The snow accumulation we had this past week was the second-largest the city of Memphis has had in my lifetime. But I've seen quite a few "lesser" snows. Joe Royer shot this photo of me on a snowy day in 2003.
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That Wednesday evening snowstorm added a fairly substantial amount of snow to the already above-average accumulation we had here in Memphis. Here's a pair of photos of my back stairs before Wednesday's snow and after:
This street in my neighborhood could be a street someplace like Buffalo or the Twin Cities:
As weary of all this as I was, I still had to go out and get some exercise. I also had to go check on a rental property I own where there had been problems with the central heat and some frozen pipes. The rental property is on the far side of Overton Park just west of my house, so Thursday morning I hit the Old Forest Trail through the park. I have to say that it was absolutely beautiful. I tried to put aside all my worries about missed paddling and frozen pipes and malfunctioning heating systems, and just savor this experience that I have so rarely had as a resident of a southern-ish latitude.
Yesterday the temperature rose above the freezing point for the first time in ten days, reaching 40 degrees Fahrenheit by the late afternoon. It was still only 25 degrees in the morning, so I stayed in and did a gym session. I also exchanged several e-mails with Maks, who sent me a training plan for the coming week, and that helped get me excited about being back in the boat. I have yet to speak to Maks in person, but in his e-mail correspondence he's always very upbeat and encouraging, and I appreciate that. I expect it's a real boost for his Slovenian athletes, too.
After the thawing that took place yesterday, and with the temperature expected to rise into the 50s today, it was time to get back in the boat at last. I had a feeling the harbor would still be frozen up, so I loaded up one of the surfskis in my garage with the intention of putting directly onto the Mississippi River up at the north end of Mud Island. It turned out that was the right call, because the harbor looked like this:
Those rocks that I'd thrown onto the ice on Wednesday, whose picture I included in my last post? They hadn't melted through the ice yet:
On up to the north end of Mud Island I went, to the parking lot that serves as the staging area for the annual Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race. The lot was still completely covered in snow:
As I drove down the entrance ramp to the lot, I wondered whether I would be able to get back up it. But that was a worry for later, because I was ready to paddle! I carried my boat down the ramp, got situated, and paddled up to the mouth of the Wolf River. I continued up the Wolf to get in a good 10-minute warmup. There were some ice floes on the Wolf and by the time I was 1000 meters up they were beginning to choke off the open water, so I turned around and commenced my workout, doing most of it out on the Mississippi. I did eight 5-minute pieces with 1 minute recovery; the first two and last two pieces were to be done at 60 strokes per minute, while the middle four were to be done at 64 spm. There was a pretty good south wind blowing and the river was choppy, but I was pleased with my ability to maintain the stroke rate in spite of that distraction. As always, I tried to make every stroke a solid one, and worked on the technical aspects that Maks and I have discussed. Pretty soon I need to get somebody to shoot some new video of me so we can evaluate my stroke again.
Once the workout was done I cooled down for ten minutes plus, and returned to the boat ramp. The sun was shining bright, and what might normally have been an annoying breeze felt pretty good after the long stretch of sub-freezing days we'd had. I savored the weather as I changed into dry clothes in the back of my truck.
I started the engine and prepared to face the moment of truth about getting back up that ramp. But lo! Look who showed up!!!!
Anybody need my company in Vegas?
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It's now been a week since the temperature was last above the freezing point here at Memphis. For the last several days the daytime Fahrenheit temperature was in the teens, and it dropped to 1 degree Fahrenheit yesterday morning. Today the high was around 23 or 24 degrees, and I never thought I'd regard such temperatures as a relief of a sort.
During this frigid stretch we have had an ice storm and two snow storms. The second snow storm is falling as I write this. All told, we'll probably end up with a little over a foot of snow. For this part of the country, that's a lot.
Before the heaviest snow started today, I decided that the streets were clear enough to risk a trip out to replenish a few grocery items. There's a grocery store next to the marina where I keep my boat, so I decided to go there and see what kind of shape the riverfront was in.
Not surprisingly, the harbor is frozen up. Here's how it looked this morning:
My boat is the white surfski above two green rec boats at the left side of the photo.
I discovered that the ice is quite thick--probably thick enough to walk on, though I didn't try it myself. I picked up a couple of decent-size rocks and threw them out on the ice. I lobbed them up so they would come down with some force. The ice didn't give at all. I might as well have been throwing them on a concrete slab.
As far as training goes, I'm obviously limited. I'm still doing some "vigorous" hiking out in the snow, and I've also done a couple of extra gym sessions. How soon I'll be able to paddle again remains to be seen. According to the current forecast, the temperature will finally rise back above freezing this Saturday, and get up into the mid to high 50s by the middle of next week. It might take several days for the harbor to thaw, but maybe I can take one of the boats from my garage and put directly on the Mississippi in the interim.
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I mentioned in my last post that I'm engaging in some vigorous hiking while the weather has made paddling all but impossible. It's a chance to reacquaint myself with the city park just west of my house, and that's not such a bad thing. The park contains a small tract of old-growth forest, and I walked through there this morning as the snow fell heavily.
I haven't been down to the riverfront since Friday, but I don't see how there couldn't be some ice forming in the harbor. It's been below 20 degrees Fahrenheit for several days now, and the current forecast says it'll drop to zero overnight tonight. With the temperature predicted to stay below freezing until Saturday, I doubt I'll be paddling anytime soon. It's frustrating, but I have to remind myself that training interruptions like this are temporary and will be forgotten a couple of weeks later. For now, I need to appreciate the lovely scenes like the one above.
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According to the current forecast, the temperature will stay below freezing until next Friday. The harshest stretch appears to be from now through Tuesday: there's been light but steady snowfall all day today, and more significant snow is supposed to move in tonight and tomorrow. The temperature is supposed to drop to 3 degrees Fahrenheit in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We're not expected to rise back above freezing until Saturday. It has become obvious that my ability to paddle will be severely limited for a while. This winter storm is big enough that the national news outlets are talking about it, so I suppose that makes me feel a little better about putting the training on hold.
It was a balmy 28 degrees when I went down to the river Friday morning. Thinking I could avoid the hassle of a frozen rudder, I took one of the surfskis that live in my garage down there with me. But I discovered a major flaw in that idea: the steep ramp down to the marina was coated in ice. It was tricky business just walking down it with my bag and paddle; trying to carry a boat down it would likely result in a broken boat, with a broken bone or two to boot. I decided to try my luck with the boat I keep down on the dock. It greeted me thusly:
I managed to get the ropes untied without too much trouble. The boat was frozen to its pads on the rack, and I gingerly wrenched it free, with only thin bits of minicell coming off with the boat. As expected, the rudder was frozen. I positioned it as close to center as I could so that I'd at least have a skeg.
Off I went toward the south end of the harbor, and the boat tracked a straight line quite well. When I turned around and paddled into the north wind, I had a bit more trouble. At times I had to do sweeps on one side to keep the boat steered the way I wanted.
I began the workout that Maks had assigned for Saturday morning: three sets of two 5-minute pieces with 1 minute recovery. I did the first set at 56 strokes per minute, the second at 60 spm, and the third at 64 spm. The first set was lower-quality than it should have been because of the frozen rudder, but the rudder came free right at the end of the second 5-minute piece, so I was able to do the rest of the workout with no such hindrances. I actually felt pretty good in the boat, especially after I'd reached the harbor's north end and was headed back south with a tailwind. The only unpleasant things left to do were back at the dock--changing out of my wet clothes and getting the boat put away before my hands were completely numb.
After this session I sent an e-mail to Maks letting him know of the situation here. Yesterday morning I received a reply in which he told me to skip paddling for a couple of days and do some light aerobic activity instead. Yesterday I took a vigorous hike of a maybe 4 or 5 thousand meters around my part of town, including the big city park that I hadn't visited in months even though it sits a short distance west of my house.
Today I did a gym session and otherwise tried to be ready for hunkering down once the blizzard arrives. I hope to get in some snowy hikes over the next several days.
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I was up bright and early Tuesday morning. On most days I start the morning with some non-athletic work and then get to the river between 9 and 10 o'clock, but on Tuesday a contractor was scheduled to meet me at my house between 10 o'clock and noon, so I went downtown early and was in the boat just before eight. It was overcast and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. I was slightly underdressed because in my haste to leave the house I'd forgotten to bring a shell to pull on over my one shirt, so I had all the more reason to get the prescribed workout done without any dilly-dallying around.
The workout was three sets of (4 minutes at 56 strokes per minute, 2 minutes at 76 spm, 3 minutes at 64 spm, and 1 minute at 80 spm). The recovery was 1 minute after each piece and 2 minutes between sets. While not unlike other workouts I've done in the last several weeks, this one was shorter because this entire week is intended to be lighter than the first few that Maks drew up. Per Maks's instructions, I worked to apply power and generate glide during the lower-stroke-rate pieces, and carry that power into the higher-stroke-rate ones while staying smooth.
Yesterday I paddled on another dreary day with the temperature in the high 30s. The workout was three sets of four 3-minute pieces at 66 spm. The recovery was 1 minute between pieces and 2 minutes between sets. I did the second set with resistance on the boat, and the first and third with out resistance. It was another of the many workouts I'm doing these days intended to build stroke power.
Up to this point, we'd mostly been having a mild winter in Memphis and the Mid South. There had been plenty of gloomy cold days, sure, but we hadn't yet had a day with a sub-freezing high temperature or any significant frozen precipitation. That changed in the early hours of this morning. Freezing rain fell and by dawn the city was covered in a layer of ice. It was not the worst ice storm we've ever had; there were power outages and trees down here and there, but nothing like what happened here in February of 1994. I opted to stay close to home, just the same. Streets were rife with hazards this morning and the bridge over to Mud Island, where my boat is stored, was closed. Instead of paddling today I did the gym session that I normally do on Friday.
Getting in the boat will likely be a challenge for the next few days. Unfortunately I don't have a kayak erg, and I don't know of anybody in my area who has one. According to the current forecast, the daily high temperatures look like this: 31 degrees tomorrow, 27 Saturday, 17 Sunday, 15 Monday, and 24 Tuesday. The ropes that secure my boat to its rack down at the dock are surely frozen solid right now, so my best move is probably to use one of my other surfskis that live in my garage here at home. And then there's the stress of simply trying to paddle in sub-freezing weather. Getting in just two of my four not-yet-done paddling sessions for this week might be an impressive feat.
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At this time last year I was enjoying the South African summer, and the cold weather we're having in the Mid South right now is evoking wistful memories of that trip.
I was on the Cape Peninsula south of Cape Town. The mid-summer weather there wasn't blazing hot--I'd say the daily Fahrenheit highs were in the low to mid 80s while I was there. But it was quite humid, and I guess that's no great surprise in a coastal region like that.
One afternoon I took a hike up to Elsie's Peak on the southern edge of the town of Fish Hoek. Pictured above is my sweat-soaked tee shirt just after I'd returned from that trek.
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I talked with Maks about my failure to hurt as badly as he wanted me to in Thursday's workout. He said we would have adjust the base stroke rate upward in workouts like that to get me into the anaerobic zone. So... I asked for stiffer punishment, and it sounds like Maks is happy to deliver. But I guess that's okay--I like to paddle hard. Even more than that, I like to find ways to make my boat go faster.
In other news, I got an e-mail from federal court informing me that "All federal trial jury activity has been suspended until further notice by order of the Court." There was no further explanation--maybe COVID-19 is the reason, maybe it's something else--but the upshot is that they will not be needing my services as a juror this month. So that adventure came to an end before it had even started.
I started Friday with a gym session, and then headed downtown. A front had moved through the Mid South behind those showers on Thursday, and after an overnight freeze it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit when I got to the river Friday morning. But the sun was out and there was very little wind, making it a more pleasant day overall for paddling than Thursday had been. The harbor was as smooth as glass, and that was ideal for a workout that put a premium on glide.
I put a few barbell plates amounting to approximately 5 kilograms in the boat, and commenced paddling. After a warmup, I did eight 6-minute pieces at 60 strokes per minute with 2 minutes recovery. Low-stroke-rate workouts like this are designed to build strength and power, I was feeling it plenty as I proceeded through it on top of my gym session. I tried to get as much glide as I could from each stroke; the extra weight in the boat seems to enhance the glide.
Yesterday morning I did an easy 40-minute paddle under an overcast sky with a temperature in the mid 40s. The Saturday morning paddle is usually a warmup for the afternoon session, and I try to use it for work on my stroke. This time I kept my rate around 64-68 spm.
By yesterday afternoon it had warmed up into the mid 50s. While the sky had some patches of blue, it was still mostly cloudy. It was time for some sprinting. The workout was eight sets, and each set was as follows: 200 meters at 80 spm with resistance on the boat; 2 minutes recovery; a 6-second flying-start sprint without the resistance; 2 minutes recovery. I felt sort of sloppy in the first two sets but smoothed out after that. Maks said I should apply maximum power to each stroke in the 200s while being mindful of good technique, and that the 6-second sprints were a way to "wake up" the body and nervous system as this challenging week nears its end.
The temperature took a dive overnight. When I got to the river this morning it was 33 degrees, and a north wind made it feel about ten degrees colder. Sunday is when I usually do longer endurance sessions, and that was the case again today. I did four sets of (6 minutes at 60 spm/1 minute recovery/4 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute recovery/3 minutes at 68 spm/2 minutes recovery/2 minutes at 72 spm/2 minutes recovery). I tried to put consistent power into each stroke regardless of the rate. I feel like I'm getting more and more used to the subtle differences among cadences. I was starting to feel some fatigue in the last set but overall I held up pretty well.
By the time I got back to the car it had warmed up all the way to 34 degrees. The forecast for the coming week looks sort of grim, with sub-freezing daily highs toward the end of the week. February is often our worst winter month, and it looks like that'll be the case again this year.
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It stayed windy and cold all the way through Tuesday. When I got to the river Tuesday morning it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit with a biting north breeze. I paddled toward the north end of the harbor where I would have the most wind protection.
The workout was three 5-minute pieces at 60 strokes per minute (1 minute recovery), three 3-minute pieces at 72 spm (2 minutes recovery), and three 2-minute pieces at 86 spm (3 minutes recovery). Maks urged me to "stay calm and smooth when going to higher stroke rates." The 2-minute pieces were tough: they felt a lot like a set of my bridge-to-bridge sprints. While I felt like I could do the lower-stroke-rate pieces indefinitely, I was glad to have that last 2-minute piece behind me.
Tuesday's session was my first with my new Vaaka Cadence Sensor. It was nice not to have to occupy part of my brain with counting strokes. Even so, I tried to memorize each cadence and rely on the sensor's readout as little as possible.
Yesterday we finally had a bright sunny day with not so much wind. The temperature was on its way to a high in the 50s, though it was still in the 30s when I arrived at the river in the morning. I warmed up and did a set of five 10-minute pieces with 2 minutes recovery. The prescribed stroke rate varied subtly among the pieces: 60 spm, then 64, then 68, then 64, then 60. The workout was uncomplicated enough that I decided to do some of it out on the Mississippi and add some squirrelly water into the mix.
This morning the wind had returned. It was from the south this time, so from the dock I headed for the south end of the harbor so I could do most of the workout coming back north with the wind at my back. After a 10-minute warmup, I began. The workout was three sets of (4 minutes at 76 spm/1 minute rest/3 minutes at 76 spm/1 minute rest/1 minute at 80 spm). I did the first 4-minute piece against the wind, then did the rest with a tailwind. Each new set started 16 minutes after the previous one had started.
Maks promised this would be "A properly hard workout... Anaerobic session, exhaustion will set in." Was he right? Well... it certainly wasn't easy, and I was plenty tired by the end, but it never felt anaerobic to me. I pulled on each stroke with as much power as I could, but the stroke rates were quite a bit lower than what usually makes me go lactic. Maybe I wasn't doing it right, but I don't know how I could have made it harder... I'll just have to see what Maks has to say about it. It's the wee hours of Friday morning in Slovenia as I write this, so it'll be tomorrow next time we chat by e-mail.
It was overcast while I paddled, but not freezing cold--today's high was in the mid 50s. Rain was in the forecast, but it didn't start falling until I was in the car heading home, and that's always a nice feeling.
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I started Friday morning with a gym session, then headed down to the river under a sunny sky and a Fahrenheit temperature in the high 30s. The workout was two sets of eight 10-second sprints with 50 seconds recovery. Maks described it as a "sprint endurance" workout in which the power and stroke rate should be consistent throughout. He told me to take flying starts, and "don't go overboard" with the stroke rate because "power is dominant during sprinting." So I aimed for 90 strokes per minute (15 strokes per 10-second sprint). At first I was tending more toward 96 to 100 spm, but by the second set I had settled in and was hitting 90 every time. I put all the power I possibly could into each stroke while keeping the boat running smoothly. The workout went by in the blink of an eye, it seemed--it was over just a half-hour after I'd left the dock. I spent the rest of my hour in the boat working on my stroke, trying to make the improvements I talked about in my last post. It was during this period that I started to feel the muscle fatigue from the workout.
I got some good news Friday evening: the United States Court for the Western District of Tennessee will not need my services as a juror any sooner than February 15. So I have two more weeks in which my schedule depends on nobody but me.
Yesterday morning I paddled for 50 minutes, during which I did eight 4-minute pieces with one minute recovery. Maks said these pieces should be "calm, technical" efforts in the "A1" stroke-rate range (60-75 spm). So I tried to stay relaxed while focusing on the forward stroke components I'm trying to improve and taking solid strokes that generated smooth glide. Whenever I checked my stroke rate it was in the mid 60s, but I didn't think too hard about what my rate was as long as it was in "A1" territory.
The weather forecasters had predicted yesterday would be a rainy day, but in the morning I didn't see anything more than a light sprinkle. The real precipitation arrived a little after 2 o'clock, and I did most of my afternoon session in a light but steady rain. I did three sets of six 1-minute pieces at 80 spm, with 1 minute recovery. The first and third sets were done with resistance on the boat, the second without. Maks urged me to apply the same amount of power throughout the workout, regardless of the presence or absence of resistance. He said I should feel like I'm flying in the second set, and he was right. The hardest part of the workout was the third set, with the resistance back on.
I was thoroughly worn out after yesterday's work, and still felt some weariness this morning. It took a little extra gumption to get moving, and the weather wasn't helping: though the rain had moved out and the temperature wasn't that cold (50 degrees), a swirling northwest wind was making a blustery mess of things and out on the water it had the feel of a more oppressive winter day.
Today's workout was a 75-minute distance paddle for which the only instruction was "be efficient." Since starting this new training regime I've been staying mostly in the harbor because many of the workouts are so technical that I don't need the distraction of the swirly currents out on the Mississippi. Today I was hoping to do this relaxed endurance session on the river, but after five minutes fully exposed to the howling wind out there I retreated to the more sheltered environs. I tried to focus on my stroke, keeping my top hand near my head and searching for the water pressure against my blade.
As soon as my 75 minutes expired I was out of the boat and making a beeline for my dry clothes on the dock. Chilled to the core, I felt grateful to be off until Tuesday. Maks tells me the coming week will be "the hardest one yet" but promises an easier week after that.
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I began my second week of Maks Frančeškin-directed training with three sets of (6 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/1 minute rest/4 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute rest/3 minutes at 68 spm/1 minute rest/2 minutes at 72 spm/3 minutes rest). Once again I wasn't particularly winded, but by the last set I was really feeling it in my arms, shoulders, and legs. When I reported this information to Maks, he replied, "I am happy to hear that the workout had the 'empty' arms effect on you. Those kinds of workouts really result in big power gains." Sounds good to me!
Before doing the workout I got Joe to shoot some video of me from the dock so that Maks could take another look at my stroke. Maks said I was doing a better job of keeping my top hand closer to my head but was still not anchoring the blade thoroughly before commencing each stroke. I'd noticed that myself while watching the video, and it irked me because I'd long thought I was doing a decent job of planting the blade. I asked Maks if there was any particular feedback I should look for that would tell me how well I'm doing it. He didn't quite have the magic pill I was hoping for, but he reminded me that "Honestly, the best/easiest way to know when you are anchoring is to feel the pressure. The better you are anchored/catching, the harder it will feel on your arms." And so, the search continues for forward-stroke perfection. Oh well... every paddler's stroke, just like every human being, will always be a work in progress.
The first couple of days of this week featured pleasantly mild weather, but that changed yesterday morning. When I got to the river it was 39 degrees Fahrenheit--not deathly cold, really, but not much fun to go paddling in under an overcast sky with a 10-mile-per-hour north wind blowing and a mixture of rain and sleet falling. Letting a forced smile be my umbrella, I performed the day's workout: four sets of (5 minutes at 62 spm, 3 minutes at 66 spm, 2 minutes at 70 spm). Maks didn't specify a recovery interval, so I backed off on the intensity a bit and did the four sets straight through. I strove to take solid strokes and make the boat glide, for that had been Maks's main instruction for this workout: "glide, glide, glide."
This morning it was colder--36 degrees when I got to the river. But it wasn't raining, and the clouds were giving way to some sunshine. It was time for a "resistance" session, so I took my little whiffle-ball-equipped bungee cord down to the dock with me and put it on the boat. The workout was three sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4 minutes recovery. The pieces were to be done at 76-78 spm. Maks said to take a longer rest between sets, so I made that 5 minutes. The resistance on the boat forced me to apply greater power to each stroke, and that taxed my muscles; meanwhile, the somewhat higher stroke rate got me breathing harder, too. Per Maks's instructions, I tried to keep my technique the same as it would have been without resistance.
Halfway through my second week under Maks's tutelage, there's plenty of hard work going on. The good news is that I believe my body is starting to get used to the lower stroke rates and the subtle differences among them, and it's nice to see my patience paying off that way. The fact is, I've actually been doing this sort of training almost a month now, as the workouts we did at camp down in Florida were heavily Maks-influenced if not written by Maks himself.
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My new coach, Maks Frančeškin, lives in the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana, but he spends a lot of time northwest of there in the Alpine valley of Planica running various training camps. The area is best known for its Olympic nordic center and its famous ski-flying hill, but I assume there must be a river in there somewhere and that's where Maks's athletes train. ***UPDATE January 27: Maks tells me they're not paddling there, but engaging in intense cross-training: "12-14 workouts of xc skiing, gym and swimming each week."
Maks sent me the photo above to show me how cold it is in his current location. It makes me feel fortunate to be paddling in temperatures around 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That sure is pretty country, however... could there be a trip to Slovenia in my future?
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When I got up yesterday morning it was freezing, quite literally--the temperature was about 30 degrees Fahrenheit. But there was no time to worry over the weather, because I had two in-the-boat sessions on the schedule.
The morning session was essentially a warmup for the afternoon one: 40 minutes paddling at what Maks calls the "A1 zone"--60-75 strokes per minute. I've ordered a Vaaka Cadence Sensor, but until it arrives I'm trying to get better counting strokes and familiarize myself with the various rates. Yesterday morning I paddled for 10 minutes at 60 spm (easy to do because it's one stroke per second), 10 minutes at 68-70 spm, 10 minutes at 64-66 spm, and 10 minutes at 72-75 spm. I also continued working on the stroke modifications that Maks recommended. I stayed in the northern half of the harbor where the wooded banks offered a bit more protection from the biting north wind.
By the afternoon it had warmed up into the low 50s, and the wind had abated. The prescribed workout was eight pairs of 250-meter pieces with two minutes recovery, the first piece of each pair being done at 84 spm and the second one at 40 spm.
I was expecting it to be an exhausting affair--it's easy to jump to that conclusion when I see sixteen 250s on paper--but once it was underway, I found I was rarely breathing hard. Instead, it was the concentration required as I tried to get the stroke rate right and take good strokes that made the workout tiring. I was putting maximum power into each stroke during the 40 spm pieces, and that stressed my muscles pretty thoroughly.
I don't paddle in the afternoon very often, but as I left the river yesterday I was reminded of one of the benefits, especially in the wintertime: the late-afternoon sky reflecting off a calm Mississippi River is beautiful.
On tap this morning was six sets of (5 minutes at 60 spm/1 minute rest/3 minutes at 64 spm/1 minute rest/2 minutes at 68 spm/2 minutes rest). I did this while paddling up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River and back. Intermittent showers made me good and wet and chilled by the time I was finished. The biggest challenge of the workout was the subtle degrees of change from one stroke rate to the next--each time it was a matter of adding just one stroke per fifteen seconds. Because of that I tried to stay dead-on to each rate, and so I felt like I was expending a lot more brain energy than muscle energy.
Tomorrow is a day off... finally. It remains to be seen how sustainable this number of sessions per week is going to be for the long term, given all the other "adulting" stuff I have to do. But for now I want to jump in with both feet and see what happens. As I mentioned in my previous post, all this "new" stuff has me on the verge of sensory overload, and I'm trying to be patient while my body and brain internalize it all. I'm definitely putting some faith in Maks to know what he's doing, but it's not a blind faith: down in Florida I saw first-hand how much Chris Hipgrave has improved, and then there's the fact that in the last decade or so the Slovenian team, with which Maks is affiliated, has been right up among the top paddlesports national teams in the world.
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On this day nine years ago, My Training Blog by Elmore put up its very first post. Thanks to everybody who has encouraged me to keep the blog going this long.
I provide some deeper pontification on the occasion in this post from two years ago.
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1. Pushups
2. 4-way abdominals
3. Hindu squats
4. Pelvic raises
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Well, I have joined the ranks of athletes who have Internet coaches. For a monthly fee, Slovenian coach Maks Frančeškin will be writing workouts for me as well as offering technical guidance.
It's quite a change for a guy who, except for attending an occasional training camp, has been self-coached throughout his canoe and kayak racing career. And it's also forcing some changes to my routine: in recent years I've been a four-days-a-week paddler most of the time, but the training plan Maks has prepared calls for six days a week, with two sessions on one of those days. I may eventually have to discuss with Maks what I'm capable of fitting in alongside my non-athletic obligations, but at least for now I want to dive in and immerse myself. Maybe this new challenge will help the winter weeks pass by more quickly and put me in position for a really good race season.
Actually, I might have to back off a bit after next week: I've been summoned to jury duty in federal court for the month of February. All I know right now is that I must be "on call" for the entire month, so how my life will be interrupted remains to be seen. I hope I'll at least have a chance to adapt to some of the technical changes this new training regime is imposing.
As I mentioned before, another of Maks's "virtual" athletes is Chris Hipgrave, who led the training camp down in Florida I recently attended. And so this new training adventure is a continuation of the things we were doing down there. But Maks also wants to spend the early stages of our athlete-coach relationship getting a lot of feedback from me and basically getting to know me.
One of the first things he asked me to do was send him video of myself paddling at a couple of different stroke rates. I've learned over the years that no matter how good I think my stroke is, I should always expect some criticism whenever an expert coach takes a look at it. Sure enough, while Maks thought my rotation at the hips and pelvis was good and that I was doing a good job of using my upper hand to control the working angle of the blade, he pointed out that I was starting my stroke before the blade was fully submerged, and also that I was moving my top hand too far forward, away from my head, resulting in a smaller anchoring angle, a shorter stroke, and less rotation and power from the legs.
It took me a while to understand exactly what Maks was saying--I've always learned best when a coach is right next to me and walking me through every step. But Maks sent me videos of several of his top athletes in Slovenia, and after studying them for a while I began to see that I was sort punching forward with my top hand while Maks's athletes kept their top hands near their heads.
I've been working on that in the boat for the last several days. Even a small change to your stroke makes paddling seem much harder for a while. Getting your body to do something unfamiliar adds another layer of stress. Another added stressor is paddling at the various stroke rates that Maks's workouts call for. Until I get myself one of those Vaaka Cadence Sensors, I'm using the age-old method of counting my strokes for 15 seconds and multiplying that by four. So my brain is having to process a lot more information than usual when I paddle.
On Wednesday I did eight 5-minute pieces with one minute recovery at 64-66 strokes per minute. I did this workout with extra weight (about 5 kilograms of barbell plates) in the space fore of my footboard. Maks explained that the extra weight was to make me feel more pressure on my blade and improve my glide (What's the proper physics term for that? Momentum, maybe?). I could definitely feel both things going on.
Yesterday I did three cycles of 4 minutes at 76 spm, 2 minutes at 72 spm, and 1 minute at 84 spm. There was one minute recovery in between pieces, and the cycles started at 14-minute intervals. Maks instructed, "Try keeping the same power through the whole workout. Last minute is meant to be a hard one! Find the smoothness and relaxed feeling through the longer reps."
Under this new training regime there's just one gym session per week, and at least for now, Friday is gym day. I'm keeping it simple and trying to focus on core exercises, leg exercises, and "pre-hab" exercises that target the muscles that oppose those used in paddling. My new routine is here.
After doing my gym this morning, I headed to the river and did today's workout: two sets of (5 x 3' on/1' off at 45 spm and 5 x 1' on/1' off at 80 spm). All told I think the workout went okay, but 45 spm is a very low stroke rate and it wasn't until the second set that I started to get the rhythm down. The point of the workout, as described by Maks, was to "find the grip and water pressure on the blade at the lower stroke rate, then try transferring this same power and technique to the higher rate." I think I did that pretty well.
I'll just add this remark about these low-stroke-rate sessions: in a surfski my legs and feet are exposed to the elements, and that longer pause between strokes means longer moments of water dripping off the blades onto my legs and feet. Not fun in the wintertime! It wasn't ridiculously cold today, but a chilly north wind was blowing pretty hard, and I couldn't wait to get back to the dock and into dry clothes.
One last note: Maks counts strokes on both sides in strokes-per-minute figures--in other words, a stroke on the left and a stroke on the right count as two strokes. This is different from how I've always done it. When I mention my 8-stroke sprints, for instance, I mean eight cycles of left strokes and right strokes. Maks would consider them "16-stroke sprints." So this is yet one more thing I'm having to get used to.
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Winter has made itself at home in the Mid South. The extended forecast shows daytime Fahrenheit highs mostly in the 40s and overnight lows in the 20s and 30s.
I try not to dwell too much in this blog on my dislike of winter, because I know there are other parts of the world whose winters are much harsher than where I live. But then again, if somebody from North Dakota, let's say, wants to get on my case over it ("Quit your whining! 40 degrees is WARM!!!!"), all I have to do is ask why North Dakotans take their winter vacations in Florida or the Bahamas or Cancún when they could simply come to Memphis and bask in our 40-degree bliss. That'll shut that person right up. Maybe.
In any case, the next six or eight weeks promise to be the least glamorous part of the training year. At this time last year I had my trip to South Africa to look forward to, but this year there's not much I can do but put my head down and grind out lots of base miles, technique work, and resistance training, mostly in the harbor where there's protection from the wind a lower risk of an icy swim.
Yesterday it warmed up from around 39 degrees to 43 degrees during the 60 minutes I was in the boat. The sky stayed mostly cloudy. After a 10-minute warmup, I did the same workout we did on the afternoon of January 3 down in Florida, with the little golf-practice whiffle balls on my boat for resistance. It was two sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4 minutes recovery. I felt fine for the whole workout, and tried to take solid, explosive strokes throughout each piece.
I could tell first thing this morning that today would be nicer, for the simple reason that the sun was out. And it wasn't quite as windy this morning as it's been since I returned from Florida. I went to the river and did an ordinary paddle--no worrying over the stroke rate or anything like that. I was in the boat for 70 minutes and did a brisk aerobic paddle.
I'm still discussing a training programme with Maks Frančeškin, and I'll report more on that here soon.
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On Monday morning I drove through some blizzard-like conditions on my way through northwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi. The snow wasn't sticking to the road, fortunately, but in places there was a decent amount of accumulation on the trees and grass.
Once I was back in Memphis there was little accumulation, but a light snow fell most of the afternoon and the conditions were windy and frigid. But since then the weather has been milder, and the extended forecast shows Fahrenheit temperatures in the 40s and 50s for the foreseeable future.
I'd planned to join Joe for our usual Tuesday paddle, but he called and told me he couldn't make it. As it turned out, I was happy to take another rest day after the long drive home as well as the exhausting ten days in the boat. I spent Tuesday getting re-settled at home, cleaning my boat and putting my gear away, and otherwise doing nothing.
On Wednesday morning I decided to go down to the river. The temperature was in the high 30s, but the sun was out and it was warming up quickly. I got in the boat and did a workout similar to a couple we did down at camp: eight 3-minute pieces with one minute recovery, the odd-numbered pieces being done at 60 strokes per minute and the even-numbered pieces being done at something closer to, but still a bit below, what I would normally do. Paddling at 60 spm was simple enough because I could simply look at my watch and take a stroke each second. For those other pieces, I was sort of all over the place, paddling anywhere from 69 spm to 77 spm... I may need to invest in one of those Vaaka Cadence Sensors if I'm going to continue doing a lot of stroke-rate-based work. And I had a hard time translating the effort into any particular boat speed: at the outset I thought maybe 7.0 miles per hour was a reasonable target, but in fact it was very difficult to maintain that, and I frequently dipped as low as 6.3 mph. A stiff south wind was blowing and that made a mess of my desire for reliable G.P.S. readings. Down in Florida I didn't pay much attention to my speed because we were paddling both upstream and downstream on the Rainbow River, and the presence of other athletes provided feedback on how well I was moving the boat.
Since then I've continued to feel very tired, and I might just need to chill out a while longer and let myself recover from the camp. Chris Hipgrave mentioned in his blog that he too was falling apart by the end of camp, so at least there's nothing unusual about my exhaustion.
The workouts we did at the training camp were part of a training regime that Chris has designed with help from a Slovenian athlete and coach named Maks Frančeškin. Chris told me that he's about eighteen months into his online coaching arrangement with Maks, and I could see that it was paying off significantly: Chris has always been a strong athlete in the almost 25 years that I have known him, but at the camp he seemed to be performing at an entirely different level. In short pieces and long pieces, using low stroke rates and high stroke rates, he was leaving me in the dust time and time again.
Maks is available to create a training plan for any athlete (for a fee, of course). I've exchanged a few e-mails with him to see what he thinks would work for me. I'll share more soon about what he suggests and how I decide to go about things.
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I made a short film about the manatees we saw at the Weeki Wachee River last Thursday. As one friend of mine put it, "Manatees are everything humans aren't these days." Watch and forget your worries.
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For those curious to know more about the Rainbow River where we've been having our training camp, here's a map of the area:
Blue Run Park (marked "B.R." at the bottom of the map) is where we access the river. The lake (marked "L," just above the icon for Swampy's Bar & Grille) is where we do our sprints. KP Hole Park is where we started our time trial on the "Strava" segment on Wednesday. Rainbow Springs, the main source of water for the river, is as far up the river as we can paddle; above the springs the riverbed sort of disappears into reeds and sawgrass, as you can see at the top of the map. The distance from Blue Run Park up to Rainbow Springs is about 8 kilometers (5 miles).
I woke up Friday morning feeling achey and sore--not at all how I'd hoped to feel after a day that was supposed to be easier on Thursday. We had a couple of tough training days scheduled for Friday and yesterday, and I confess to feeling a bit anxious and overwhelmed as I had breakfast. But the only way out of it was through. The next workout was scheduled for 8:30 AM sharp, so I got myself down to the river and into my boat.
The workout was six 8-minute pieces, and within each piece we were to vary our stroke rates: 2 minutes at 60 spm, 2 minutes at 72 spm, 2 minutes at 60 spm, and 2 minutes at 80 spm. There was a 2-minute recovery interval after each 8-minute piece.
Once again, Chris H. glided steadily away as the first piece got underway. I kept pace with Roy a little bit longer, but eventually he opened a gap on me too. As the first piece wore on I wondered if I really would be able to complete five more. But once I was into the second piece my body started to come around. I focused on exploding through each stroke while maintaining a smooth motion overall and keeping my boat running quietly. Soon enough, the workout was over.
I went back to my place for lunch and got some rest, and was back at the river for the 4 o'clock workout. It was time for more sprints on the lake: four 250-meter sprints at 6-minute intervals, with a 10-second sprint thrown in at the 3-minute mark of each interval. Chris H. advised us to keep the stroke rate low enough to stay in control and take solid, precise strokes. The workout was intense, painful at moments, but it went by quickly. I was right around 68-69 seconds for all my 250s.
Oddly enough, I felt the best I'd felt all day after this workout. I think the endorphins were the reason. Once they'd worn off I felt tired and sore, but still satisfied after giving a good effort through two hard sessions.
I got up yesterday morning hoping I had the mettle for one more hard day left in me. First up was another low-stroke-rate session. We did eight 4-minute pieces with a one-minute recovery interval. We did the first two pieces at 56 strokes per minute, the next two at 60 spm, the next two at 64 spm, and the last two at 68 spm. Chris reminded us once more to focus on putting as much power as possible into each stroke. Just like with the low-stroke-rate workout we did a week ago, I was not really winded in this one but I could feel it in my muscles.
After some lunch and some rest, I returned to the river for a more intense session: three eight-minute pieces, starting at 16-minute intervals, at 5K-race pace. I was ready to bring 'em on and get it done. The pieces were suitably taxing, and the last couple of minutes of each were particularly tough, but overall it wasn't any kind of workout I haven't handled many times before.
Yesterday was rather chilly--the Fahrenheit temperature was in the 30s in the morning and the afternoon high wasn't much over 50, and the wind was not friendly. We got more of the same this morning: it was 38 degrees when I got up. Sure, I regularly paddle in colder temperatures at home, but I wasn't really expecting such weather in Florida, and I brought only just barely enough clothing to stay comfortable. In those TV commercials the Florida tourism board puts out, people are always wearing bathing suits and shorts and stuff.
Anyway, it was my last session before departing, so I figured I could handle it one more time. Chris H. and Alessia and I paddled from Blue Run Park all the way up to Rainbow Springs and back. It was mostly a recovery paddle, but apparently the section of river from KP Hole to Rainbow Springs is another one of those "Strava" segments, and Chris couldn't resist recording a time for himself. Alessia decided she wanted to do it too, and I, faced with the alternative of being That Guy, went along with the crowd, albeit halfheartedly (I don't do Strava myself). Chris had predicted the segment would be about a mile, but my G.P.S. device measured it at about 2500 meters--more than a mile and a half.
Once we'd dispensed with that chore, we paddled easy back down the river. The environs were lovely and the wildlife was active. At one point we saw two otters tangled up and making a lot of racket; it was unclear whether the encounter was hostile or amorous.
Once we'd returned to Blue Run Park I quickly changed into dry clothes and got everything loaded up for the trip back north. I eschewed I-75 in favor of the more scenic U.S. 19/98 that runs through the Gulf Hammock of the Nature Coast (formerly known as the Mosquito Coast). It didn't get me anywhere fast--it took me more than four hours to reach the Alabama State Line. I made it several dozen miles north of Montgomery and then decided I'd had enough. I'm staying the night in the town of Clanton and I should be home by a reasonable hour tomorrow.
All told, it was a very productive camp. The training was quite intense, and I'm returning home with some fresh ideas to incorporate. I'll talk more in the coming days about how I plan to do so.
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My first couple of days in Florida were warm and muggy with Fahrenheit temperatures in the low 80s. Cooler weather has moved in since then. For the last several days I have woken up to temperatures in the 30s, and the afternoon highs have been in the 60s. It's not ideal beach weather, but it's quite acceptable for a few days of hard training in the boat.
I had a nice restful day Monday, and then on Tuesday morning I got back at it with a vengeance. Terry, Alessia, Chris N., and I got together for a set of ten 5-minute pieces with one minute recovery in between. (Chris H. had done the workout earlier so he could participate in a job-related conference call.) The pieces were to be done at a low stroke rate--around 65 strokes per minute or less--with a lot of power in each stroke. While I never felt like I was hurting, the workout took a lot out of me. By the last couple of pieces I had little power left to put in my strokes.
Afterward we said goodbye to Terry, who had to head back to Chattanooga. I returned to my lodging to have lunch and get some rest.
Tuesday afternoon's workout was less of a grind but no less intense. Both Chrises, Alessia, Steph, and I did three 150-meter sprints at 5-minute intervals, four 100-meter sprints at 3-minute intervals, and five 50-meter sprints at 2-minute intervals.
One thing I learned back on Friday was that for years and years, when starting my boat from rest, I'd been doing it wrong. For some reason I'd long had the idea that one was supposed to use a few quick staccato strokes to get the boat moving. But when Chris N. saw me doing that, he informed me that this technique wasn't getting me anywhere. The two Chrises went on to explain that one should start with his blade in the water and do several longer strokes with a lot of bicep involvement to get the boat moving, and then let loose with a high stroke rate before settling down into a sustainable race pace.
And so Tuesday afternoon's workout for me was a chance to work on improving my starting technique. And the effort will be ongoing. Both Chris H. and Alessia were getting off the line much faster than I was. I was moving the boat better once I'd settled into a rhythm, but I'll just have to keep practicing my starts.
Tuesday evening was the first time on this trip that I've felt truly beat to the socks. I slept soundly and got up yesterday morning feeling a bit sore but mostly ready for more. I drove to our usual putin place at Blue Run Park, where our group had grown by one: in addition to the Chrises, Steph, Alessia, and me, Roy Roberts had come down from Chattanooga. We paddled easy upstream to a spot on the Rainbow River known as KP Hole, and for our morning workout we did a time trial back down to Blue Run Park, a distance of about 5.3 kilometers. (This course is apparently an established Strava segment.)
We started at 1-minute intervals with Steph leading off, followed by Chris N., Alessia, me, Roy, and Chris H. Chris H. had urged us all to keep our efforts under control, and once I'd started I tried to keep the stroke rate under 80 and take strong, precise strokes. As the trial wore on I felt the same sort of fatigue I typically feel over the course of a race of that distance, but I refrained from any hard surges. I reached the finish with a time of 25 minutes, 59 seconds. Since I'm not a Strava enthusiast, I don't know where that would put me in the Strava rankings. Chris was the fastest of our group, more than two minutes faster than I, while Roy beat me by around 45 seconds.
After Tuesday's efforts and yesterday morning's time trial I was tired indeed, but there was yet another substantial workout to go. Yesterday afternoon I joined Chris H., Roy, and Alessia for a set of six 4-minute pieces with six minutes recovery in between. Once again Chris reminded us not to let effort overwhelm technique. He pointed out that we were all tired and ready for a break, and this workout would train our bodies to push past that and continue paddling with good form. And so that's what I did, keeping my stroke rate under control while trying to keep pace with Chris and Roy, who opened a gap on me in each piece anyway.
After two very taxing days, we'd earned a little break. On tap this morning was an "active recovery" paddle. For a change of scenery, we traveled an hour or so south of Dunnellon to the Weeki Wachee River to do it. The Weeki Wachee is a clear spring-fed stream like the Rainbow River, but it offered us something we haven't found yet on the Rainbow: manatees. We observed a dozen or more manatees hanging out in a deep pool near our putin spot at Rogers Park:
Once we'd said "Awww" over those adorable creatures a few times, we headed on up the river. The Weeki Wachee is quite a bit shallower and more winding than the Rainbow, and it took quite a bit of energy to paddle up it. Besides the "bottom drag" one experiences in shallow water, we had to concentrate hard to find the most efficient lines and avoid fighting the current as much as possible. We finally reached the turnaround point up at Weeki Wachee Springs (where the mermaids roam) and paddled a spirited pace back down.
There's an annual race on the Weeki Wachee that I participated in some 12 years ago, but I'd forgotten how long it is from Rogers Park to Weeki Wachee Springs. The round trip is nearly 19 kilometers. It turned out not to be the most relaxing "recovery" paddle I've ever had, but at least I got my blood flowing. We took this afternoon off, and I hope that bit of rest will have me ready for some more hard workouts tomorrow and Saturday.
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Among the fauna of the Rainbow River at Dunnellon, Florida, cormorants are the ones I find most endearing. These birds can be seen swimming and diving up and down the river, and fairly often I see one poking its head above the surface, checking me out. The tree to my right in the photo is one of their favorite hangout spots.
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As I mentioned in my last post, Chris Hipgrave drew up the training plan for our camp here in Florida. We'll be doing some pretty intense workouts and some more relaxed workouts, but overall there's a strong technical theme that focuses on stroke rate.
Stroke rate is something I've thought about a fair bit over the years, inasmuch as I've played around with trying to lower my stroke rate while maintaining a given speed. But I've never really gotten any more sophisticated about it than that. Now, here at camp, I'm taking a good hard look at it. Chris has based our training regime on information from this podcast interview with Dr. Brendan O'Neill, a coach in the New Zealand flatwater racing program and the inventor of the Vaaka Cadence Sensor, an in-the-boat device that tells a paddler his or her stroke rate in real time. Dr. O'Neill helped the Kiwis achieve excellent results in the 2012 Olympics with a training program that sought to determine each athlete's optimum stroke rate and elicit maximum propulsion at that rate.
In the Friday afternoon workout that I mentioned in my last post, we did 100-meter sprints at a crazy-high stroke rate and 200-meter sprints at a more controlled rate, and the main objective was to get our bodies used to the idea of varying the rate as opposed to just using the same rate at all times.
Yesterday morning we did a workout that involved abnormally low stroke rates. We did a series of pieces in which each cycle consisted of 2 minutes at 50 strokes per minute and 1 minute at 68 strokes per minute. (For me, a "normal" stroke rate at a comfortable cruising pace is around 72 strokes per minute.) The idea was to put as much power into each stroke to move the boat as fast as possible. Chris H. and Terry Smith and I ended up doing this workout as a group, and in each piece Chris gradually pulled away while Terry and I tried to keep up, Terry moving just a hair faster than I. This was consistent with years of race results in which Chris and Terry and I have almost always finished in that order.
The workout didn't have me breathing that hard, but I could feel it in my muscles. When it was over I had a few hours for running errands, eating lunch and resting. I was feeling ready to go once more when we reconvened for the afternoon session. Cory Hall had departed for home, and Alessia Faverio had arrived from Asheville. Chris Norbury and Steph Schell were skipping the workout, so our group for the afternoon was Chris H., Terry, Alessia, and me.
The workout consisted of three cycles of 5 minutes on, one minute off, 3 minutes on, one minute off, 2 minutes on. We had six minutes recovery between the end of one cycle and the start of the next. The pieces were to be done at around 75-85 strokes per minute, or about what one would do in the middle of a 20-minute race.
The workout was taxing, but again I held up reasonably well. I got a good night's sleep last night and returned to the river this morning for a relaxing distance paddle. Chris H. and Alessia and I chatted and watched the birds, fish, turtles, and otters that call the Rainbow River home.
This afternoon it was time for a resistance workout. Chris H., Chris N., Alessia, Terry, and I all looped ropes around our boats that had little whiffle balls (the kind used for golf practice) on them. With these objects disrupting our glide, we did two sets of three 3-minute pieces with 4-minute recovery. Besides providing a strength workout, Chris H. said, the resistance is intended to force the paddler to lower his stroke rate and put greater power in each stroke.
The workout was a nice send-off into our scheduled day off tomorrow. The plan is to get back at it Tuesday morning with our bodies and brains rested up and ready to go.
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On Tuesday morning I did my last gym session before my training camp down in Florida. I haven't decided yet what sort of gym I'll do during the camp. If I do anything, it'll probably be minimal since we'll be doing two in-the-boat workouts most days.
After the gym session I headed out into a bleak, overcast, 40-degrees-Fahrenheit outdoors to paddle. My arms were tired from the gym work and it had the feel of a "let's just get this done" session. I stayed in the harbor and paddled a pretty strong aerobic pace for 60 minutes. It wasn't fun because I was achy and tired but I had a nice feeling of accomplishment when it was over. I was buoyed by the idea that my next paddling session would be on a clear spring-fed stream, probably in much nicer weather.
Wednesday was a day for resting and packing, and yesterday I hit the road. It was 38 degrees and pouring down rain when I left Memphis. Sunshine State, here I come!
I made it as far as the town of Marianna in the Florida Panhandle yesterday. According to Google I should have made the trip in 7 hours 45 minutes, but it took me more like nine and a half hours. None of my stops was terribly lengthy, but I guess it all added up to at least an hour. And I'm just not a particularly fast driver. I stopped once to refuel, once to eat my sack lunch in the parking lot of another gas station, once at a clothing outlet store south of Montgomery that I like, and once to get some Chinese takeout and eat it at an outdoor table in Dothan. Anyway, I got a good night's sleep in a motel and was back on the road by 7:45 AM, which might as well have been 8:45 because I crossed from Central Time into Eastern Time a short distance east of Marianna.
I arrived at my destination around 1 o'clock Eastern, and got checked into my Air B and B near Rainbow Springs State Park. Once 4 o'clock rolled around I headed down into Dunnellon and met my training group along the Rainbow River for the afternoon session. The temperature was a lovely 80 degrees or so and I donned the same sort of clothing I wear in the summertime.
On hand today were Chris Hipgrave of Bryson City, North Carolina; Cory Hall and Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee; and Pennsylvanians Chris Norbury and Steph Schell. Our workout schedule for the camp was drawn up by Chris H., and both Chrises will be providing coaching services.
We started at Blue Run of Dunnellon Park, and to warm up we paddled upstream to a basin that branches off from the main river. Here we did a workout that consisted of six 100-meter sprints and six 200-meter sprints. We alternated between a 100 and a 200, and started each one at three-minute intervals. The 100s were to be done at as high a stroke rate as each paddler was capable of ("to shock the nervous system," Chris H. said), while the 200s were to be done at a lower, more controlled rate.
It was a taxing workout, but I was pleased with how my body responded considering that I'd just spent a day and a half driving and I hadn't done sprints of any kind since October. I recovered pretty quickly from each sprint and felt good once the workout was over.
I'll talk more later about the objectives of this workout and of the training camp as a whole. I can tell already that I'll be analyzing certain training topics to a deeper extent than I ever have before, and that alone should make the camp worth it. I've long believed that the best reason to attend an occasional training camp is to pick up new ideas that you can take back home and apply to your training there.
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