Pre-race ritual

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for your patience!

Spike workout

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

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

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

Intervals

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

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

Busy week ahead

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

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

Feeling like a workhorse

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

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

Sluggish off the start

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maintaining good form

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

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

A "hard" easy day

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

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

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

Monday Photo Feature

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

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

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

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


Photo by Harrison Shull.

More pep in my step

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

Paddlin' sunshine

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

Outfitting the tandem kayak, Part 6: The seat backs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recovery day

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

April showers

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

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

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

The beat goes on

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

Outfitting the tandem kayak: Please stand by

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

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

Monday Photo Feature

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

No fooling

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

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

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

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

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