Last evening I went for a long slow distance paddle. It was cold and windy, so I opted for Irondequiot Creek even though it’s too shallow for a good workout. I thought I’d head upstream and see how far I got.
Part of the point of this exercise is to see if I’m ready for the ‘Round The Mountain’ race in three weeks time. Originally my first long race of the season was going to be the ‘Tupper Lake 9 Miler’ (which is actually closer to 7.5 miles) on June 6. But RTM is an attractive race for many reasons, except for that whole ‘only being three weeks away and being longer than I’ve paddled this year’ thing.
So basically I wanted some indication on this paddle if I’d be able to paddle the 10.5 miles of RTM without dying (figuratively or literally). To be a real test I probably should have gone on the river or maybe even on the bay, but trying to squeeze in a paddle on the way home argues against the river, and the windiness argued against the bay.