Monday photo feature

Can you point to the LIGHTHOUSE????  This guy can!!!!!

This photo is a screen-grab from a short video Dawid Mocke shot as we paddled the Miller's Run back on the 4th of February.  Even though that was a mere seven weeks ago, in some ways it feels like a different lifetime.

On a typical day that week we were up at sunrise for an early-morning paddle.  We'd finish at Fish Hoek Beach, put our boats away, stop by the C'est la Vie coffee shop for a cappuccino, and then head back to the B & B just in time for a full breakfast.  A fine way to start a day.  Good times, man.  Good times.

Suddenly saddled with all the solitude I can stand, I guess one good way to use it is to examine my routine here at home, and ponder how I might incorporate some of the elements that I found so satisfying during my time in South Africa.


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Staying busy in the boat

Adam Davis came back down to join me yesterday morning.  We paddled out of the harbor, up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, and up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard (U.S. 51) bridge before turning around and heading back to where we'd started.  I've paddled this route many, many times, but thanks to Adam and his G.P.S. device, I finally have a map of it to show everybody:

As you can see, the distance was almost 10 miles for Adam.  Since I started and finished at the marina about a mile farther north in the harbor, my distance came to about 12 miles.  Once I got back to the dock I orbited for several minutes to make a nice, neat 120 minutes.

Yesterday's high temperature was around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, but it was in the mid 40s during the time Adam and I were paddling.  My feet were thoroughly chilled by the time I got back to the dock.

We had a rare few hours of sunshine yesterday afternoon, but by this morning it was overcast once more, with rain in the forecast.  I managed to get about three-quarters of my 60-minute paddle in before raindrops started falling.  I mostly paddled steady but threw in a long, pretty hard surge in the last 15 minutes, just because I felt like it.  Since there's not much to "train" for right now, I'll be doing what I feel like pretty much all the time.


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Trying to keep calm and carry on

I'd hoped that our beloved sport would remain above the fray in this time of distress.  But alas, that was wishful thinking.  I guess this has been the week that the situation "got real" as far as this blog is concerned.

At this moment the environment is such that it's all but impossible to have an event of any kind.  If the directors of the races in South Carolina and Ocean Springs had tried to go forward, they would have faced an onslaught of criticism of the "How can you be so irresponsible?" variety.  And maybe the critics would have been right, for all I know.

Right now I'm hoping the entire race season won't be wiped out, but that's certainly a possibility.  The Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race is near and dear to my heart, and for the moment it's still on for June 13; so is the Gorge Downwind Championships, a trip I really look forward to each July.  But unless things get turned around in the very near future, I'm afraid those events will join the growing list of casualties.

(UPDATE: I just found out this afternoon that next month's race on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg is off.)

My motivation took a hit when races started getting canceled this week.  I skipped my strength workout Tuesday morning, and the only reason I went through with paddling is that I'd already promised to meet Joe for that purpose.  Now I'm just looking to keep moving even though serious training might have to be on hold for a bit. I think some good "play" workouts are the best way to keep myself looking forward to being on the river.  Yesterday would have been a perfect example if I'd been better prepared: the wind was blowing from the south at least 20 miles per hour when I got to the dock yesterday morning, and when I paddled from the harbor out onto the river I found some sure-enough downwind conditions there.  They weren't big swells, but I had good rideable swells nevertheless.  Sadly, I wasn't dressed properly--I'd dressed for the 73-degree-Fahrenheit air temperature rather than the still-quite-cold water temperature--and I had to paddle timidly because of that.  There were also a lot of floating logs as a result of recent rains and a rising river level, and I didn't want to have my rudder whacked off.  Still, it was an encouraging reminder that we do occasionally get a taste of downwind here, and I'm going to start paying closer attention to the wind forecast and try to be ready for such opportunities from now on.

I managed to make a strength workout happen this morning.  It's going to be a chilly weekend with highs in the 50s, but I plan to be in my boat seeing what kind of fun I can find out on that big river.


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Race schedule update

As most of you know, a global pandemic has prompted the cancellation of events of all kinds.  Sadly, canoe and kayak racing is not immune.  This Saturday's "Paddle Bender" race in South Carolina, which I had decided not to attend but for which many friends of mine were registered, got canceled yesterday.  The first race of my season, the "Battle On The Bayou" event scheduled for a week from this Saturday down at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, was called off this morning.

I have a feeling there will be more casualties before this crisis has run its course.  As far as I know, the events listed below are still on for now, but I recommend seeking updates frequently.  I will share whatever I know as soon as I know it.


April
18  Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi.  A 22-mile race down the largest river in North America.  Register


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

13  Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee.  The 39th edition of this classic.  A 5000-meter dash down the largest river in North America.


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

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Monday photo feature

Adam Davis shot this photo during our paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar on Saturday.  We're nearing the end of our trip, paddling across the Mississippi back toward the harbor.  That's me at eleven o'clock off Adam's bow.  Conditions were bumpy because two barge rigs and a bargeless towboat, all heading upriver, had just passed through.

I should note that Adam is one of the stars of my motion picture that came out last fall.  For those of you shunning the crowds in favor of watching movies at home, may I suggest adding this film to your list?  It's available for viewing here.


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Still yearning for sunny days

We're having another run of rainy, cloudy days here in the Mid South.  When I got down to the river yesterday morning it had rained a good bit overnight but had let up for a few hours.

Adam Davis joined me again and we paddled a loop around the Loosahatchie Bar.  We kept a good pace going and got a solid overdistance session.  Adam's G.P.S. device produced this map of what we did:

If it looks like we paddled over some land at the north end of the Bar, that's because the river level (25.6 feet on the Memphis gauge) was higher than whatever it was when this satellite image was made.  Because I put in at the marina about a mile farther north in the harbor than Adam's start/finish point, my total distance was around 12.6 miles.  My elapsed time was about a minute under two hours.

More drenching rains fell last night.  With the temperature in the low 40s Fahrenheit, it was a cold, soggy world I ventured out into this morning.  I went down to the river planning to paddle for 60 minutes and do a crisp workout.  When I say "crisp," I mean high in intensity but short in duration.  Long grinds have their place, but I'm looking to tip the balance in favor of quality more than ever this year.

So, after warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on eight reps of 45 seconds on, 75 seconds off.  The sprints were tough but my body seemed to handle them just fine--75 seconds seemed to be adequate recovery throughout the workout.

As I walked from the marina back to the parking lot I saw a couple of patches of blue sky.  But I think most of the coming week will be cloudy with chances of rain every day.  I guess that's fairly standard for late winter and early spring.

Regarding my hands and wrists: they've done okay this weekend, though there continue to be moments when they seem to go to sleep on me.  I was right concerned when I woke up yesterday morning because they were throbbing pretty good, but they seemed to get circulating once I was in the boat.  While paddling today they felt fine at times and dead at times.


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Digging deep in more ways than one

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then headed to the river to paddle for an easy 60 minutes.

The current strength routine is one of my lighter ones, but my body wouldn't know it right now.  I mentioned last weekend that I've been doing some landscaping at my house: to be specific, I'm sprucing up what had been a gravel driveway/parking area in the back.  First came a lot of digging in rocky, rooty soil, busting it up with a pick axe before moving it with a shovel.  Then I poured a couple of concrete drainage channels for the downspouts to flow into.  In all I used thirty 80-pound (36.3-kilogram) bags of concrete.  That's 2400 pounds (1.2 tons!) that I moved from a pallet to a dolly down at the store, moved from the dolly into the back of my truck, and moved from the truck into a wheelbarrow at the work site for mixing and pouring.  Now I'm paving the area over with bricks.

How has my body responded to all this activity?  Certainly with a lot of muscle fatigue, especially in my legs, shoulders, and back.  The heaviest work days left me sacked out and falling asleep my nine o'clock in the evening.  And the work has been murder on my hands.  The skin on my fingers is raw and cracked, and for a couple of days I was having spells of no feeling or poor circulation from my forearms down.  I've had some off-and-on soreness in my right wrist since last summer, and all the digging seems to have exacerbated that.

The upshot of all this is that I wasn't exactly feeling sharp yesterday for what is probably the most dreaded day on my training calendar: the annual harbor time trial.  On top of that, there was a south breeze blowing when I got down to the riverfront just after 9 AM.  It didn't seem too fierce as I stood on the dock, but I knew it was enough to slow me down significantly during the first half (the north-to-south leg) of the trial.  The outlook wasn't good for my long-held desire to break 50 minutes for this lap of the harbor.

I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints as I paddled from the marina to the harbor's north end.  I settled into the usual starting gate between two submerged tree trunks, started the watch on my G.P.S. device, and was off.

To break 50 minutes for a lap of the harbor, one must maintain an average speed of about 7.2 miles per hour.  There are several stretches in the harbor where wind exposure is at its greatest, and in the first of these I found myself struggling to maintain 6.5 mph.  In the second such stretch, I saw my speed plunge to around 6.1.  Slowly but surely, I began to accept the reality that a sub-50 day was probably not going to happen.  I tried to keep my chin up and produce the best effort I could.

But as I passed the marina a new problem emerged: the pain in my right wrist became excruciating.  I tried to work it out as I paddled, but to no avail.  Just south of the A.W. Willis Avenue bridge I had to stop.

Having to abandon my time trial was disheartening, but that was the least of my concerns.  Suddenly this injury was getting severe enough to disrupt my paddling.  Was this something that could interfere with my race season?

Dejectedly I continued south, thinking I would paddle another couple hundred meters before turning around and calling it quits back at the marina.  But as I moved along my wrist started to feel better and I kept paddling south, toward what would have been my turnaround point next to Beale Street Landing.  I began to entertain thoughts of resuming my time trial there and seeing how I could do for the half of it with the wind at my back.  By the time I got there my enthusiasm for the idea had begun to blossom.  I reset my watch and took off back toward the north end.

What a difference a tailwind makes.  Now I was cruising along at 7.5 mph, occasionally even 7.6.  Energized by this chance to salvage my workout, I followed the tangent line to every curve and kept the intensity as high as I dared.

Fatigue started creeping in as I passed the marina.  I tried to lower the stroke rate while keeping as much power in each stroke as possible.  I reminded myself I was well ahead of the pace and could drop down into the low 7s if I needed to, but for the most part I stayed in 7.4-7.5 territory.

The finish line finally came into view, and I bore down even though I was hurting pretty bad by this time.  I hit 8.0 mph in the last hundred meters and crossed the line with a time of 23 minutes, 33 seconds for the 2.96-mile length of the harbor.

Could I ever put two such efforts together for a 47:06 full lap of the harbor?  Probably not, considering how wind-aided my time was.  But it doesn't seem unreasonable to think I can put together a pair of 24:59.5 halves for a 49:59 whole.  I expect it would take a perfect day with no wind for me to do that.

Utterly spent, I slowly paddled back toward the marina.  I was pleased with myself for squeezing something positive out of a tough morning, and I was relieved that my wrist hadn't been an issue during that second half.  For now I'll just have to keep an eye on it and seek some help if it keeps bothering me.

This morning I did another round of the strength routine and did some lighter chores out back.  Fortunately the heaviest portion of that landscaping job is behind me.


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Monday photo feature

I shot this photo of Joe Royer as we paddled last Tuesday.  Behind him the Kankakee, a channel marker maintenance vessel for the United States Coast Guard, returns to the USCG's Lower Mississippi River station.  The broad fluctuation of Mississippi River levels keeps the Kankakee busy resetting the red and green channel markers throughout the year.


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A nice sunny weekend

Yesterday morning it was sunny and beautiful but quite chilly.  It was about 43 degrees Fahrenheit when I got down to the river.  I put the pogies back on after going pogie-less for the past week.

I headed out for a 120-minute paddle.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, and then paddled out onto the Mississippi to see what was going on.  I paddled up above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and ferried over to the Arkansas side.  With the river flowing at 28.3 feet on the Memphis gauge I wasn't sure if I'd have access to Dacus Lake: I paddled up the lake's outflow channel and discovered that I did not.  There's a private road that crosses the channel, and it's only when this road is completely underwater that one can paddle from the Mississippi's main channel to the lake.  (At low river levels the Dacus Lake outflow passes through a culvert beneath the road.)  Yesterday the road was several feet above the surface.

So I followed Plan B and paddled up the Loosahatchie Chute.  On these longer paddles I usually do whatever I feel like as far as intensity goes.  Yesterday I threw in a few surges but mostly paddled at a relaxed pace.  About the time I was ready to turn around and head back toward the harbor, my legs started cramping up a bit.  That's not a problem I have very often.  I don't know if it was because of the cold, or a lingering effect of some landscaping work I'd done on Friday that involved lifting a bunch of 80-pound bags of concrete... your guess is as good as mine.  Anyway, it sort of bothered me all the way back to the dock, and once I was out of the boat it took a while for my legs to loosen up so I could walk comfortably.  I'll be happy not to have that kind of discomfort as a frequent companion.

This morning I had some company: Adam Davis came down to the riverfront to join me in a workout.  He put in at the cobblestones near the harbor's mouth, so I paddled down there and did three 8-stroke sprints while waiting for him to get in his boat.

The first thing we did was paddle up the Mississippi to the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, do a fast ferry to the bridge's middle piling, and paddle back to the harbor.  There was a pretty stiff wind blowing from the south that made the river choppy and confused.  Windy days are always wet days: by the time we got back to the harbor my clothes were soaked from taking a bunch of splashes and spray.

Back in the harbor we commenced our main workout: a 20-minute paddle consisting of 2-minute cycles in which we paddled medium-hard (over 6.5 miles per hour) for a minute, then increased the pace to 7.0-7.5 mph for 30 seconds, then paddled at sub-maximal intensity for 30 seconds.  The workout went well and I felt pretty good through it all.

Once that was over we continued to the north end of the harbor and then came back south.  I bade Adam goodbye when we reached my marina.  That wind was putting a chill on things, but the sun was out and the temperature was rising.  I found a sunny spot on the dock where I shed my soggy clothes and got dry.  I headed home with the satisfaction of a pretty good weekend in the boat.


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Another week's wrap-up

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then paddled a loop of the harbor with Joe.

I had a workout planned for yesterday, but with a busy morning I was worried my head wouldn't be in it.  Once I was in the boat paddling, however, the outside concerns fell away and I got down to business.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I did eight pieces of 1 minute on, 2 minutes off.  The workout felt taxing while it was going on, but I recovered quickly after the last piece.  With more than 20 minutes left in the 60-minute session I did a couple of long surges in which I kept the stroke rate moderate but pulled hard on each stroke.

I did another round of the strength routine this morning.

We haven't had anywhere near the volume of rain I'd been expecting at the beginning of the week.  We were spared the tornados and violent storms that laid waste to parts of middle Tennessee.  Today was bright and sunny, albeit cool.  It's supposed to warm up gradually this weekend.


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Monday photo feature

It's the 2015 "Battle On The Bayou" race at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  In this picture I'm taking a turn in the lead as we head from the Back Bay of Biloxi up into Old Fort Bayou.  On my tail are Rick Carter of Eutawville, South Carolina; Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi; and Kata Dismukes of Cordova, Tennessee.  Mary Neil Quave shot the photo from the Washington Avenue drawbridge.

The 2020 edition of this race is less than four weeks away.  If all goes according to plan I'll be starting up a new season there.


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This weekend: not bad

That sore throat I mentioned at the end of my last post has given way to ordinary coughing and sniffles.  The good news is that I otherwise don't really feel that sick.  My energy level might be down a little but my daily life is proceeding as normal.

Yesterday I went out for a 100-minute paddle.  With the Mississippi River flowing around 34.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, there was plenty of water for me to paddle over onto Dacus Lake.  I pushed the pace at times but generally just paddled however I felt like.

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes and did a short workout.  I did two sets of this:

20-second sprint
60-second recovery
20-second sprint
50-second recovery
20-second sprint
40-second recovery
20-second sprint
30-second recovery
20-second sprint
20-second recovery
20-second sprint
10-second recovery
20-second sprint

I held up well for most of the workout.  I started to struggle with my form a bit during the last couple of pieces.

Both yesterday and today, I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor during the first ten minutes.

I see a pattern emerging here: a quick, crisp workout on Thursday; a longer paddle on Saturday; another crisp workout on Sunday; and a recovery paddle on Tuesday.  It seems to suit me all right and we'll see how it goes for the next few weeks.

We've finally had some warmer weather with some sunshine yesterday and today, with the Fahrenheit temperature rising into the 60s.  I think it's supposed to stay warm for a while but rain heavily.


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Trying to stay healthy while doing good work

On Tuesday I did a round of my new strength routine, and then headed downtown to do a loop of the harbor with Joe.  Joe informed me that the 39th Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race will in fact take place here at Memphis on June 13 this year.  It had taken a while to get the permits ironed out for that date, but it is now a done deal.  I'll share more information here as it becomes available.

February is almost over, and I'm eager to get it in the rearview mirror.  The weather this week has been cold at times and not so cold at other times, but never particularly inviting after my pampered experience in South Africa.  I've been back for 15 days now, and I think we've had measurable sunshine for maybe two of those days.

Yesterday was one of those sunny days, but it was a chilly one--I think the high temperature was around 48 degrees Fahrenheit.  I went down to the river ready to do a crisp workout.  I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did the same workout that Dawid Mocke had me do back on the 5th of this month:

10 strokes on
10 strokes off
20 strokes on
10 strokes off
30 strokes on
10 strokes off
40 strokes on
10 strokes off
50 strokes on
10 strokes off
60 strokes on
10 strokes off
70 strokes on
10 strokes off
80 strokes on
10 strokes off
90 strokes on
10 strokes off
100 strokes on

The whole workout took only 15 minutes, but it was a tough 15 minutes.  It's a real mental challenge once you get up over 50 strokes on, and I tried to take it a stroke at a time and not be overwhelmed by the mountains of strokes still to go.

Today started cloudy but the sun is gradually coming out.  It's windy and cool, with a high in the 50s expected.  I did another round of the strength routine this morning and plan to take it easy the rest of the day.  My throat has been somewhat sore and scratchy since Tuesday, and it seems to have gotten worse since last night.  I hope this is nothing worse than a common cold.  I sure don't want it to be that Corona Virus that everybody is so worked up about right now.


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A new strength routine

This routine features exercises culled from two of the videos catalogued on this page: the video with Daniele Molmenti and the video with Michele Ramazza.


1.  Hand-paddling exercise (forward stroke and back stroke) with rubber bands.  Molmenti demonstrates these starting at 6:55 in his video.

2.  Leg kicks and leg kicks swim (demonstrated at 3:33 of the Ramazza video)

3.  Rubber band exercises demonstrated at 5:42 of the Molmenti video

4.  Plank crunches (demonstrated at 4:04 of the Ramazza video)

5.  Pre-hab exercises (both inside and outside moves) demonstrated at 8:38 of the Molmenti video


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Monday photo feature

I wasn't the only North American spending part of February in the southern hemisphere.  Brandi Baksic of San Clemente, California, took a trip to the north shore of New Zealand to participate in the Takapuna Beach Cup outrigger races.  That's her in the middle starboard seat.  I think the photo was shot by Jane Hall.

Brandi is one of the stars of my 2019 movie, whose triumphant first run continues here.


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The long and the short of it

Yesterday started with sub-freezing temperatures, but the sun was shining bright, and it's remarkable how much more motivated that makes me feel.  I was in the mood to do a longer paddle, and with the Mississippi River flowing at just under 35 feet on the Memphis gauge, I had plenty of liquid canvas to paint with my boat.

It had warmed up to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit by the time I got to the river.  I got in the boat, warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor, paddled up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wolf River, continued up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge, and then re-traced that route back to the dock.

I did a couple of impromptu long surges along the way.  While paddling up the Mississippi I surged from the Hernando DeSoto Bridge to the mouth of the Wolf, and on the Wolf I surged from the Second Street bridge up to the Danny Thomas bridge and then back to the Second Street bridge.  By the end of that latter surge I was getting pretty tired.  It had been quite a few months since I'd done a hard two-hour paddle--the last one was probably late last summer.  Yesterday I was reminded how these longer grinds wear me down.  I felt like a slug for the rest of the day.

I wanted to paddle hard again today, but this time it would be something short and sweet.  I warmed up and did another three 8-strokers, and then did twelve 30-second sprints at 3-minute intervals.  I was lethargic at first but it didn't take my body long to warm up to the task.  The sprints felt good and strong and by the end of my 60 minutes in the boat I felt better than I'd felt going in.

My two weekend paddles provide an interesting contrast.  A few years ago I read a post on Ron Lugbill's blog in which he cited research that suggests that workouts like the one I did today are actually better for improving aerobic fitness than long slogs like yesterday's.  In recent years I've been making my paddling sessions shorter--typically an hour rather than the 90 or 100 minutes that had previously been my staple--with more speed work.  I can't say I've noticed any decline in my overall endurance.  Certainly, shorter sessions work better for an ordinary person with a lot of other things to do, as well as for an older person who doesn't need the kind of volume he did when he was younger.  I do still incorporate a few longer-distance paddles each year, just to hedge my bets, I suppose.  But if I can get some effective training from less time in the boat, I'm happy to do so.  And as we've seen this weekend, I sure feel a lot better after the shorter workouts.


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How I miss that warm weather

On Tuesday we had some showers and thunderstorms moving through the area with a mass of colder air behind them.  When I got down to the river that morning it was quite balmy, but by the end of my 60-minute paddle the north wind had picked up and I could tell the temperature was dropping.

Nope, winter's not done yet here in the northern hemisphere.  When I woke up this morning I could hear precipitation drumming against the window and I could tell it wasn't entirely liquid.  By the time I went outside there was a slushy mess falling from the sky and covering the ground.

It sure seems like February gives us some of our most miserable weather.  I guess I ought to look up the historical data to see if that's really how it is or just how I think it is.  By February I'm always weary of winter and I'm sure that skews my perception some.  Right now it seems that Old Man Winter is rubbing it in that I'm no longer on the beach in sunny South Africa.

Whatever the case, there's not much I can do but keep moving.  I went on down to the river later this morning, by which time it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit and the slush had melted into puddles of cold water.  Once I was in the boat paddling, the cold was all but forgotten.  I did three 8-stroke sprints and then paddled at anaerobic threshold for most of the rest of my 60-minute session.

Since my return from South Africa I've been taking some time just to get my sleep schedule readjusted to this time zone and ease back into training here.  So far the paddling has been pretty unstructured.  But there'll be some racing to do in just over a month, so I'm kicking around some ideas about how to get more serious in the coming weeks.  I guess I'll get a new strength routine going soon, too.


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2020 Race Schedule (first draft)

My mind was so consumed with my trip to South Africa that I'm a little late getting my 2020 race schedule started.  But here's the first draft.

Please be aware that this is not a comprehensive schedule of all the races happening in the U.S. or the Mid South or whatever.  It's simply a list of races that I am likely to attend this year.  If you live in the same approximate part of the country as I and are interested in a more complete list of races scheduled for this year, I encourage you to look in places like the Waterman Series website, the Midwest Paddle Racing website, and the Tour du Teche website, as well as online registration sites like Web Scorer and Paddle Guru.

You might notice that this schedule looks awfully brief.  That's partly because I don't yet know the dates of some events and will fill them in later.  But it's also because I'm thinking about racing less this year.  Last year I did nine races, and for me that's a lot.  If I lived in a part of the country with many events within a 2- or 3-hour radius, then I might plan to do more.  But with the obvious exception of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, my closest race of the ones listed here is the Vicksburg race, and it's a four-hour drive (not counting the fact that you have to shuttle your boat yourself the day before).  Last year I found myself doing a lot of 5-, 6-, and 7-hour drives, and that really wore on me after a while.

Nothing is set in stone yet, of course, but it's not outrageous to think the Gorge Downwind race will be my last of the season, and after that I'll just go out and surf barge wakes on the Mississippi and fun stuff like that.  We'll see.  In any case, here you go--my first draft:

March
21  The Paddle Bender.  Murray Reservoir, Prosperity, South Carolina.  An 8-mile race on flatwater.  Register

28  Battle On The Bayou.  Old Fort Bayou, Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  An 8.5-mile race on flatwater.  Register


April
18  Bluz Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Vicksburg, Mississippi.  A 22-mile race down the largest river in North America.  Register


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

13  Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race.  Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee.  The 39th edition of this classic.  A 5000-meter dash down the largest river in North America.


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

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Monday photo feature

Oscar Chalupsky of Durban, South Africa, holds forth on Fish Hoek Beach nine days ago.  Best known as the winner of twelve Molokai titles, the 56-year-old Chalupsky was the featured speaker during the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club's bi-monthly "Master Class."  Photo by Murray Kilgour.

Getting re-settled

On Tuesday afternoon I embarked on another unbelievably long airborne journey.  The the total trip took around 28 hours, but thanks to flying westward across seven time zones I arrived in Atlanta in the mid-morning on Wednesday.  I rode a MARTA train from the airport to my cousin's neighborhood, and my cousin picked me up and very kindly let me crash at her house the rest of the day.  I drove back to Memphis Thursday, moving westward yet another time zone and arriving home around 3:30 PM Central Time.  I spent the next few hours unpacking and making some supper while my body, thinking it was after midnight, wanted to collapse into a deep sleep.  I finally gave it its wish around 8 o'clock local time.

Since then I've been slowly getting readjusted to the rhythms of middle America.  I still can't stay awake much past 8:30 PM or so, and I'm still wanting to wake up around 4 o'clock in the morning.  With the return of Daylight Savings Time just three weeks away, I might as well try to keep myself on a slightly early sleep schedule so I won't have to make another adjustment then.

I'm missing that South African summer.  On Friday the temperature peaked in the mid 30s Fahrenheit.  It's been warmer since then, but not tee-shirt-and-shorts warm.  When I got down to the river yesterday morning it was warming up into the low 40s--not cold enough for the heavy clothing, but cold enough for pogies.

I quickly realized I would have to re-learn some balance.  The boat I keep down at the dock is an old V12 surfski, and it felt awfully tippy after the much more stable ski I'd paddled in South Africa.  I managed to keep it upright for the entire 60-minute session, during which I did three 8-stroke sprints and otherwise paddled a mostly-steady pace.

I paddled for another 60 minutes this morning, cruising across the Mississippi and back.  The river is quite high right now due to recent heavy rains across the Tennessee and Ohio drainages: it's forecast to crest at about 35 feet on the Memphis gauge late this week.  For most of the 25 years or so that I've been paddling out on the big river, levels over 30 feet have been a once-per-couple-of-years sort of phenomenon, usually happening in May or June.  But the river exceeded 30 and even 35 feet for quite a few months last year, and it's now getting an early start toward doing so again this year.  Maybe this is just the new normal.

Whatever the case, I'm glad to be home.  No matter how awesome and exciting my travels may be, and no matter how beautiful the places I go, it always feels good to be back on my home water.


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