Monday photo feature

Nothing puts more strain on the very idea of social distancing than a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon.  I saw people congregating in groups on both banks of the river while paddling on Saturday.  What you see above is probably the least-egregious example--it might even be a family unit.  But it's the only one I got a photo of.  I shot it while paddling along the Arkansas side beneath the Harahan Bridge.  These folks are enjoying the Big River Trail, and really, who can blame them?  Like I said, it was a gorgeous afternoon, and I do believe outdoors is the best place you can be when there's a virus going around.  I just hope everybody will continue to be careful about getting too cozy with too many people.


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

Some fun surfing and some mechanical difficulties

Yesterday might have been our warmest day so far this year, with the temperature rising into the mid 80s Fahrenheit.  I waited until the afternoon to paddle because there was a south wind blowing and I wanted it to build as much as possible so I might have at least a hint of some downwind conditions.  I put the more stable surfski that I got just for this purpose on the car, and had it on the water by 3 o'clock.

The wind was up to around 15 miles per hour (just over 13 knots).  The conditions weren't big, but there were lots of small bumps with just enough definition for me to work on the basics of downwind paddling.  In my quest to find something good, I checked out different parts of the river from the mouth of the harbor to down below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge.

It was more of a drill session than pure, unadulterated fun--there were no big, fat, sweet, juicy swells to ride.  But I was happy to be working on some skills.  I kept repeating Dawid Mocke's "five rules" in my head: "nose in the hole," "one at a time," "keep up the run rate," "little ones lead to big ones," and "there's always one behind."

Eventually a big upstream-bound barge rig came along, and I went after it hoping to find some big waves to surf.  I wasn't quite able to generate the speed to stay on the biggest swells, but after a while I noticed some interesting things happening along the inside of the big bend just below the old bridges.  The river is a bit shallower there, and some breaking waves were forming.  The water was quite boily and confused and I wasn't getting any prolonged surfs, so eventually I gave up and headed back upriver.

Once I got up to a point across from the entrance to the harbor, I found that same phenomenon happening: even though the barge rig was now more than a mile upstream, some of its lingering waves were building up as they ran into the shallower water on the Arkansas side.  And this time they were cleaner and friendlier to the paddler wishing to surf.  I was getting tired but I spent 20 minutes or so having some fun in this area before heading back to the harbor.

I don't think I slept poorly last night, but I had a really hard time waking up this morning.  It took longer than usual to beat the sleepiness out of my body.  And I was very sore in my midsection, as though I'd done a long hard race yesterday.  Eventually I managed to do a thorough round of stretching and head to the river.

I did an easy 60-minute paddle.  It was entirely uneventful except for a little mishap at the southern tip of Mud Island.  The water there was shallower than I realized, and my rudder plowed into the muddy bottom hard enough to bend the post a little.  When that happens, the rudder gets jammed against the bottom of the boat and is very difficult to move with the pedals.  I dealt with it as best I could and made it back to the dock.  Once I was out of the boat I tried to bend the rudder back so it would move freely again, but it wouldn't budge.  I'll have to take some tools with me on my next trip down there and see if I can get the problem fixed.


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

Out-of-the-boat beatdowns

I mentioned that I've finished that big landscaping job that I spent March and part of April doing, so that particular beating on my body is over.  Now I'm doing some repair work on a fence over at the rental property I own.  A few of the posts have rotted at the base and are falling over, so I'm dedicating one day each week to replacing them.  Using a pick, shovel, and post-hole digger is something that wouldn't have fazed me when I was younger, but now it leaves me sore for the next several days.

I did this work on Monday, and was sore as usual.  Then, on Wednesday, I climbed up on the roof of that same property to clean out the gutters, and that task has left me sore in the darnedest places.  It's a two-story building from which a fall would be quite a detriment to my well-being, and I was having to crawl slowly and carefully down the pitched roof to get to the gutters.  Somehow, doing so has caused pretty bad soreness in my lower abdominals as well as my arms and shoulders.  I've got a couple of bad scrapes on my forearms, too.

The truth is that my non-athletic life is much harder on my body than my athletic life.  Sometimes I think my greatest benefit from the athletic workouts I do is the ability to withstand all my non-athletic trials and tribulations.

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe for a loop of the harbor.  Yesterday I went back down and paddled for 60 minutes as a stiff north wind blew.  I did three 8-stroke sprints in the harbor and then just ferried across the river and back.

This morning I did another round of the strength routine.  I hope this soreness will ease up a bit for the weekend.


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

Monday photo feature

Maryland native Cathy Hearn started winning medals at the whitewater world championships before I'd ever even heard of the sport.

In 1977, Cathy was part of the bronze-winning team in the ladies' kayak slalom class at the world championships at Spittal, Austria.  Two years later, she claimed gold medals in both individual and team women's kayak slalom, and added another team gold in women's kayak wildwater, at Jonquiere, Quebec.

In 1981, Cathy attended the worlds at Bala, Wales, and medaled again, winning individual silver and team bronze in women's kayak slalom.  By this time I was finally aware of whitewater racing: '81 was the summer I got serious about paddling at camp, and I remember taking a trip to the Nantahala River and seeing slalom gates on the river and slalom and wildwater boats on top of cars.

Cathy came home empty-handed from the worlds in '83 and '85, but in '87 she was part of the bronze-winning women's kayak slalom team.  In '89 the worlds came to the U.S. for the first time, on Maryland's Savage River.  In ladies' kayak slalom, Cathy won bronze in individual competition and silver in team.

In 1992, whitewater slalom returned to the Olympic programme for the first time in 20 years, and Cathy made the U.S. team for Barcelona.  She didn't medal there, but the following year she won another slalom worlds medal as part of the women's kayak team that took bronze at Mezzana, Italy.

In 1994 or so I finally got into slalom racing myself, and Cathy was still around.  She made another Olympic team in 1996, and in 1997 she won another medal at the worlds, claiming the individual bronze in women's kayak slalom at Tres Coroas, Brazil.

I took the photo of Cathy above during a practice day at the U.S. team trials at Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1998, the first year I qualified to race at the trials myself.  She would race three more seasons and earn a chance to race a world championships in the U.S. again, on Tennessee's Ocoee River in 2001.  Sadly, that worlds was canceled in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  It was an abrupt end for a career that spanned nearly a quarter-century.


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

Hard paddling and recovery paddling

Adam Davis joined me yesterday to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar.  It was one of those days of unsettled weather conditions, the sunshine appearing and disappearing and reappearing, and a wind blowing from the west-southwest that grew quite a bit stronger as the morning went on.  Here's the map of our route that Adam's G.P.S. device generated:

Paddling up the Mississippi, we stayed on the Tennessee side longer than I normally do.  I usually paddle up to a big eddy right about where Mile 4 is marked above, and then ferry across to complete the trip around the Bar's northern end.  But yesterday we continued up the Tennessee bank to the sand and gravel operation just north of DeWitt Spain Airport.  That area is quite exposed to the river's current, and with that mostly-west wind hammering us we had to spend a lot more energy than usual navigating that stretch.  And then the trip across the main channel (5 to 6 on the map above) was right into the teeth of that wind.

With the current helping us, we got a bit of a break coming down the Loosahatchie Chute.  After one last hard push across a turbulent main channel, we were safely back in the harbor.  I was thoroughly zonked for the rest of the day, much more tired than I'd been after Adam and I paddled for three hours nine days earlier.

The wind continued to intensify as the afternoon went on, and I realized I'd probably missed a good downwind opportunity.  Just below downtown the river bends to the right and flows in a westerly direction for a few miles, and I would bet that wind was creating some good swells in that section.  I've got to start paying closer attention to the wind forecast and making downwind opportunities a priority.

It was mostly sunny when I went down to the river this morning, and the wind had abated and shifted to the north.  It was time to do a recovery paddle.  I got in the boat and paddled easy for 60 minutes.

Once in a while somebody asks me if it wouldn't be better to skip paddling and just rest when I'm recovering.  But I've been a believer in active recovery for my entire athletic career, dating back to my teenage years as a runner.  By doing some easy paddling, I'm getting blood flowing precisely in the muscles that need repair.

Whitewater slalom coach Ron Lugbill once wrote that the danger of recovery in the boat is that an athlete might get carried away and end up paddling harder than he should, and that's a valid concern.  If a barge rig passes by with some nice looking waves, I have to restrain myself from going out and surfing, for instance.  If I need something to occupy my mind, I'll focus on technical stuff.  Today I tuned in to the feeling of solid blade pressure as each stroke moved through the water.  By the end of the hour I'd kept the intensity low and felt better than I'd felt before paddling.


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

Enjoying the nice and not-so-nice days

One thing the global pandemic hasn't stopped is the blossoming of spring.  Lately we've been having several lovely sunny days a week, and I'm trying to make a point of enjoying them.  My house has a rather nice deck out back of which I've never fully availed myself: those who have known me well for years will tell you that I'm sort of a busy buzzin' bee who has trouble sitting still.  But in the last several weeks I've made time toward the end of each beautiful day to sit out there and just savor the moment.

Tuesday was one such gorgeous day.  That morning I did a round of the strength routine and then headed downtown to paddle a loop of the harbor with Joe.

By Wednesday afternoon a system of rain had moved in--we're still getting plenty of rain this spring, too--and yesterday morning I paddled in a lingering drizzle.  After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints I headed out on to the Mississippi, where a growing south breeze was generating the slightest hint of some downwind conditions.  I've mentioned in the past that getting help from the tiny bumps is an area where I need to improve, so I spent a half-hour or so yesterday paddling upriver and working on that.  For much of the time the conditions just weren't defined enough for me to do much good, but maybe once or twice I got a little ride... hey, you do what you can with the conditions you've got.  If nothing else, I got some good exercise out there on our big beautiful river.

This morning I did another round of the strength routine.  Right now it's partly sunny and I think it will be a nice day.  It looks like more rain is on its way for the weekend.


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

Just curious

Here's a sign that I have too much time on my hands as these days of hunkering down turn into weeks and months.

As the creator and curator of this blog, I have access to statistics regarding its readership.  I get no clue as to any reader's identity, but I am informed of the number of people viewing the blog and the nations in which they reside.

I am based in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of my acquaintances and friends are U.S. residents, so it's no surprise that most of this blog's "hits" originate here in the U.S.  But quite a few views originate elsewhere.

Shortly after my return from South Africa in February, the Miller's Taxi page on Face Book shared a link to this blog, and for the next day or so I got a lot of hits from South Africa.  I thought that was really cool.  Since then that readership has dropped back down to almost zero.  I sure do hope you South Africans will come back and see me sometime.

Once in a while I get a sudden burst of dozens of hits from Russia, and I tend to dismiss those as some variety of hackbots.  I know, I'm profiling and generalizing, but the fact is that I don't know a single person, paddler or otherwise, in that nation.

Most intriguing to me are the fairly-frequent views I'm getting in nations like Portugal, South Korea, Canada, and Great Britain.  Paddlesports enjoy some popularity in all those places, and I do have either friends or friends-of-friends in those places, so I'm pretty sure those are actual human beings having a look at the blog.

SO... if you're in Portugal or South Korea or Great Britain or even Russia, and you feel so inclined, how about letting me know who you are?  Have we met before?  What led you to this blog?  What's your interest in paddling?  You can either post a comment here, or send me an e-mail at thebigeholmes [at] hotmail [dot] com.

Like I said, I'm bored and don't have enough to do, and I totally understand if you'd rather remain anonymous.  But I really do enjoy knowing who's reading all this stuff I write.  Once in a while when I'm at a race somewhere, somebody I barely know will come up to me and say "I love your blog!"  That never fails to make my day.  I rarely attend races with the citizens of distant lands, but it's a thrill to know that at least a tiny number of people there are reading these words.


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

Monday photo feature

The Blue Cruz Canoe and Kayak Race was supposed to be this past weekend.  It's a 22-mile race down the Mississippi River from Madison Parish Port, Louisiana, to the Vicksburg riverfront.

This photo is from that race in 2014 or thereabouts.  I'm fending off a fierce challenge from Rick Carter of Eutawville, South Carolina.  Photo by Paul Ingram.


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

Shorter and faster

Yesterday morning was chilly but the sun was coming out.  I went down to the river with the intention of doing something shorter and quicker than what I've mostly been doing lately.

I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints.  It was my first time in weeks doing these sprints, and they did feel a bit rusty, but not as bad as I was expecting.

I left the harbor and headed downriver toward the Harahan Bridge.  I had a workout in mind that I thought might combine some higher-intensity paddling with some boat control.  Starting in an eddy on the Arkansas bank upstream of the bridge, I paddled out into the river and looped around the nearest piling.  Then I ferried back to the Arkansas bank and paddled back up to the eddy where I'd started.  Sounds simple enough, but this lap took me around four and a half minutes and included navigating the boiling water below the bridge piling, doing a long ferry back to shore, and doing sort of an attainment move to complete it.  I ended up calling it a "giant slalom" because it was something I might have done while training for slalom on smaller rivers scaled up by a pretty big factor.  I did four laps with three minutes recovery in between.  I treated it more as a "play" workout than as a serious on-the-clock sort of thing, but I was suitably tired by the time it was over.

Yesterday blossomed into a gorgeous sunny day, but by this morning some more rain had moved in.  I went downtown this morning and paddled for 60 minutes in a fine mist that occasionally swelled into actual rainfall.  I did another set of 8-strokers and then just paddled a comfortable pace the rest of the time.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the pain in my right arm and shoulder is healing.  It had hurt badly for a solid week and I was starting to get concerned, but now it's feeling quite a bit better.  It's not completely gone yet but I like the direction it's headed.


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

Savoring the Mid South riverscapes

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then headed downtown to paddle a loop of the harbor with Joe.  A mass of chilly air had moved into the area, driven by a frigid north wind.  Thinking that such weather was behind us, I'd washed my pogies and put them away over the weekend.  I was wishing I had them on Tuesday, especially as we paddled into the teeth of that wind.

On Wednesday I got a message from Adam Davis.  Adam is on vacation this week; his original plan was fill the week with some travel, bookended by races in Florida last weekend and Vicksburg this coming weekend.  The pandemic upended his plans, and in his message he suggested a long paddle upriver from Memphis for yesterday.  I mentioned last weekend that I've been feeling a bit run down by these long paddles, but I didn't want to disappoint Adam as he made the best of his plight.  So I was in the boat bright and early yesterday morning.

The outing turned out to be immensely enjoyable.  I felt surprisingly energetic as we left the harbor and pursued a spirited pace up the Mississippi.  A gorgeous sunny day took shape as we passed all the familiar landmarks along the Tennessee bank: the Greenbelt Park, the mouth of the Wolf River, the Maynard C. Stiles sewage treatment plant, DeWitt Spain Airport, the sand and gravel operation, the mouth of the Loosahatchie River.  We continued northward toward the lower reaches of the Hickman Bar, finally threading the slot between two of the little islets there.

From there we ferried across to the Arkansas side and found the entrance to the little channel on the west side of the Redman Point Bar.  It had been some 15 years since I'd last visited this channel, which is no more than maybe a hundred meters wide, and I'd forgotten just what a beautiful place it is.  Under blue skies we cruised the edge of the lush bottomland forest as the sun-dappled waters threw sparks of light all over the landscape.  Eventually the channel gave way to the much larger Loosahatchie Chute, and my thoughts wandered back toward home as fatigue began to set in. I tried to keep my strokes relaxed and efficient as the downtown skyline came back into view and our tour entered its last half-hour.

We made it back to the harbor, I bade Adam goodbye at the cobblestones, and I returned to my own dock nearly three hours after I'd started.  Such long sessions are not something I like to do often.  But seeing as how there's really nothing to train for anytime soon, why not get out and explore?  Ultimately it's what paddling is about.  I've enjoyed reconnecting with some of the natural wonders that lie slightly farther afield from downtown Memphis.  Meanwhile, my body still needs something shorter and quicker, so maybe I'll get around to that this weekend.

That injury in my right arm/shoulder area has continued hurting this week.  But since paddling yesterday the pain hasn't been as bad, and I think paddling might actually have some therapeutic value in this case.  That's my non-medical, "gut-feeling" opinion, anyway.  I was otherwise very tired for the rest of the day yesterday, but it was that nice satisfying kind of tired.

I got in another round of the strength routine this morning, and now I'm hoping for a nice weekend in the boat.


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

Monday photo feature

It looks like Adam Davis has me beat to the finish line!  Actually, we were paddling by the sand and gravel operation just north of DeWitt Spain Airport on Saturday, and buoys were strewn about in several places, for what purpose I do not know.

It will probably be a long time before we're approaching the finish line of a real race again.  But it's always fun to pretend.


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

Pains and aches

On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe to paddle a loop of the harbor.

I've been feeling pretty beat-up all week, and the main reason lies in my non-athletic life.  I spent the first half of the week doing another big surge of work in that landscaping project I've been mentioning over the last month or so.  Any project that involves pouring concrete and laying bricks is going to require a lot of digging.  There's a reason digging is among the principal archetypes for backbreaking manual labor.

A month ago I mentioned some lack of feeling in my left leg, and since then I've had some similar problems in my hands and wrists, and I now think that's all the result of swinging the pick axe and shoveling up all that rooty, gravelly soil.  I talked to my friend Rob, a chiropractor up in New York, and he said it was the likely cause.  He also pointed out that the lack of feeling is a nerve issue, not a circulation issue as I'd suspected.

By Wednesday evening I was dealing with a new ailment: a sharp, stabbing pain in my right arm where the biceps muscle meets the deltoid.  I think I know what caused it: swinging a hammer.  I'd spent the day laying bricks on a section of driveway, using a brick hammer to keep them packed as tightly as possible.  Particularly toward the end of the job it was taking a series of hard blows to get each brick in place.

It was hurting bad Thursday morning and I took the day off from paddling.  It was perhaps slightly better Friday, but not by much.  I did manage to do another round of the strength routine; I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle the bicep curls, but they went surprisingly okay.  It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the pain is, but apparently it's not in the main spot that the curls hit.  I went slow and tried to use correct technique throughout each set.

Yesterday morning I got back in the boat.  Every time I paddle I start with a set of back strokes away from the dock, and my injured spot hurt as I did so yesterday, but it felt okay once I was paddling forward.  The discomfort was definitely there, but whichever muscle is hurt apparently is not directly involved in paddling.

I paddled to the south end of the harbor and met up with Adam Davis, who put in at the cobblestones.  We embarked on a fairly long trip: we paddled up the Mississippi River along the Tennessee bank until we reached the mouth of the Loosahatchie River, then ferried across to the lower end of the Redman Bar, then headed back toward town by way of the Loosahatchie Chute.  Here's the map of our route that Adam's G.P.S. device generated:

For me it was about a fourteen-mile circuit that took almost 140 minutes.  I felt tired and a bit sluggish in the boat, and the long session left me quite worn out for the rest of the day.  I took a nap after lunch and then spent the late afternoon laying the last section of bricks, using the hammer as little as possible.  I'm happy to say that the landscaping project is complete except for a few finishing touches.

The main reason I bore down to get that job done is that I knew today was going to be a soggy one.  Heavy thunderstorms moved in overnight and it poured rain all morning and into the afternoon.  I try not to let rain stop me from paddling, but there was quite a bit of lightning today as well, so I stayed in and gazed forlornly out the windows for much of the day.  We finally got a break in the rain around 3 o'clock, so I did a bit of stretching and headed downtown.  I was still feeling tired and sluggish and I paddled for just 40 minutes.  Since this whole pandemic wiped out my race schedule I've mostly been doing long, slow paddles, and I think that might be one of the reasons for my feelings of sluggishness.  I need to make a point of working in at least one short, fast session each week.

It's my understanding that one more line of storms, possibly severe, will move through later tonight.  After that it's supposed to be cooler here for several days, with Fahrenheit highs in the 50s.

Getting my arms all warmed up by paddling has helped my injured area feel better yesterday and today.  Once my muscles cool down and tighten back up, the area starts hurting again.  I hope this is something I can paddle through until it runs its course.


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

Monday photo feature

Check out this stunning photograph that Joe Royer sent me in a text message.  He took it as he and his wife Carol Lee were at the marina getting ready to paddle Friday evening.  Joe is as fine an amateur photographer as anybody I know.

Though in general I love the ducks that hang out down there, I can't say I love everything about them.  On Saturday morning when I got down to the dock to paddle myself, there was ample evidence that the ducks had been there.  Oh well, I guess that's a small price to pay for the overall ambience we enjoy on our riverfront.

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

More flood paddling

As the weekend arrived, the Mississippi River was reaching its crest at 37.2 feet on the Memphis gauge.  The official "flood stage" here is 34 feet, at which bottomland areas begin to flood significantly.  When Adam Davis paddled Friday morning, his G.P.S. device generated a rather interesting map of his route:

No, Adam's boat is not equipped with hovercraft technology.  The areas that appear as dry land in this image are currently underwater.

I was in a mood to paddle something similar to Adam's route yesterday morning.  I didn't want to paddle more than 70 minutes or so, so I stayed south of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge (Interstate 40) and just did a loop across that big swath of bottomland there.  My biceps and triceps were sore from the new strength routine I'd started up Friday, but once I got warmed up I paddled pretty comfortably.

Adam and I got together to paddle today, and we ended up doing something pretty similar to what Adam did on Friday: we started out going downriver below the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge (Interstate 55), then worked our way back up north of the HDB and into Dacus Lake before returning to the harbor.

Today was a lovely sunny day.  Such has been hard to come by so far this spring, but as I noted a few days ago, nice days are becoming ever so slightly more frequent.


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

Keeping up the routine, and swimming against a current of pessimism

I got back in the boat yesterday morning after several days off, and it felt good to paddle.  The morning was partly sunny, and as the day went on it became completely sunny with a high in the low 70s Fahrenheit.  We're still having a lot of clouds and rain here--the extended forecast shows chances of rain pretty much every day--but I think the sunny-to-cloudy ratio is slowly ticking upward.

Today I started up a new strength routine.  I'd been doing the old one for some five weeks, so it was time for a change.  I've said for a long time that strength work is my least favorite part of training, but I've always done it because I think it does benefit my racing, and I also believe that it's good for later-life wellness to maintain some muscle tone.  With no races to do anytime soon I've been doing strength work two times a week rather than the customary three.

Will there be any races to do at all this year?  That's a very good question.  There's just one event left on my schedule between now and the end of summer: the Gorge Downwind Championships on the Columbia River in July.  Carter Johnson, the director of that event, has stated publicly that there are no plans at this time to cancel or postpone the event.  "Four months is a while; we are staying positive," he says.

He's right--mid-July is a while off, and there's no reason to make any drastic decisions right now.  Unfortunately, I have a feeling it might not be a long enough while off.  A lot of things will have to fall neatly into place for the event to occur as scheduled.  With the airlines having grounded significant portions of their fleets and furloughed legions of employees, those who rely on air travel to get there, especially the international athletes, could face a major challenge.  Meanwhile, the event has grown to what it is through the cooperation and camaraderie of large groups of people, and that very concept has now fallen decidedly out of favor.  Even if the situation has turned around by mid-July, will people really feel comfortable piling into the shuttle vans together, or gathering together in the beer garden?

If the event does in fact go forward, I have a feeling the field of participants will be quite a bit smaller.  The air travel concerns cited above are one reason, but an even more compelling reason is the simple fact that a lot of people's lives have been turned upside down over the last several weeks.  Many athletes might lack the financial resources they'd counted on to make the trip.  Others might be working overtime to make up for the lost work time we've seen this spring.  And some might be preoccupied mourning loved ones who succumbed to COVID-19.

A drop in participation raises another concern: the issue of accommodations.  If I end up going, but the people I'm supposed to be sharing a rental house with don't make the trip, then I'll have to either bear a greater expense for the house or find some other lodging for myself.

Believe me, I hope this event happens--it's something I look forward to all year.  I apologize for the glass-half-empty outlook here, but I'm seeing some obstacles that simply can't be ignored.  The race organizers plan to meet on June 1 to re-evaluate the circumstances and make firmer decisions about what to do.  That's two months from now, and I can only hope that by then we've turned a major corner in this global pandemic.


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

A new strength routine

Most of these exercises are ones I've shared here before, and I provide a video link when such a thing is available.  Exercise #2 is one I stumbled upon while browsing Face Book: there's video of surfski athlete Michelle Eray doing it on the "Paddle California" page, so if you're a Face Book user I encourage you to check that out.

Also on Face Book, well-known South African athlete and coach Hayley Nixon has posted a series of "lockdown" exercises on her page, and I think I might do some borrowing from that in the future.  You Face Book users should check that out as well.

In the meantime, here's what I've dreamt up for now:

1.  Kickback (demonstrated by Lindsey at 4:03 of this video)

2.  Knee to Elbow exercise (demonstrated by Michelle Eray in a video on the "Paddle California" Face Book page)

3.  Bicep curls

4.  Lunges

5.  Butterfly crunches (demonstrated by Michele Ramazza at 3:20 of his video on this page)


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

"Why even?"

The Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race, scheduled for June 13, has been called off.  Race director Joe Royer gave me the news Monday afternoon.  Apparently the organization that contracts with the city to manage the riverfront parks was putting pressure on him to pull the plug, and he decided there was no compelling reason to resist.

I figured that this cancelation was probably inevitable, so it shouldn't have come as any great shock.  But it delivered another blow to my motivation, just like a couple of weeks ago when the first round of race cancelations occurred.  Somehow I managed to do a round of the strength routine yesterday morning, but with Joe having some work commitments and unable to meet me down at the river, I skipped paddling.  The weather was rainy and miserable anyway.  I ended up spending the rest of yesterday just puttering around the house, doing small chores here and there but mostly just moping.

And then, at the end of the day, I learned that somebody I knew had died of the COVID-19 virus.  Last Wednesday he'd posted this message on his Face Book page: "I checked into Methodist Central and getting tested for whatever I got."  That was his last direct communication with the greater public.  Over the ensuing days several friends posted that he'd tested positive for the coronavirus and was on a ventilator.  Then last night his sister announced that he'd passed away, adding, "I hate you, COVID-19.  You stole my brother from me."

I didn't know the man super-well, but he was a constant presence in my community.  He was 68--not exactly young--but he was active and energetic.  Now, just like that, he's no more.  I was already aware on some level that in the scheme of things all these races getting called off was nothing more than a first-world problem, and that overall I'm one of the more fortunate people in this global health crisis.  But something like this had to happen for me to appreciate the true deadliness of this virus.

Up until now I think I've done a decent job of keeping up a daily routine.  Fortunately I do have work and activities that were well established long before this pandemic descended upon us.  Of course I'm used to getting in the boat several days a week.  I own a rental property that presents ongoing chores--I can't say I relish working over there, primarily because it's not really "my turf" even though I do own the place, but the fact that the tenants there depend on me to do those chores is adequate motivation.  The woodworking business has been quiet and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future, but I have a whole list of home-improvement projects to keep me busy during such lulls--that landscaping job out back that I mentioned a few posts ago is one example.

But as one friend of mine put it, "it seems like just a little more 'why even?' wants to creep in each day."  Maybe I should just allow myself a couple of do-nothing days... I'm pretty sure I'm not the kind of person who's likely to lapse into a complete non-functioning state.  Then again, something like this is an entirely new experience in my lifetime.


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

Monday photo feature

As I paddled across Dacus Lake on Saturday I spotted a flock of ducks.  I had my Go Pro camera with me, and thinking that a bunch of ducks taking flight would make for a good shot, I started paddling toward them.  I got closer and closer, and they didn't budge.  Finally I was right alongside them, and realized that they were plastic decoys.

I don't know who might have put them there, or why--the only type of hunting that's in season right now is for light geese in Arkansas, and Dacus Lake is technically within Tennessee's boundaries.  I guess it's possible that some careless hunter left them there, and now they will become litter.


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

Some distance paddling and a tiny bit of surfing

Yesterday was another unseasonably warm one, the temperature topping out around 80 degrees Fahrenheit in the afternoon.  It was also mostly cloudy with storms moving in late in the day.  The wind blew from the south around 20 miles per hour much of the day.

That meant conditions were bumpy out on the river as I paddled out there yesterday morning.  With a 33.9-foot level on the Memphis gauge, there was enough water for some exploring over on the Arkansas side.  I paddled up into the flooded Greenbelt Park and then ferried across to the outflow channel for the Hopefield Chute (aka Dacus Lake).  The water in the channel was plenty deep to provide access to this oxbow, and I paddled up there to see what was going on.  I didn't see another human.  Dacus Lake is a popular fishing spot, but with all the access roads underwater it's hard for any fishermen to get there unless they find some distant spot to launch their boats.

Once I felt I'd seen enough I headed back to the river's main channel.  The wind wasn't blowing quite hard enough to generate good downwind surfing conditions, but there was a huge barge rig moving upriver, and with its wake added to the mix I thought there might be an opportunity.

I waited for the rig to pass and then checked out the conditions in the section of river just below the Hernando DeSoto Bridge.  What I found was a "sort-of" downwind situation: there were surfable waves scattered all over the place, but there wasn't really a pattern to them like there is in a true downwind scenario.  I managed to catch a few okay runs, which you can watch here:



Make no mistake: I was not styling it out there.  This video includes only the halfway respectable runs I caught; in between I was doing a lot of flailing around.  One reality I'm coming to terms with is that I'm really not stable enough in my V12 to be as aggressive as I need to be.  I think anytime there's a south wind I need to break out the V10 Sport.

I'd hoped to paddle with Adam Davis again yesterday, but he had to be in his office.  But when I got up this morning I had a message from him asking if I'd like to paddle today.  I replied in the affirmative.

I met Adam in the harbor under a mostly-sunny sky.  We had cooler temperatures and a west-northwest breeze in the wake of those storms.  Adam had never really paddled on Dacus Lake before, so I decided to go back there so he could see where the outflow channel was.  We ended up paddling the farthest north in the lake I'd ever been, and that made for a satisfying wilderness paddle even though we were only two or three miles from the "concrete jungle" of downtown Memphis.  For most of our two hours in the boat we maintained a good strong pace.

Another barge rig was coming upriver as we re-entered the main channel, and once we were below it I tried surfing its non-wind-aided wake.  I got one fairly decent ride.  We went on back to the harbor and I completed a weekend full of paddling variety.


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

The distancing intensifies

On Tuesday morning I did a round of the strength routine and then met Joe to paddle a loop of the harbor.

Meanwhile, the mayors of my city and county had handed down a "shelter in place" order.  It took effect at 6 o'clock Tuesday evening.  For the moment it falls short of all-out martial law, relying mostly on the cooperation of the populace instead.  I have heard anecdotes of cops stopping people to ask them why they're out, however, and that's a little unsettling.  The Memphis Police Department is one of the more obtuse organizations I've ever encountered and the idea of giving them one more reason to hassle people doesn't thrill me.

Our daily newspaper provides this summary:

You can

• Go to the grocery, convenience or warehouse store
• Go to the pharmacy to pick up medications and other healthcare necessities
• Go to medical appointments (check with your doctor or provider first)
• Go to a restaurant for take-out, delivery or drive-thru
• Care for child, family member, elderly, or pet
• Take a walk, ride your bike, hike, jog, and be in nature for exercise — just keep at least six feet between you and others. 
• Walk your pets and take them to the veterinarian if necessary
• Help someone to get necessary supplies
• Receive deliveries from any business which delivers

You should not 

• Go to work unless you are providing essential services as defined by the Order
• Visit friends and family if there is no urgent need
• Visit loved ones in the hospital, nursing home, skilled nursing facility or other residential care facility, except for limited exceptions as provided on the facility websites.

"Take a walk, ride your bike, hike, jog, and be in nature for exercise"--I interpret that to include paddling my boat down on the riverfront.  And so I was back there yesterday morning for a 60-minute paddle.  We finally had a warm sunny day yesterday, with the temperature shooting up into the 80s on the Fahrenheit thermometer, and I wore shorts and short sleeves for the first time in the northern hemisphere this year.

I did another round of the strength routine this morning.  It's supposed to stay warm for the next couple of days, but get stormier during the weekend.  Hopefully I can squeeze in some sort of river adventure tomorrow.

How am I feeling?  Great, that's how.  But I'm still trying to act under the assumption that I'm an asymptomatic carrier of the virus, keep my distance from everybody I encounter, and be as responsible as I know how to be.  Really, this new shelter-in-place order is just asking me to do what I'd already been doing for at least a week: staying home aside from trips to the river and the grocery store.


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