed campground as I've ever seen.  My campsite was on a wooded hillside a short walk from the water's edge.  The place was certainly landscaped, but tastefully so, like a nice backyard in an established neighborhood or something like that.  It didn't hurt that the weather was gorgeous.  I consider the Land Between the Lakes area to be in the same part of the country as Memphis, more or less, but there was no hint of the sweltering weather we endured there for most of last month.  The sky was clear and the air was cool and crisp, almost like a beautiful day in October.  My camping gear was still damp from the soggy places I'd stayed the previous two nights and I was grateful for a chance to get it all dried out for good.

On Wednesday morning I paddled for 70 minutes out on Lake Barkley.  My intensity level ranged from easy to the hard side of medium, and I did a set of six 12-stroke sprints in the middle of the session.

By now my goal was to arrive up in Dubuque Friday, so I got out my map and looked for another reservoir along the route.  I decided on Carlyle Reservoir, located in south central Illinois just outside a town called (suitably enough) Carlyle.  Once there I found myself camping lakeside in another Corps of Engineers campground.  This one wasn't as nice as the one at Lake Barkley, but it wasn't bad.  Most important was that it had adequate shade.  The campground was quite a bit more crowded with RVs than the one at Barkley, but the people seemed nice and reasonably quiet.

I woke up yesterday morning and made myself some breakfast and then got in my boat for a 60-minute paddle.  I did four 12-stroke sprints while I was out there.

Once that was over I embarked on the longest stretch of driving for this North-Carolina-to-Iowa leg of the trip: about four and a half hours.  I made it to the Quad Cities region (Rock Island and Moline, Illinois, and Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa) and decided to spring for a motel, whose wi-fi service is allowing me to deliver all this news to you.  My body is ready for a break from paddling and I plan to spend today making what looks like a scenic drive along the Mississippi River up to Dubuque.

When I began this trip the North-Carolina-to-Iowa leg looked to be the most arduous, but spreading it out over five days, combined with the still-lovely weather, has made it rather delightful.  Yesterday was the only time the driving began to feel like a chore; otherwise I've had the freedom to take my time, drive some secondary roads, take in the sights... all the things you ideally would like to do during a trip across our great nation.

Tomorrow I'll do a short paddle just to get my body loose.  My class, "K1 Unlimited," races on Sunday morning.  Chances are I won't be back online until Sunday night, when I check into a motel during the long trip home.

Washed out of the mountains

I'm online for the first time since Monday morning, so it's time to catch up on what's been happening this week.  On Sunday I went and did my typical paddle for the day after a race: an easy 60 minutes on Fontana Reservoir.

In the early 1940s the Tennessee Valley Authority built Fontana Dam on the Little Tennessee River a few miles above where it flows from North Carolina into Tennessee.  The result is Fontana Reservoir, and if you look at this body of water on a map you'll see that it's not the sort of vast expanse we're used to in my part of the country.  Here in this mountainous terrain the impoundment backs up into all the many tributary watersheds, creating hundreds of fingers and tentacles.  A paddler (or any other boater) can easily get lost in the maze.  As I paddled on Sunday I had to make myself stop from time to time, and turn around to study where I'd come from.  As you can gather from reading this post, I have made it back to tell the tale.

With an entire week before my final race on this trip--the USCA Nationals up at Dubuque, Iowa--I had no particular itinerary for the early part of this week, and I considered spending another day or two in the mountains.  But Sunday evening some heavy rain moved into the area and chased me into my tent early, and it was still pouring down when I woke up the next morning.  There's nothing like some inclement weather to make one desire a change of scenery.  I quickly broke camp during a moment when the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and headed west.  Surely, I thought, the storm system and I would eventually part company as I drove.

It appeared that we'd done so by the time I was in middle Tennessee, and I made camp in Rock Island State Park east of McMinnville.  But no sooner did I clip the last corner of my tent's fly in place than the rain came back with a vengeance.  I dove into the tent and sat forlornly as the drops hammered overhead.  The rain finally ended as darkness fell, but by then there wasn't much to do but hit the hay and hope my soggy environs would begin to dry out the next day.

I'll tell you some more later.

Monday photo feature

After Saturday's race, the winner of each age group in each boat class was awarded a one-quart growler of beer from a local brewery.  The runner-up got a pint glass, and the third-place finisher got a shot glass.  The unspoken assumption was that the winner would share his beer with his fellow medalists.

I was second in the 18-49 age group of the kayak race boat class, so I got the pint glass.  But the winner didn't seem inclined to share.  Fortunately I found a more generous spirit in the person of overall female winner Lindsey O'Shea.  And the beer she'd been given wasn't too hoppy, so everything turned out great indeed.

Photo by Blake Gray.

Racing in the mountains

I made it over to the greater Bryson City area Thursday evening and set up housekeeping at the campground for the Tsali mountain bike trail complex.  The six-mile Paddle Grapple race would take place Saturday morning just down the road near where Lemmons Branch flows into Fontana Reservoir.

Saturday morning arrived soon enough, and when I got down to the race site the parking lot was teeming with vehicles bearing boats.  Some 100 athletes in all had entered to race in numerous boat classes.  My own class, "K1 High Performance" for surf skis, flatwater K1s, and the like, was pretty loaded.  The most "elite" paddler entered was Morgan House of Gainesville, Georgia, a fixture on the U.S. flatwater team a decade ago who would have gone to the Olympics once or twice if not for the IOC's stingy cap on the number of athletes allowed to compete in our under-appreciated sport.

He was the least of my worries as I looked around the parking lot and saw at least ten paddlers all of whom I could beat or all of whom could beat me.  As soon as race director Chris Hipgrave concluded the competitors' meeting, we walked down to the water and got in our boats to see how it would all shake out.

In the race's early stages I might have been in tenth or fifteenth place overall.  Morgan House went out fast as expected, as did the boat considered most likely to beat House, a tandem surf ski paddled by Chris Hipgrave and Bruce Poacher.  Many other boats went out fast as well--too fast, in the case of some of them.

My plan was similar to what it had been in last year's race: work my way up in the pack until I found the fastest paddlers I could possibly hang with, and try to stay there.  With so many paddlers in front of me I had to paddle in confused waters, and that took a lot of energy and concentration.  Little by little I moved up, while some of the overenthusiastic starters began to drop back.  In the first 2000 meters or so I saw many familiar competitors: Rick Carter of Eutawville, South Carolina; Joseph DiChiacchio of Rising Fawn, Georgia; Scott Cummins (my nemesis in Nashville last week) of Louisville, Kentucky; Cory Hall of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Up ahead were Pete Greene of Beaufort, South Carolina, and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, and I knew that if I could get on their wakes I would have a good chance to distance myself from the rest of the field.  For what seemed like an eternity I sat on the second wake back from them; at least four or five times I tried to sprint up and over the crest of that first wake, but to no avail.  After each attempt I had to sit back and catch my breath.  Finally, digging in as hard as I could, I attained that first wake, and I hoped I would have enough energy to stay competitive for the remaining 70% or so of the race after expending all that energy.

The six-mile race would take us through two laps of a three-mile loop.  I settled in behind Pete and Terry and as we moved into the second half of that first lap, the competition finally began to take shape.  Poacher/Hipgrave and House were far enough out in front that it was hard to tell what was happening up there.  Sven Jonsson of Brevard, North Carolina, and Kurt Smithgall of Montoursville, Pennsylvania, paddled side-by-side in third and fourth place just a couple of boat lengths ahead of Pete and Terry and me.  I figured people like Scott Cummins and Rick Carter couldn't be too far back.

We worked our way back into the cove where the race had started as the leaders were making the buoy turn to begin the second lap.  Poacher/Hipgrave appeared to have a lead of four or five boatlengths on House.  A minute or so later Sven and Kurt reached the buoy, and Sven, whose flatwater K1 is capable of tighter turns than Kurt's surf ski, opened a gap.  Pete and Terry and I were in single file as we approached the buoy, and that had not changed once we had rounded the buoy.  As we embarked on the second lap I estimated that Scott Cummins was maybe 30 seconds behind us as he approached the buoy.

My priority now was to maintain contact with Pete and Terry while conserving as much energy as I could.  As the course looped around a big island our pack reeled in Kurt, a former U.S. wildwater team member whose torrid first-lap pace seemed to be catching up to him.  By the time we had rounded the island we had overtaken Kurt, and I experienced a feeling of deja vu as I evaluated my position: in last year's race Sven had held second place behind a distant leader, while Pete and Terry and I had worked as a pack to close the gap.

This time that gap wasn't closing at all, as Sven had pulled away a bit after the buoy turn.  Pete and Terry and I continued along in single file and I was pretty sure we were racing for fourth place overall.  With around 1500 meters to go I moved up onto Terry's left-side wake, hoping to improve my position for the final sprint to the finish.  Terry responded by moving up onto Pete's right-side wake, and I realized that the move I'd just made might be the last thing I had in me.  My arms and shoulders starting to throb, I dropped back behind my two competitors and tried to hang on as the course wound its way back into the cove where the finish line awaited.

By this time the team of Poacher and Hipgrave was bringing home the overall win, with Morgan House comfortably taking first among single paddlers.  Sven cruised to the finish in sole possession of third place overall.  Our pack was next, and with 400 meters to go Terry had grabbed the lead with Pete trying to hold his side wake and a chance to sprint by him in the final meters.  I continued to fight to maintain contact, feeling beleaguered but ever hopeful of a stroke of luck.  With 50 meters left, Terry threw down a devastating surge and opened a little gap, earning himself fourth place.  I made a brave final attempt, but Pete's lead on me was too solid.

And that's when I got my stroke of luck: the actual finish line lay some ten meters beyond the line we had started from.  Chris had mentioned this fact during the pre-race meeting, but one could argue that he had not stated it as emphatically as he should have.  And the line was marked with a single traffic cone at the water's edge; a pair of large bright-colored buoys and a big banner saying something like "The finish line is RIGHT HERE!!!!!!!!!" probably would have been more appropriate.

The upshot is that while I had heard what Chris said during the meeting (I'm a good little boy who always pays attention, after all), it had escaped Terry and Pete's notice.  Both of them stopped paddling once they had crossed the line we had started from.  Spectators on the bank shouted at them to keep going until they had passed the cone, but they didn't realize what was going on until I had slipped by Pete.  And so the official finish order was Terry in fourth, me in fifth, and Pete in sixth.

For me it was sort of a bland victory, for Pete had definitely had me beat.  He accepted the result with his usual sportsmanship and good humor.  Fortunately, the result had no impact on who got what during the awards ceremony because Pete and I were entered in different age groups (Pete is in his 50s, while my 50th birthday is still three weeks away).  For his part, Chris acknowledged that he hadn't made the finish line location as clear as he should have and promised to do better next year.

As of this writing the complete results have not been posted; I will link to them whenever they get put up.  I do know that the top overall female finisher was Lindsey O'Shea of Gainesville, Georgia.  I'm still sort of processing the whole event in my head and I'll probably have some more insights to share later.

Dammed-up water

I spent Monday lying around my sister's house like an absolute slug.  It was just what I needed after all the drama of getting out of town and competing in a race and driving and visiting friends.

Yesterday and today I sampled a couple more of the reservoir offerings in the Catawba River basin.  Yesterday I went out to Mountain Island Lake, a smallish reservoir off North Carolina 16.  When I got there around 10 AM there was no motorized traffic at all and the water was as placid as could be. I went out for a 60-minute paddle, during which I did eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals. Like I've said before, there are days when these sprints feel fluid and effortless, but yesterday they felt sort of sloppy.  But then when I settled back into my normal cruising pace for the last 20 minutes, my form felt good.  I think simply trying to do all the right things at a high intensity level helps them come more naturally at a normal intensity level.

Today I went to Lake Norman, the next reservoir upriver from Mountain Island Lake.  Lake Norman is a much bigger, more industrial-strength kind of place.  At the public access where I put in there was a sign posted explaining the lake evacuation protocol in the event of an emergency at the nearby McGuire Nuclear Station.  Another sign gave a phone number to call and report suspicious persons.  Out on the lake the motorized traffic wasn't too bad, but it was heavy enough for a Tuesday afternoon that I imagine it's ridiculous on summer weekends.  The shorelines were teeming with shiny McMansions.  It's The Great Outdoors, 21st-century style.  I think I'll stick to the harbor at home.

I did another 60-minute paddle with six 12-strokers in the middle.  For some reason I felt tired in the boat; I'm not sure why because I've been sleeping well and generally having a restful time these last several days.  I hope I'll have more pep in my step by Saturday.

Lake Norman's water is quite warm, possibly because both the nuclear station and the Marshall Steam Station use it for cooling.  When I finished paddling I hopped in the water and enjoyed a therapeutic soak for a few minutes.

I plan to head back west tomorrow ahead of Saturday's race on Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City.  I'll be camping in that area and might not be online to post here for several days.  The race information page is here, and I hope results will be posted by Saturday evening.