Category: Kayaking

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.

Dan and I paddled at the Genesee Waterway Center. The goal was to do some 2000 metre intervals. It started off sunny but a bit windy an a bit cool, but it go progressively windier and cooler, and clouding over. There was some sort of rowing regatta going on, which meant we had to go upstream a bit to get away from all the rowers. We did a long warm up upstream but down wind.

The first 2000 metres was 500 metres upstream then 1500 metres into the wind. It felt much harder into the wind, but I was actually going a tiny bit faster. The second 2000 metres was downwind/upstream, but it was really hard. I barely finished it, but I did finish it. Dan gave me some help letting me ride his wash. The third interval was into the wind, which was really biting by then. I was tired, and Dan let me stop after 1000 metres because my speed was dropping.

We paddled back to the junction of the canal and the river, and we did some 500 metre intervals. I was still tired, but I managed to keep up a decent 6.1 mph pace for all three intervals. But after three, I was freezing. We paddled back to the dock just as Stephen was getting ready to leave.

The GPS only recorded while I was doing the actual intervals, so it doesn’t count the distance I did for the warm up, and distance between the first set of intervals. But what it does record is 4.85 miles, which probably means the total workout was nearly 6 miles. It thrills me no end that the sort of distance that last September I was doing as a long slow distance workout is now what I can do as part of a much harder speed workout. I feel my old fitness coming back like an old friend. I missed it.

I’ve created a Google Calendar for paddle races in the North East NY, and Ontario and Quebec, in the hopes that it will be useful to other paddlers in the region. Please let me know if you find this useful, otherwise I won’t bother next year. Also let me know of any races I’ve missed or any mistakes.

You can add the calendar to your own (if you use Google Calendar) by clicking here and clicking the plus sign at the very bottom beside the Google Calendar logo.

Tonight the kayak team met to do interval training. We were doing 5 sets of 0.5 mile interval with 10 minutes recovery between. The 10 minutes gives you plenty of time to paddle upstream to the start of the 0.5 mile section, drink some sports drink, and let your heart rate recover a bit. The GPS is awesome for this, since it will automatically stop the timer when you hit 0.5 miles, and then count down the 10 minute recovery.

One of my goals tonight was to keep my interval times consistent, and having constant feedback on distance travelled and time helped a lot. My times were 3:57, 3:58, 3:57, 3:58 and 3:56. It doesn’t get much more consistent than that. Sure, my times were about 40 seconds slower than the other guys on the team, but being heavier puts me at a huge disadvantage, especially in shallow water. And besides, I’m not really “A team” material, I just like hanging around with them.

It wasn’t until afterwards that it struck me that between the half mile paddle up, the half mile interval down, and the warm up and warm down, I paddled 6 fairly fast miles. Last year, even at the end of the season, a fast 6 mile work out was pretty long. So I’m making progress. My two goals for this season were to beat 20 minutes in the Baycreek 2 time time trail, and to finish the 9 miler at the Long Lake Long Boat Regatta. I’m not sure about that 20 minute goal – I have a feeling I’ll be striving for that one all year. But at this point I’m feeling like I could probably enter one of the early season 7-10 mile races and have a hope of a not too shabby finish. Maybe I should look at the “Round the Mountain” or “Tupper Lake 9 miler”?

Yesterday, the team was supposed to do a 5 mile workout – either on the bay or up the creek. But the weather utterly sucked – the temp was barely above freezing, and there was wet snow in the air. No thanks.
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