Monday photo feature

I love where I live, but I shouldn't ignore its problems any more than one should ignore the problems of one's spouse or other loved ones.  And so, in the spirit of the bummerfest that this blog has been lately due to my hurting back and the brutal humidity and so on, I give you this week's photo feature.

One of the things I couldn't help noticing out in the Columbia Gorge last month was that there was virtually no trash in the river.  I don't remember seeing even a single floating bottle.  That's quite a contrast to what I often encounter on my home water as well as the rivers and lakes I race on in my part of the country.

The Columbia Gorge area has a largely affluent, educated population, and litter and illegally-dumped garbage seem to correlate strongly with the poverty and ignorance that we have more than our share of in cities like mine along with the entire South and Appalachia.  That's the region of the country in which the late William Nealy, who drew the cartoon above, lived and did most of his paddling.


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Race schedule update

Pursuant to my last post, here's an updated list of events I have left in 2019.  Obviously I won't be doing all of them, seeing as how two of them are on the same date, but it's a list of possibilities.

September
1  Rock Island Rampage.  Center Hill Reservoir, Walling, Tennessee.  A 14-mile flatwater race.  Register

28  River Rat Paddle Challenge.  Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana.  6.5 miles down a Class I river.  Register


October
5  Big South Fork River Dash.  Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near Whitley City, Kentucky.  A 12-mile mostly-flatwater race.  Register

5  Lake Jocassee Paddle Splash.  Lake Jocassee near Salem, South Carolina.  A 6-mile flatwater race.  Register

November
16  Seadog Downwind Race.  Fish Hoek, South Africa.


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Reset

I'm taking a couple of weeks off.  I haven't done any paddling or other training activities this week, and I don't plan to next week either.

Unfortunately, to spend my break feeling good seems to be too much to ask.  I hurt my back while working in the shop on Wednesday, and I aggravated it on Friday.  It's not anything that shouldn't get better in a few days, but it sure is making me feel miserable right now.  And that wrist ailment I've been dealing with for a few weeks is acting like it wants to get better, but just can't seem to get over the hump to being fully healed.

Why take a break now?  Several reasons.  There's a lull in my race schedule, and I've got a lot going on in my non-athletic life and it seems like a good time to devote more of my attention there.  And there's the mental fatigue I've been talking about in recent posts.  It felt good to go win a race last weekend but here at home I continue to lack enthusiasm.  The Dog Days of summer are partly to blame.  Thunderstorms in recent days have made it not so hot here in the Mid South, but the humidity has been through the roof, and it seems to suck the life out of me.

So, a break it is.  I'm hoping the aches and pains will run their course while I get some work done.  It'll probably still be hot and humid a week from now, but at least I'll be that much closer to fall.

Once this break is over, what's the plan?  Well, it'll start with a return to strength training, along with some paddling with a nonspecific agenda.  There's a race on September 1 that I might do, mostly because some good racers I know are registered.  Will my training to date be enough for me to produce a good showing after this training break, or will I be in for an old-fashioned spanking?  That's anybody's guess right now.

As the weeks roll on I'll work myself into a new training cycle for the late-season events.  Those events will include at least one race in late September or early October, and then in November I've got something BIG planned: I'm going to South Africa for a camp led by Dawid and Jasper Mocke!  We'll be training on one of the most legendary downwind stretches in the world, "Miller's Run" off the Cape of Good Hope.

And really, that's another reason for the break I'm taking right now: I want to be in excellent shape for that camp, and seeing as how it's such a long way off I think a bit of downtime is in order.

Like I said, right now I feel about as far from peak form as a guy can get.  But I've been doing this long enough to know that with some planning, I have the power to round into shape when I want to.


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Monday photo feature

Lookit me, hangin' out with a gin-u-wine U.S. Senator.  That would be Mr. Rob Portman, the junior senator from the state of Ohio, to my right.  (To my left is Kentucky Waterman Series director Gerry James, also an important man but not a U.S. Senator.)

I won't say if I would or would not vote for Mr. Portman if I were an Ohioan, but the fact that he came out and raced on the Ohio River on Saturday is a mark on the positive side of the ledger.

Photo by Hollie Hall.


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Racing in the Queen City

When my race on Fontana Reservoir in western North Carolina got called off, I shifted my attention to an event in Cincinnati, Ohio, about the same driving distance from my home.  This weekend, I made the trip.  I broke the drive up there into two legs, spending Thursday night in Nashville with my old college friend Genie and traveling the rest of the way Friday.

I arrived at the site of the race start, the Schmidt Recreational Complex, in the mid-afternoon Friday.  With a couple of hours to kill before the race check-in opened, I did a 60-minute paddle on the Ohio, paddling down to the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge and back.  It was hard to detect any flow in the river, but down at the bridge I could just barely discern an eddy behind a piling.  So we would get at least a tiny bit of help in our nine-mile journey down the river the next day.  I did a set of four 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals and paddled back to the Schmidt Complex to get myself checked in.

The Ohio River Paddlefest has been going on for nearly two decades.  The event is put on for the benefit of Adventure Crew, an organization that gets urban youth in the Cincinnati area involved in outdoor activities.  The Paddlefest has become enough of a local institution that permanent signs have been installed on city park facilities:

According to the event's website,

The Ohio River Paddlefest is recognized as the nation’s largest paddling celebration with over 2,200 participants traveling 9 miles through downtown Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky in canoes, kayaks, and other human-powered craft.

I wondered where they got that participant number, because at the close of online registration only about 60 people had signed up for the race.  I found the apparent answer when I visited the check-in booth: a couple of thousand people would be participating in a "tour," rather than the actual race, down the course.  I believe the race is actually a later addition to this event: I've been aware of it going on for only a half-dozen years or so.

But that's really no matter.  I do what I like to do whether it's the most popular thing or not.  I picked up my race packet and went to pitch my tent in an area of the park where event participants were allowed to camp.

Cincinnati is located not so far within the western boundary of the Eastern Time zone.  That meant that nightfall occurred well after nine o'clock Friday, and that dawn would not come until around six o'clock yesterday morning.  Have I mentioned that the race was scheduled to begin at 7 AM?  If I'd wanted to race in the dark, I'd have registered for the Au Sable Marathon.

In any case, doing this race required some adjustments to my biological clock.  I retired for the night before 9 PM and set my alarm for 4 AM so I would have time for some coffee and breakfast and all the elements of my pre-race ritual.  As 7 AM approached and I maneuvered my boat to the starting line alongside a few dozen fellow competitors, the sun was not quite up over the ridge to the east.  But it was clear we would be racing in lovely weather and I was glad to be getting it done before the heat of the day descended on the region.

The starting gun fired and within the first half-mile I found myself alone in first place.  I consider that position to be a mixed blessing.  Certainly it's more fun to be in first place than, say, last place.  But being all alone up there means there are no wakes to ride, and it means you're sort of a sitting duck for competitors lurking within striking distance.

In this case I was glad to have my G.P.S. device on board, because it helped me make sure I was keeping my boat moving and not lapsing into some more lackadaisical pace that would allow the pack to reel me in.  In the early miles I was maintaining 8.0 miles per hour without much trouble.  Based on what I know about my abilities on flatwater, I estimated that I was getting between 1.0 and 1.5 mph of help from the current.  I made up my mind to keep myself moving at or above 8.0 for the whole race.

Besides having the G.P.S. to tell me how far I'd traveled, I was aware of where I was on the course because of the seven bridges we would pass beneath.  I entertained myself by keeping count as I advanced past the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, the Purple People Bridge (yes, that's what it's called on the Google map), the Taylor Southgate Bridge, the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, and the Brent Spence Bridge.

When I crossed under the last bridge, a railroad bridge that's nameless on the Google map, I had almost three miles left to go.  By this time I was having to work a lot harder to maintain 8 mph.  I would swear I was getting less help from the current, but the nearest dam on the Ohio is quite some distance down from Cincinnati, and I was staying in the part of the river where the main flow should be.  Maybe I was just getting tired.  My speed was dipping as low as 7.6 mph at times.

At last, as I rounded a long, large-radius bend to the right, the big yellow buoy marking the finish came into view beyond some barges moored against the Ohio shore.  I bore down and paddled as hard as I could until I passed between the buoy and the dock at the Riverside Park boat ramp.  The finish line officials had a device that read the timing chip strapped to my right wrist, and it measured my time at one hour, 7 minutes, 49 seconds.

I circled around to watch my nearest competitors come in to the finish.  A tandem surf ski paddled by Clint Bradley and Will Hanson was the second to cross the line, clocking 1:10:33.  Just behind the tandem in 1:10:40 was one of my housemates out in the Columbia Gorge a couple of weeks ago, Michael Meredith of the Detroit area.  Five seconds behind Michael was the top female finisher, Hollie Hall of South Point, Ohio.  The complete results are available here.

I grabbed a shuttle bus back to the Schmidt Complex to get my car and returned to Riverside Park just in time for the awards ceremony.  For anybody who wishes I would post more photos of myself on "the podium," here's the shot from yesterday's race:

From left to right, it's yours truly, Michael Meredith, and the third-place finisher in the men's race boat class, Erik Snider.

I should add that nowadays the race is part of the Kentucky Waterman Series.  KWS founder Gerry James was on hand to perform the race director's duties alongside Mr. Adrian Angell.

One of nice things about the race's early start was that I still had the whole day ahead for the trip back to Memphis.  After eating a couple of pretty good tacos from a food truck that was parked nearby, I loaded my boat and hit the road.  It was a long trip home, but at least I gained an hour when I crossed back into good old Central Time.

I slept good in my own bed last night.


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Time for another race

I've had a hard time busting out of my post-Columbia-Gorge funk.  After the week of hard training and racing out there, I ought to be feeling fit and ready to go get 'em.  Instead, I'm just feeling... old.  The aches and pains I listed in my previous post are a big part of the reason.

But I've pulled myself together enough to sign up for a race this weekend: the Ohio River Paddlefest up at Cincinnati.  I'm hoping that a good showing there will rekindle my enthusiasm.

On Tuesday I did an easy loop of the harbor with Joe.  Today I went down and paddled for 60 minutes, doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals in the middle of it.  I do at least seem to have a decent top gear.

We'll see how it goes this weekend.  I hope some racing will be what the doctor ordered.


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Monday photo feature

Mr. Bruce Poacher found his way into my Go Pro camera's field of vision out on the Columbia River the week before last.  Bruce, who lives in Erwin, Tennessee, handled those downwind conditions just like a guy who grew up in and around the coastal waters of South Africa.  But that's not really a surprise, seeing as how he is a guy who grew up in and around the coastal waters of South Africa.


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Treading water

First, a dispatch from the aches and pains department:

That wrist ailment that I mentioned just before I left for the Pacific Northwest has returned.  I'm not sure it ever truly left: regular doses of ibuprofen eased the pain, but once I laid off the ibuprofen it came back.  I suppose I could just keep on taking ibuprofen, but I don't think that's good for me to do so indefinitely.  So... hmm.

My upper-body muscles are a bit achy, probably from the work I've been doing in my woodworking shop.  The projects I have going now are not as imposing as that big table I finished several weeks ago, but the early stages of any project typically involve handling some big heavy planks as I cut out the rough-sized furniture parts.

Finally, just this morning I woke up with some pain in my left groin area.  I guess I strained it somehow, but have no idea how or when.

I was hoping that an easy few days here at home would have me rarin' to go after my week of intense paddling out in the Columbia Gorge.  But the woes listed above, along with the uncertainty of my upcoming race schedule, have me searching for motivation.  With the big races in Memphis and in the Pacific Northwest now behind me, my season appears in danger of fizzling out like it did last year, when all three events I'd wanted to do in September got called off.

In the meantime, I'm still going down to the river.  Yesterday I had a somewhat intense 90-minute paddle.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I went out on the Mississippi and paddled a strong tempo down to the old bridges and back up along the Arkansas bank to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  Then, as I headed back toward the harbor, I saw an enormous barge rig, driven by two towboats, coming upriver.  I paddled down to check out its stern wake and found waves that were bigger than any of the swells I'd seen out on the Columbia.  I was paddling the V12 surf ski I usually train in--less stable than the V10 Sport I used in the Gorge--and when I started chasing runs I found myself struggling to do the hard sprinting required because of the tricky balance.  It was especially bad in the "zone of uncertainty" when the boat was perched atop a crest.  I was also tired, and I eventually gave it up and headed back into the harbor and returned to the dock with a vague feeling of defeat.

Today I went back downtown, warmed up and did three 8-strokers in the harbor, and then found no barge traffic on the river.  That was probably a good thing, because what I needed was a relaxed paddle with no agenda besides enjoying the nice day.


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Race schedule update

Here's what's left in my season that I'm aware of at this time.  I hope to get up to Cincinnati next weekend.  As for the flatwater nationals, I'm still unsure.  I'm waiting to hear from a registration official about whether I'll be allowed to register.


August
3  Ohio River Paddlefest.  Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio.  A 9-mile race on this Midwest artery.  Register

7-10  U.S. Flatwater Sprint National Championships.  Lake Lanier, Gainesville, Georgia.  A regatta to determine national champions in numerous boat classes and age groups over 200 meters, 500 meters, 1000 meters, and 5000 meters.


September
28  River Rat Paddle Challenge.  Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana.  6.5 miles down a Class I river.  Register


October
5  Big South Fork River Dash.  Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near Whitley City, Kentucky.  A 12-mile mostly-flatwater race.

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Decompression and recalibration

I arrived home in the late afternoon Sunday after about a 12-hour process of getting myself from Hood River to Portland in a car, from Portland to Houston on an airplane, and from Houston to Memphis on another airplane.

Since then I've been slowly returning to normal activities here at home.  The house needed cleaning after the cats had eight days of shedding and scattering litter around with no one to sweep it up; and projects awaited in the workshop.

One happy coincidence has been a system of very pleasant weather that moved into the Mid South late Monday.  Since then the temperatures have been cooler and the humidity lower than usual.  If anybody would like to thank me for bringing this weather back from the Northwest with me, I'll graciously accept it.

On Tuesday I paddled for the first time since my two downwind runs of the previous Friday.  Joe and I did our usual loop of the harbor.  I was a little out of practice paddling here at home: I usually take an apple down there with me so I can eat it in the car on the way home, but on Tuesday I forgot it.

I remembered my apple when I returned to the riverfront yesterday.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I spent the rest of the 60-minute session doing whatever I felt like doing.  That turned out to be paddling up the Mississippi above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, coming back downriver and playing around in the wake behind a barge rig (there wasn't much to surf there), and returning to the harbor.

What's next for me?  That's a good question.  My plan had been to race in "The Paddle Grapple" on Fontana Reservoir in western North Carolina on August 3, and then go down to Lake Lanier in Georgia to race a K2 with Christian Massow in the U.S. flatwater sprint nationals on August 7-10.

But that pretty picture is suddenly very blurry.  Just yesterday I learned that The Paddle Grapple race has been called off because of permitting problems.  And on Tuesday, when I tried to register for the flatwater nationals, I was told that registration was closed even though the event is still two weeks away--it's been a long time since I've entered an event in which governing bodies and their inherent bureaucracies are involved, and I guess I'd forgotten that two weeks' lead time isn't necessarily enough.

So, now I'm pondering my alternatives.  I'm waiting to hear back from a nationals official on whether it's still possible to get myself entered in that event.  Meanwhile, there's another race on August 3 that I actually would like very much to enter, but it's on the Ohio River up at Cincinnati, meaning I would have to a lot more driving than I'd planned to participate in two events in that August 3-10 period.

For now, I guess I won't decide anything until I know whether I can get into the nationals.  If I can't, that'll simplify the process of traveling to Cincinnati.  But I'd also been hoping to incorporate a visit to my niece and nephew over near Charlotte, North Carolina.  What to do, what to do... sigh.


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Monday photo feature

This photo was shot by a drone operated by a Mr. Tom Gomes.  It's moments after the start of the men's surf ski class at the Gorge Downwind Championships last Thursday, and over 200 paddlers are heading up the beautiful Columbia River toward the town of Hood River.  Another few hundred paddlers in other boat classes started separately.  I'm somewhere in the left half of this photo, but beyond that I have no idea which one of those boats is mine.


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Racing on the Columbia River

The Gorge Downwind Championships took place the day before yesterday.  We raced up the Columbia River (because that's the direction the wind blows) from Home Valley Park on the Washington side to the town of Hood River on the Oregon side.  The distance is approximately 14 miles or 22 kilometers.

I completed the race with a time of one hour, 54 minutes, 40 seconds.  Out of the 584 surf skis, outrigger canoes, and stand-up paddleboards entered, I was the 239th fastest.  I was 147th among the 269 solo surf ski racers.  Among the 222 male surf ski racers, I was 133rd.  I was 37th out of 70 men in the 50-59 age group of my boat class.

To see the complete results, follow the link I posted Thursday night.

The Gorge Downwind Championships is different from any other race I do during the year, and I'm not sure I can give the kind of report I typically do for other races.  So maybe the best thing I can do is just start tossing out some observations.

Downwind racing has a whole different skill set from the flatwaterish racing I mostly do.  The idea is to catch a small wave (a "run"), and then use the speed you gain on that run to advance to bigger runs.  When I paddled with Dawid Mocke on Monday, two of the mantras he kept repeating were "Small runs lead to big runs" and "When you get up some speed, take it somewhere."

I've been using my G.P.S. device all this week, and I've observed that when I'm not "on a run," my speed is typically around 6 miles per hour.  Then I'll catch a small run and move up over 7 mph.  As I move on to bigger and bigger runs, my speed increases over 8 and then over 9 mph.  I think I've hit 10 once or twice.  Eventually my run comes to an end when I stall out on the back of a wave--at this point I'm paddling uphill, basically--and my speed dives back down to 6 mph or worse.

Years ago I took a woodworking course from a really good teacher, and he explained that the most skilled woodworkers make their share of mistakes, but their mistakes are smaller, and they recover from them more quickly.  I think you can say something similar about the elite-level downwind racers: they, too, will stall out on their runs, but they do so much less often than the rest of us, and when they do, it doesn't take them much more than a stroke or two to get another run going.  And of course, they're achieving much higher speeds than I am.  Thursday's winner, Kenny Rice of Cape Town, South Africa, took just over 84 minutes to complete the course, so his average speed was around 10 mph.

Steady-paced paddling simply doesn't cut it in downwind racing.  Catching runs and sustaining them requires many bursts of explosive speed.  So downwind racers must have different priorities in their training from those of ordinary marathon racers.  Just as important is concentration, and that often makes the difference between winning and not winning.  I understand that in the late stages on Thursday, Austin Kieffer of San Diego, California, appeared to be in control of the race, but a brief lapse in concentration caused him to lose the run he was on and leave the door wide open for Rice to take the win.

My own race got off to a sluggish start.  The conditions were small in the first several kilometers, and I struggled to find bumps on which I could get runs started.  It seemed like the entire pack of racers was pulling away from me, and every time I glanced down at my G.P.S. device, I was poking along around 6 mph.  At one point I caught a good run and surged past my old racing friend Scott Cummins of Louisville, Kentucky, with whom I've always been evenly matched in our "ordinary" races back East.  But a minute later Scott regained the lead and I flailed around as he began to pull away.  I hit sort of a low point when I failed to catch a steep wave and water completely swamped my footwell and seat bucket.  My speed plummeted below 3 mph.  Self-pity began to set in: I'm just not good at this, I kept thinking.

By and by, as I moved upriver within sight of Viento State Park, the conditions began to build, and I found myself putting together some decent runs at last.  My mood began to brighten.  Just like Dawid had said, my little runs were leading to bigger runs, and soon I was getting ride after ride on beautiful glassy-smooth swells.  Now when I glanced down at the G.P.S., my speed was in the sevens and eights a lot more often than the sixes.  Suddenly I was motivated and I eagerly attacked every opportunity to "take my speed somewhere."

The limitations of my fitness became apparent as I passed Wells Island: my top gear abandoned me.  But I was still able to paddle strong, and as the surf conditions gave way to smaller chop I tried to keep the boat gliding toward the finish line.  In the last several hundred meters I was right next to a guy named Sean Hulscher of West Vancouver, British Columbia, and we had a spirited fight to the finish with him clipping me by one second.

My race was anything but perfect, but it was a lot better than last year's effort, and I'm happy about that.  There are certainly aspects of downwind racing that I haven't even begun to learn yet, such as recognizing where in the river or ocean the fastest runs can be found.  But that's just more stuff to have fun with in the future.

Yesterday I was suitably tired from the big race, but with forecasts predicting the wind to die down this weekend, I knew I should get in a couple of runs from Viento to Hood River while the conditions were there.  So I did.  There's an area of the river on the Washington side known as Swell City because of the big juicy swells that form there.  (I would argue that it's also called Swell City because, well, gee... it's just swell.)  We had to skip most of Swell City on race day because the finish line was positioned over against the Oregon shore, but yesterday I dove right in there, and it was sweet, especially on my first run.  I was dead-dog tired, but the surfing was so, so good.  Achingly good.


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Gorge race results

The results of the 2019 Gorge Downwind Championships are posted here.  You'll have to scroll down a bit to find my name, but don't worry, it's there.  Actually, there's a box in the top left-hand corner of the page where you can type in my name or my bib number (368) and it'll take you right to my result.

As for how the race went, I'll get to that later.  I'm too exhausted to produce a full-blown report right now.


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Fighting fatigue and getting ready to race

When I paddled with Dawid Mocke on Monday he had his Go Pro camera hooked to his life jacket, and a couple of times he pointed it at me.  Here are a couple of brief clips he sent me:




Yesterday I felt absolutely fried from Monday's paddling, but with everything I've got invested in the trip out here, I felt I had to go out and do at least one downwind run.  I went out with the intention of keeping the intensity low, but that's easier said than done in a downwind setting.  I tried to take some rest intervals in between chasing runs, and work on some little things.  I held up okay for a while but spent the last third of the session practically floating along.

Here's a video clip of one of my best moments out there:



I woke up today still feeling rather tired.  Once again I felt the need for a break but also felt the need to be out on the river lapping up as much downwind goodness as possible while I'm out here.  Then the announcement came down from the race organizers that after studying the wind forecast, they have decided that tomorrow will be our race day.  Just like that, my plan for today became simple.  I would do an easy paddle and otherwise rest today in preparation for tomorrow's competition.  Then I'll be able to spend Friday and Saturday surfing until I drop.

I went down to the riverfront in the late morning and paddled there for 40 minutes.  I did four 12-stroke sprints and otherwise paddled easy.  Since then I've been trying to take it easy, eat good, and stay hydrated.  My biggest challenge for tomorrow will be disregarding all the hype and hoopla surrounding this event and all the world-class athletes walking around, and just go out and have a good 14-mile paddle on the river.


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Monday photo feature

Ulli Sherer snapped this photo as I departed Viento State Park with tandem partner Dawid Mocke this afternoon.  That's me in the stern seat with Dawid in the bow.  As we navigated the stretch of the Columbia River from Viento up to Hood River, Dawid gave me a whole boatload of downwind paddling advice that I will spend many moons turning over in my mind.


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Starting off with a bang in the Columbia Gorge

I landed in Portland just before midnight Saturday, and yesterday morning I joined up with Michiganers Marie MacNee, Michael Meredith, and Ulli Sherer for the hour-long drive east to the town of Hood River.  The four of us are sharing a rental house not far from the race site down on the bank of the Columbia River.  Also in our house are Ulli's daughter Brie Sherer; Kristina Meskauskaite of Melbourne, Australia; and Sally Wallick of Kelowna, British Columbia.

It was warm and sunny yesterday afternoon, but this morning we started the week with cool, sort of rainy conditions.  Having watched the weather forecast all last week, I believe that not-so-hot temperatures might be the norm while I'm here.  I'm generally okay with that, having just left triple-digit (Fahrenheit) heat index conditions back in the Mid South.

There's definitely a social aspect to this week's activities, and I'm looking forward to visiting with friends old and new, many of whom I likely won't see again the rest of the year.  But I also want this to be a good week for paddling.  What I don't want is to look back on this week later and think, "I could have gotten in one or two more good downwind runs if I hadn't stayed up past midnight drinking beer," or "I might have raced better if I'd stayed a little more focused," and so on.  So, I'll be balancing the fun stuff with the athletic stuff, and I hope I'll do a good job of getting my rest and resisting some of the FOMO ("fear of missing out") impulses on the social side.

As if reading my mind, the Mocke Paddling Company of Fish Hoek, South Africa, posted the following message on their Face Book page this morning:

Race Happy!  What does it mean to race happy?  When one lines up to compete it's natural to run through all factors that could influence your performance.  Unfortunately, many of these factors are variables beyond your control--i.e. weather conditions, other competitors, official decisions.  It's easy to get our minds bogged down by these.  Then, of course, there is the psychological need to perform well which, when done for the wrong reasons like searching for significance, can actually be a negative driver.
But to Race Happy means to adopt an attitude of gratitude and thankfulness.  You are privileged to be able to line up and compete, you are on the start line and so much went into getting there.  Now show up, give your best, and enjoy it!  Be grateful for it.
RACE HAPPY!

So... that was my attitude as I embarked on this first full day in the Columbia Gorge.  And a busy day it would be.  Job One was to walk down to the riverfront and go through the check-in process for the race.  Job Two was to pick up my rental boat from the Epic Kayaks personnel on duty.  Only then could I go about the business of paddling.  My plan was to do two downwind runs from Viento State Park to Hood River, and I wanted to get the first one in sooner rather than later, because I was signed up for a four o'clock session in a tandem surf ski with--speaking of the Mocke Paddling Company--world-class racer Dawid Mocke.

For the first run I got together with a couple of friends who had flown out from New England: Greg Lesher of South Hamilton, Massachusetts, and Tim Dwyer of Jamestown, Rhode Island.  We rode the shuttle to Viento and were on the water a little after one o'clock.  My boat for this week is a V10 Sport ski, and I believe I have made the right decision to go with a more stable boat than what I use back home, even if it is supposedly a touch slower.  Last year, paddling the V10L I'd brought on top of my car, I was frequently sitting on braces when I should have been paddling.  But today I hardly had to brace at all.  I still have volumes to learn in downwind racing skill--there still seems to be so much going on out there in the waves that I can't really express in writing at this point--but that extra bit of stability liberated me to be aggressive and keep trying to advance from one run to the next.  Greg and Tim are both strong paddlers and I was able to keep them in sight, and sometimes even lead, all the way to the finish.

I was a bit fatigued after this first run but I felt I had enough still in the tank for my session with Dawid.  I walked back up to the house for a quick snack and then got back down to the race site just in time for our four o'clock meeting.

Dawid Mocke is among the top surf ski racers in the world.  There were a few years a decade or so ago when it seemed that he was unbeatable.  Since then a handful of other racers have caught up to him, but he remains an athlete whom nobody counts out.

I'm not going to get too specific about the things Dawid told me today because he offers several online video courses to which each of us can subscribe and study on his or her own (I intend to subscribe myself to solidify my understanding of what we covered today).  But I will say that he provided some articulation of some of the concepts I'd been sensing intuitively, and pointed out many things I hadn't yet thought of as well.

Furthermore, Dawid is--how else can I put it?--a beast.  When he puts the hammer down, he really puts it down.  Paddling in the bow seat, the South African would occasionally spot a run that I, paddling solo, would have no hope of catching, and throw down a savage sprint that made me reach into reserves I didn't know I had to keep up with.  By the time we reached the finish at Hood River I was practically catatonic, and I've spent this evening slowly recovering.

Oh well... with the race possibly happening as early as Thursday, today was the day to blow myself out.  With any luck I'll get a good night's sleep and have a more flexible schedule to pace myself into race day.


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Ready to head for the Northwest

I got a scare in the first half of this week when I started feeling some sharp pain in my right wrist.  I don't know for sure what caused it, but my strongest suspicion is that it happened when I was moving that big heavy table to the front of my workshop so it would be ready for the client to pick up Tuesday morning.  The pickup happened as scheduled, and while the table turned out beautiful, if I may say so, I'm glad to have it out of my life.

The pain was at its worst on Tuesday.  I did an easy paddle in the harbor with Joe, and while the injury didn't directly hamper my paddling, I could nevertheless feel it, and I worried about how it would affect me in the more challenging conditions of the Columbia River Gorge next week.  Not knowing whether the condition was a short-term thing or a long-term one was the greatest cause of anxiety.

Now, two days later, I'm feeling optimistic.  By yesterday morning I could tell that the pain had abated some, and even though it's not gone yet today, I believe it's moving in the right direction.  I've been taking ibuprofen since Tuesday, and I think it's helped.  This morning I did a set of ten 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals, and even at maximum intensity the injury didn't bother me.

Also this week I did rounds of the strength routine Monday and Wednesday.  Now, I intend to take the next three days completely off from training activities--that was the plan even before this injury occurred.  I'm in for a lot of hard paddling all next week on the Columbia River, so I think a planned break now is a good idea.

The thoughtful folks at Outdoors, Inc., knew just what I needed for my trip: a neon-yellow hat that will be highly visible out in the Gorge and, I hope, save my head from being taken off by a kiteboarder or windsurfer:

Company president Joe Royer delivered it himself.  I'll wear it with pride!


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Monday photo feature

Barring some horrible disaster, a week from now I'll be paddling in the Columbia River Gorge on the state line between Oregon and Washington.  Some athletes are already there getting ready for the big race at the end of next week.  Long-time racing friend Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina, posted a video online of one of his downwind runs, and what you see above is a screen shot.  It looks like there's a nice wave forming up off the starboard bow.  Beyond that wave you can see a kiteboarder sailing along--surf ski paddlers aren't the only ones who are drawn to the legendary winds of the Columbia Gorge.


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The surf's not up on the Memphis riverfront

I've been dealing with some pain in the left side of my neck this weekend.  It's a pinched nerve or some such thing, caused by sleeping on it wrong, or maybe by dealing with that massive table I've been working on.  I get something like this several times a year.  It'll run its course.  But until it does, I'm hating it.  It doesn't interfere with paddling, but it makes the rest of my daily existence much less pleasant than it should be.

Yesterday I headed out in Joe's V10 Sport surf ski hoping to find some wake-surfing action out on the Mississippi.  But there was none: the only barge traffic was a rig heading upstream far up the river, out of my reach.  My body was sort of tired from the week's strength work and table-wrestling, so I decided it was just as well that I make it a semi-recovery day.  I made a couple of nice spirited ferries across the river and then returned to the harbor and paddled easy back to the dock.

I felt fresher in the boat this morning and I headed back out to the river, thinking surely I couldn't be unlucky with the barge traffic a third straight time.  But in fact, I could: the river was empty as far as the eye could see.  I paddled all the way down to the big bend south of downtown and saw no powerful commercial vessels of any kind.  Now I had to paddle back up the river to the harbor, so today's paddle turned out to be more of a long-distance slog than I'd intended.  I threw in several hard surges to make sure I wasn't just practicing going slow, but it wasn't as much fun as surfing.  The next wave I surf may well be in the Pacific Northwest.

Speaking of which, on Friday I started doing some packing--gonna be a spendthrift and pay the fees to check two bags.  The yellow and black one is for paddles and whatever paddling clothing/gear I can cram in there, and the green one is for street clothes and stuff:

My flight is scheduled to take off Saturday evening.  So, yes, I started packing eight days in advance. I'm not getting excited about my trip or anything.


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Training continues apace

After the fairly substantial weekend paddling I'd done, I was ready for a recovery paddle when I went down to the riverfront on Tuesday.  I paddled easy for 60 minutes.  The Mississippi River is still very high here (35.5 feet on the Memphis gauge Tuesday), and I was able to paddle in the slack water of the flooded Greenbelt Park.

I went back downtown yesterday and got out Joe's V10 Sport surf ski with the hope of doing a "play" workout on some towboat wakes.  But after warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, I headed out onto the mighty Mississippi and found no barge traffic whatsoever.  Maybe the towboat pilots were all observing the national holiday.  I paddled all the way down to the big bend in the river below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge just to make sure there were no northbound rigs approaching; there were none.

So, a "work" workout it would be.  I headed back upriver along the Arkansas bank and commenced a set of twelve 30-second sprints at three-minute intervals.  This is a workout I've done a lot in recent years; I usually do ten sprints, but yesterday I stretched it out since I've got a downwind race looming that will require a lot of short sprints.  Sometimes this workout feels brutal, and sometimes it feels good; yesterday was one of the better days.  The fatigue was definitely getting to me in the last three or four sprints, but my form held up well.

I did the strength routine Monday, Wednesday, and today.  I'd say my muscular health has been mostly good lately, though my current woodworking project has provided some occasional strain: I'm making a table with some very heavy oak slabs that the client provided.


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Monday photo feature

Adam Davis shot this photo during our trip around the Loosahatchie Bar yesterday.  It looks like I could be waxing eloquent about something, but that can't be the case because I never wax eloquent.

As you can see at the bottom of the photo, Adam's G.P.S. device measured the distance at 10.5 miles. That seems about right to me.  In the past I've measured the trip at 12.6 miles on my own G.P.S. device, but that's starting and finishing about a mile farther north in the harbor than Adam started and finished yesterday.


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A solid weekend of work

The weather this weekend has been warm and muggy, but nowhere near as bad as Memphis summer weather can be.  Thunderstorms in the area have kept the temperature at a tolerable level.

Yesterday I went down to the riverfront with the intention of doing a "work" workout.  The smarter readers among you might infer that I consider "play" workouts more fun than "work" workouts, and they would be correct.  But I feel a need to get in a few "work" workouts just to stay honest... something to do with my Calvinist work ethic.

Anyway, I warmed up by paddling down to the mouth of the harbor, and that's where I had not one, but two, klutzy moments.  I was doing the first of three 8-stroke sprints across the squirrelly water where the harbor meets the Mississippi, and I was even congratulating myself on how well I was keeping the boat moving, when ker-PLUNK!  I flipped to my right.

I did the quickest, snappiest remount I could, hoping to save face in front of whatever pedestrians in Tom Lee Park had witnessed my gaffe.  I opened the drain valve in the footwell so the water would drain out, and paddled the two-minute recovery interval before the next sprint.  As the start time approached I reached down to close the drain valve, and the left blade of my paddle "caught a crab" in the water, and over I went to my left side.  Wow.  I hope this means I'm done flipping for the rest of the year.

With that silliness out of the way, I headed back north in the harbor and commenced my workout.  I did a set of 12 three-minute pieces.  For the first two minutes of each piece I kept the speed above 6.0 miles per hour on my G.P.S. device; then I took it up to around 7.5 mph for the next 40 seconds, and over 8.0 mph for the last 20 seconds.  The toughest mental moments of the workout, especially in the second half, occurred at the end of each sprint, when my body really wanted to stop but I had to keep paddling hard enough to keep the speed over 6 mph.

The last several pieces were tough but overall I held up well.  I hope a workout like this will pay off in my downwind race next month, where I can expect to be doing solid aerobic paddling with a lot of intermittent hard sprinting.

I was up bright and early this morning.  I'd agreed to meet another local racer, Adam Davis, on the riverfront at 8:30 AM.  Most mornings I go paddle between 9:30 and 10:30, and it takes an extra bit of gumption to get myself down there much earlier than that.  But I never regret it when I do, and it was nice to beat the heat of the day today.

We did a loop around the Loosahatchie Bar.  I may or may not have ever posted a map of this route in the past, but here's the one Adam's G.P.S. device generated today:

The Mississippi was flowing at 35.3 feet on the Memphis gauge this morning.  At this level most of the Greenbelt Park is flooded, so we were able to avoid paddling against the stronger current as we passed through points 2 and 3.  There was a barge rig headed upriver, and even though its waves were starting to peter out by the time we were ferrying across the main channel after point 4, we both managed to get a couple of brief rides.  As usual, the hardest stretch was the slog against the brunt of the river's force though point 5.  I was feeling some fatigue as we came back downriver, but we kept up a good, solid pace.

Between yesterday's workout and today's strong distance paddle with a few sprints thrown in, I'd say this has been a weekend I can feel good about.


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Hard at play

I usually paddle with Joe on Tuesdays, but this week Joe wasn't feeling well, so I was on my own.  When I got down to the dock, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to paddle a V10 Sport surf ski of Joe's that he told me I'm welcome to borrow.  This boat is a bit more stable than the ones I usually paddle, and in fact I've rented one to use in the Gorge Downwind race next month.  The boat's hull speed is slower, but I'm hoping that a bit of extra stability will help me produce a net gain in speed in a downwind setting.

When I reached the mouth of the harbor I saw a barge rig heading upriver from below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.  Having paddled pretty hard on Sunday, I'd planned to go a little easier Tuesday; but I decided I had to see how the V10 Sport performed in those waves.  The towboat was producing nice ones and I got three or four really sweet rides.  The boat is definitely not touring-boat stable; its initial stability might even be less solid than what I'm used to.  But I think overall I was in better control on the waves.

I should note that barge wakes aren't really an ideal simulation of downwind conditions.  The wave trains sort of wander back and forth across the river, so that after you've surfed one wave, the next wave might be way off to your right or to your left.  And you can't really work your way forward in the waves like you can in a true downwind setting.  But it is a good chance to work on balance and control while surfing, along with the intense sprinting required to catch a wave.  I definitely got a hard workout on what was supposed to be an easy day.

I started a new strength routine Monday and did another round of it Wednesday.  This new demand on my muscles, combined with the hard paddling of Sunday and Tuesday, resulted in one dead-dog-tired human being here at my house.  By Wednesday evening my energy level was over toward the catatonic end of the spectrum.

I planned to go back to the river yesterday morning, but it was pouring down rain.  Rain alone isn't enough to stop me from paddling, but this storm was accompanied by some pretty spectacular lightning.  So I didn't get in the boat until the afternoon.  I got the recovery session I'd been needing, paddling very easy for 50 minutes.

Today I did another round of the strength routine.  My muscles seemed to be more comfortable with their new job.


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A new strength routine

I've started up a new strength routine to carry me though these several weeks leading up to the Gorge Downwind Championships.  It's my "Smart Bell" workout, which I demonstrate in this video:






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Monday photo feature

On the downtown Memphis riverfront, there's no surer sign of spring and early summer than the purple martins.  Most of the residential property down there was developed by one of our local real estate tycoons, and perhaps the best thing he did was place purple martin houses all up and down the riverfront.  There's one at the marina where I keep my boat.  Joe Royer took this photo outside his home on the South Bluffs.

The birds start showing up around April each year.  I think the males come first to scout out good breeding territory.  Soon the females show up and the mating takes place.  Once the young are able to take flight, they'll be out of here until next season.


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Feeling the heat

Summer has arrived in Memphis and the Mid South.  That amazing weather we had seems something of the more distant past than the week before last.  Now the humidity is up and the overnight temperature barely dips below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  The solstice occurred on Friday and with it came a weekend forecast featuring a triple-digit heat index.

And so, once again I settle in for the duration.  I'll have a break or two along the way, including my trip to the Pacific Northwest next month, but around here I'll be paddling in sweltering heat and taking hose baths on the dock afterward.

When I paddled yesterday I was reminded that the river is often the best place to be on a hot summer day here.  There's almost always some kind of a breeze, and yesterday we had a good one from the south.  I was still feeling the effects of Thursday's workout and I just did a steady paddle for 80 minutes.  The Mississippi has come up in the last several weeks--it was 32.3 feet on the Memphis gauge yesterday--and I was able to paddle up onto Dacus Lake for a few minutes before heading back toward the Tennessee side.

Today we had an even stronger south breeze on the river.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then went out onto the river looking to do some kind of "play" workout.  There was no barge traffic in the area, so surfing was out; but a northbound rig had passed through some 20 minutes earlier, so I had small seas driven by the south wind.  I paddled up to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and did a few fast ferries across the river there.  The river is typically a bit rougher near the bridge because of the Loosahatchie Chute rejoining the main channel just upstream, and at the current high water level the eddy below the center piling is big and boily with some mondo-size whirlpools exploding along the eddy lines.  My main objectives during the ferries were to keep paddling, keep the boat moving, and ride any bumps that I could.  I wouldn't say it was a pure downwind workout, but it was good practice staying relaxed and in control in decidedly un-placid conditions.


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Eagerly looking ahead

I've bought my plane ticket to Portland, Oregon.  The Gorge Downwind Championships are about an hour east of there at the town of Hood River.  The actual race will be July 18, 19, or 20, depending on which day has the best wind forecast.  I'm scheduled to fly out there on the 13th.  That's just three weeks from tomorrow, so the trip is beginning to feel like a real thing.

I'm feeling more or less back to normal in the health department.  I'm still coughing some, but not having coughing fits like I was a few days ago.  I'm also happy to report that the muscle achiness I was dealing with in my arms and shoulders a month or more ago seems to have run its course.

So, I'm feeling optimistic that I can get myself rounded into good form for the world-class event on the Columbia River.  I hope to put myself on a good diet of both "work" workouts (intervals, hard sprints, and so on) and "play" workouts (surfing towboat wakes and impromptu playing around out on the Mississippi) during the next three weeks.

My non-athletic life (also known as my job) has been rather crazy this week, but I was able to stick to my paddling schedule.  I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe on Tuesday.  I went back to the riverfront yesterday planning to do a good "work" workout.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did a set of eight 1-minute pieces with three minutes recovery in between.  My target pace for each sprint was 8.4 miles per hour; that's about the speed required to break two minutes for one of my 450-meter bridge-to-bridge sprints.  So yesterday's workout was sort of a variation on the bridge-to-bridge workouts I've done earlier this season: each sprint was only about half the duration, but I did eight of them rather than four, with a shorter recovery interval.

All told, I'd say the workout went pretty well.  The sprints were definitely taxing, and my speed was falling to 8.2 or even 8.1 in the last several.  But I didn't completely fall apart like I did in those earlier workouts.  My form held up well, and I still had some "fight" in me at the end.  And I recovered quickly during the cool-down paddle.  By the time I was back on the dock I wasn't feeling like I'd ruined myself for the rest of the day.

I did rounds of the strength routine Monday, Wednesday, and today.  I'm thinking I'll start up a new routine next week.


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Improve your skills to improve your racing

After we'd finished the race at Batesville last Saturday, Andy Capel and I spent a few minutes in an eddy catching our breath, and we chatted about how the race had gone.  I remember one observation of Andy's that I thought was interesting: he remarked that whenever we encountered chop or motorboat wakes, I paddled right through it while he had his rhythm interrupted by moments of instability.  "Each time you'd gain a little on me, and I'd have to sprint to catch back up," he said; "Over time, that added up and took a lot out of me."

That kind of insight on Andy's part is exactly why I take him seriously as a competitor.  He recognizes that canoe and kayak racing is full of subtle skills that each racer can practice and improve.  His attitude stands in stark contrast to the one I see way too often in racers who are not getting the results they want: "I need to go get a faster boat."

To me, that's just intellectual laziness.  When I look at the racers who are competing at a higher level than I am, the athletes I see are not just faster and more powerful that I.  They are better paddlers.  There are dozens of little things that they are doing better than I am.  Their boat control over the full range of water conditions is better than mine--sometimes a little better, sometimes a lot better.

To raise my own competitive level, I have to work on all those little things and try to make myself better at them.  I don't know if I'll ever be competing with the world's elite; at 51 years old, I'm thinking that's not likely.  But I can always strive to paddle a little bit better each day than the last, and that's a big reason that I continue to find this sport interesting and fun after all these years.

Based on the few chats I've had with Andy, I sense that he gets it, too.  He's asking the right questions and noticing the right things.  That's why I have a feeling sooner or later he'll be beating me if I don't stay on top of my game... or even if I do.


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Monday photo feature

I snapped this photo moments after the Batesville Canoe and Kayak Race on Saturday.  The man in the red shirt is Dale Burris of Russellville, Arkansas, and he's one of the true pillars of the sport of canoe and kayak racing.

The photo really says it all about the kind of guy Dale is.  The two boys Dale is talking to are members of a scout group he's been coaching for many years, and they have just edged out Dale and his partner for the win in the aluminum canoe class.  But that doesn't stop Dale from going over the race with them and giving them advice on how they could have done better.

Even though Dale is now 64 years old (his birthday was yesterday!), and even though he didn't get the win Saturday, he's an athlete you bet against at your peril.  Few stern paddlers in North American-style marathon canoe racing are as skilled and as tough as Dale.  But don't expect to hear any elaboration on that from Dale himself.  I don't think I've ever heard Dale toot even the meekest of notes on his own horn.


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Racing on the mighty White

I was up before dawn yesterday to make the two-and-a-half-hour drive across the lovely Arkansas Delta to Batesville, Arkansas.  Located about where the White River makes the transition from the Ozark foothills to the Arkansas Delta, Batesville calls itself the "Gateway to the Ozarks."

I drove to where the race would start, just below a dam some eight miles up the White from Batesville.  A small but eager group of racers had congregated, and after a brief meeting with director George Latus we put our boats in the water for the 9:30 AM start.

Andy Capel of Maumelle, Arkansas, sprinted into the lead off the starting line.  This was my third time racing Andy this year, and he has started very fast all three times.  This time I couldn't even hold on to his stern wake for the first couple of minutes, and I just had to let him go and hope he would back off the torrid pace soon.  Eventually he did, and it took several hard sprints for me to move from several boatlengths back to a position on his left-side wake.

That's where I sat for a good long while, recovering from my sprints and sizing up the situation.  This section of the White River meanders quite a bit and finding the fastest current was not always a simple matter.  For once I had my G.P.S. device on board, and our speed seemed to average around 8.5 miles per hour.  At one point we wandered too close to the inside of a bend and the shallow water dragged us down below 7.0 mph; at another moment we cruised through a constricted chute at over 12.0 mph.

Andy was hanging tough.  As the race wore on I took the lead and pushed the pace at times but couldn't open a gap.  A "safety" guy in a speed boat was following along, and a couple of times we both managed to ride his wake a little, but I didn't want something like that to determine the outcome of the race.

About two miles above Batesville the river makes a big bend to the left.  Andy and I had gotten separated a bit so that neither was on the other's wake, and I decided it was time to commit to a move.  I threw in a big surge and opened a bit of a gap, but not an obvious one.  I knew it was too early to blow out everything I had, and I tried to apply consistent hard pressure and build my lead inch by inch.

The U.S. 167 bridge, where the finish line awaited, came into view with a good mile still to go.  I continued to paddle the hardest pace I thought I could sustain for such a distance.  I knew that failing to pull away would mean losing the race because I'd be a sitting duck for Andy to sprint by me in the last 50 meters.  I wasn't seeing much with glances over my shoulder, but it felt like my gap was getting bigger.  Each stroke seemed harder than the last, and I wondered if I was putting my tenuous recovery from the recent health woes in jeopardy.  The dreaded sight of Andy's bow to my left or right never materialized, and with a couple dozen meters left I knew I had it.  I passed beneath the bridge with a time of 58 minutes, 19 seconds.  My G.P.S. device had measured the course at about 8.3 miles.

Andy crossed the finish line less than half a minute later.  The man is getting harder and harder to beat every time I race him.  We congratulated each other on a hard-fought contest and spent the next couple of minutes just gasping for breath.  Eventually I found the energy to paddle back up above the bridge and cheer on folks like Mike Vaughn, Dale Burris, Becky Burris, Doug Pennington, and Phil Capel as they finished their races.

Here are the results:

We made our way up the bank to a pavilion in Kennedy Park, where we enjoyed a hot dog lunch and received wooden trophies made by the shop class at the local high school.  I got a ride up to the start to retrieve my car, loaded up my boat, and headed back to Memphis, arriving home in the mid-afternoon.

I woke up this morning with some slight soreness in my shoulders, but otherwise feeling remarkably fresh.  I went downtown and paddled for 60 minutes.  There was a pretty good south breeze blowing and I found myself bobbing among a bunch of half-foot waves out on the Mississippi.  The idyllic weather of last week is gone and we've got warm moist days ahead.


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Proceeding with caution

By the beginning of this week I was feeling energetic enough to resume most normal activities.  On Monday I did a round of the new strength routine, on Tuesday I paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe, and I did another round of strength work Wednesday.

Yesterday I returned to the river and revved the engines for the first time since the Outdoors race back on June 1: in the middle of a 60-minute paddle I did a set of eight 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  I felt reasonably okay after it was over.

And yet, I had a nagging feeling that I was not completely well.  Most notably, my bad coughing fits continued.  The whole scenario was reminiscent of an awful experience I had back in June of 2001.  I'd just gotten out to Colorado and done a downriver race on the Animas River at Durango.  Then I came down with a bad cold or flu that forced me to take it easy for several days.  Then I started feeling better, and being on vacation, I told myself that times were a-wastin' and I launched back into all the paddling and racing activities.  After maybe a week or so of this behavior, I relapsed with a vengeance, coming down with a wicked fever and a severe sore throat.  At that time I'd been paddling on the Crystal River and I found a doctor's office in Carbondale that would see me.  It turned out I had either bronchitis or strep throat--I'm not entirely sure which--and I was prescribed a course of antibiotics.  A kind racing friend who was traveling for a few days let me crash at his apartment in Snowmass Village, and there I lay until I was ready to rejoin the living.

Not wanting a repeat of that miserable episode, I decided to go to the minor medical clinic yesterday afternoon.  The nurse practitioner who checked me out thought some bronchial infection was plausible and prescribed me an antibiotic, along with a couple of medications to remedy my coughing.

Today I'm feeling no worse, if not a little better.  I'm at least feeling more upbeat for having been proactive and sought some help.  I went back to the river today and did another 60-minute paddle, this time doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.  Once again I felt fine when it was over. I think I will go ahead and attend the race at Batesville, Arkansas, tomorrow.

One bright side of this week is the glorious weather we have had.  It's been mostly sunny and delightfully cool with a nice dry breeze--I doubt any other place on the planet has had nicer weather than the Mid South this week.  I've been trying to savor every minute of it because, of course, all good things must come to an end: our customary oppressive heat and humidity is expected to move back in starting tomorrow.  There are worse places I could be than on the clear, cold water of the White River.

I mentioned before that I'd planned to spend the first half of June keeping the training moderate while racing on three consecutive weekends, and then build from that foundation into a substantial training block, culminating in the big Gorge Downwind event in the Pacific Northwest next month.  My illness forced me to keep things even more moderate than I'd planned, not to mention miss a race.  But as long as I can persuade my body to keep getting better, there's still plenty of time to get some good work done.

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A new strength routine

My health woes have kept me from diving into this routine as vigorously as I would have liked, but I've been doing at least a light version of this routine for the last ten days or so:

1.  Lateral abdominals (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 3:52 of his video on this page)

2.  Front and lat raises with dumbbells

3.  Core exercise: kneeling on a stability ball

4.  Bicep curls with dumbbells


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Monday photo feature

I'm not somebody who posts "memes" on social media, but this one spoke to me.  I fail to understand why some people think it is okay to leave their trash on the ground.  The litter in this photo appears to be right at the water's edge, but I consider it just as bad to litter in the middle of town, because eventually that waste makes it into our waterways as well.


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Groping for better health

By Friday evening it seemed that I might be through the worst of my illness, but yesterday I woke up feeling as grim as ever.  Nevertheless, having spent a couple of days lying around the house, I was determined to have something akin to a normal Saturday morning.  So I went to the farmers' market and then headed down to the river.  On the dock I tried to relax and do a full stretch routine.  My whole body felt achy and tight.  I got in the boat and spent a half-hour paddling to the mouth of the harbor and back.  It wasn't much, but at least I could go back home and collapse in bed feeling like I'd accomplished something.

This morning I felt more energetic.  I went back to the river and paddled for 50 minutes, and even though I had to stop for a coughing fit several times, I generally felt good in the boat.  I came home and took a nap, and then spent the afternoon doing some light chores in the workshop.  I'm definitely not at a hundred percent, but maybe the end of this ordeal is in sight.


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Illin'

Well, my plan to race up in Kentucky this weekend has been scuttled.  I've gone and gotten sick.  It started as sort of a chest cold early in the week and by Wednesday evening it had advanced into flu territory.  I don't have a thermometer to take my temperature but I have felt feverish at times, and my energy has gone missing entirely.  Yesterday I didn't feel like doing much besides lying in bed, though I did have to go over to my rental property and babysit some contractors there for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  I'd reserved a motel room for tonight up in Taylorsville, Kentucky, but I went ahead and canceled it yesterday morning.  I'd held off on registering for the race itself because of those symptoms early in the week.

I guess this isn't the worst time for something like this to happen.  But it would have been fun to go race and see some friends this weekend.  With any luck I'll be mended in time for the race at Batesville, Arkansas, next weekend.

My general plan for this first half of June is to keep the training volume moderate with these races going on.  After the Batesville race I plan to build into a good solid training block for the Gorge Downwind race next month.

This week I started doing a light version of a new strength routine that I'll elaborate on later.  Other than that, I've been in the boat twice this week--Sunday and Tuesday.  I did generic steady paddles both days.


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Race schedule update

Now that racing has resumed, it's time to take a look at what's coming up.  There's a race each of the next two weekends, and I would like to attend them both.  I've heard good things about the event in Kentucky.  And having won the race over in Arkansas last year, I've got the "traveling trophy" and I guess I'm obligated to take it back.


June
8  Taylorsville Lake Paddle Battle.  Taylorsville Reservoir, Taylorsville, Kentucky.  A 10-mile flatwater race.  Register

15  Batesville Canoe and Kayak Race.  White River, Batesville, Arkansas.  An 8-mile race down a Class I river, starting at Lock 2 near Locust Grove and finishing at the U.S. 167 bridge at Batesville.  No online registration; on-site registration from 8-9 AM on race day.  Race starts at 9:30 AM.


July
6  The Lovely Laurel River Lake Paddle Blast.  Laurel River Lake, Corbin, Kentucky.  A 10-mile flatwater race.  Register

18-20  Gorge Downwind Championships.  Columbia River, Hood River, Oregon.  A 14-mile race in the legendary downwind conditions of the Columbia River Gorge.


August
3  The Paddle Grapple.  Fontana Reservoir near Bryson City, North Carolina.  A 6-mile flatwater race.  Register

3  Ohio River Paddlefest.  Ohio River, Cincinnati, Ohio.  A 9-mile race on this Midwest artery.  Register

7-10  U.S. Flatwater Sprint National Championships.  Lake Lanier, Gainesville, Georgia.  A regatta to determine national champions in numerous boat classes and age groups over 200 meters, 500 meters, 1000 meters, and 5000 meters.  Registration information


September
28  River Rat Paddle Challenge.  Ouachita River, West Monroe, Louisiana.  6.5 miles down a Class I river.


October
5  Big South Fork River Dash.  Big South Fork of the Cumberland River near Whitley City, Kentucky.  A 12-mile mostly-flatwater race.

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