Category: Revelation

[youtube D3_qAcF8n4Q]This is why I don’t mind paying Dan for some coaching, even when I don’t have a lot of spare cash. I can watch videos of myself alone until I’m blue in the face, but it takes a coach to point out the things I was missing. In this video I’m getting a *lot* more torso rotation that I do when I erg alone. And if there’s one thing that last year taught me, it’s that doing good technique on the erg translates to having good technique be natural on the water. If there’s one thing I heard over and over again from my teammates in 2009, it was how good my technique was and how naturally it seemed to come to me. Stephen referred to me as “a technique savant”. But it wasn’t natural, it was a result of hours spent at Dan’s house erging and listening to his advice, as well as listening to the advice of other experienced paddlers.

Today I was doing 800 metre (half mile) intervals, working on technique while maintaining a fast pace. I did 6 intervals, all around 4:11-4:13. This video is from the last one, where I was my tiredest.

[youtube F8HlKZJiboI]I did a long work-out at Stephen’s today. I think my technique is coming along nicely, except I drop my head down and to the side too much when I get tired. Jim says I look like I’m leaning back, but I think that’s because my gut gets in the way. The front-view video is from about 40 or 50 minutes into the work-out, and the side view is from the first ten minutes. One thing I worked on was trying to get more rotation – when I thought about it and worked on it, my stroke rate dropped from around 72-74 down to about 64-66, but my speed stayed the same. I didn’t see much change in my pulse, but my heart rate monitor was cutting in and out all the time. I guess I should find out from Dan whether he thinks the longer slower stroke will lead to good results in the water as well.

I went over to Stephen’s house to erg tonight. The past two Wednesdays I’ve gone to Doug’s, but he was busy tonight. Stephen’s house is a bit of a haul, but gas is cheaper than buying my own erg. Plus it’s fun to hang out with different paddlers and talk about stuff.

We did 5 minute intervals, alternating. Stephen hasn’t calibrated his erg, so I think the speed it was showing was a bit fast. I would do a set with the resistance set to about 5-7, then he’d do a set at about the speed with the resistance set to 7-9. My heart rate was in the middle 150s. After we both did 6 sets, Stephen had had enough, because he’d done a hard workout yesterday, so I did a steady 15 minute piece at about the same speed. The last couple of minutes of my piece, I sped up and raised my heart rate into the 160s.

It was a great work-out. Plus I got to inflict my CD of “Kilted Generation” on Stephen.

This morning, Doug, Mike and I agreed to meet at BayCreek for a paddle. I’d scouted it out on Thursday when it was about 42 degrees out, and it was remarkably free of ice. But as I got in the car to go, I noticed that the temperature this morning was only 25 degrees. Not quite as pleasant. I won’t be paddling without pogies today.

I arrived at the parking lot to see that Mike was already there, but he’d gotten his car stuck in the snow. I helped push him out, which is not exactly the sort of warm up I wanted. Doug arrived almost as soon as we’d gotten Mike out, and we didn’t waste any time getting ready. As I’ve done so many times before, I realized that I’d left my GPS on the table where I was getting ready. Oh well.

The creek had a bit more ice around the edges, and the water was cold and dense. The shallowness of the water and the swiftness of the flow meant that we didn’t make very good speed, and we had to constantly hunt from side to side to find water deep enough to paddle in, even if it meant being in the main brunt of the current. Often we ended up in single file because it the only deep water was too narrow for side by side paddling.

After 15 or 20 minutes, I was finally warmed up enough to take off my paddling jacket. There was a very narrow fast bit just downstream from where the weir used to be, and Doug and Mike waited for me just above that. As we warmed up, we started really enjoying it. I have to say, in spite of the ice forming on my jacket, in my beard, and on the top of the boat, I was warmer paddling this morning than I am sitting in my office right now.

In spite of the cold, we saw geese, ducks, swans and one kingfisher. We also saw lots of people walking their dogs in Ellison dog park. A few of the people looked at us like we were crazy. They were probably right.

By the time we were ready to turn around, I was dragging behind the other two guys a bit. After we turned around, I enjoyed the feeling of actually making some headway so much that I went out hard and lead them through a line that went from deep fast part to deep fast part. I think I managed to keep the lead for about half a mile before first Mike and then Doug pulled past me.

After we “finished”, we decided to paddle out into the bay to look around. We could see some motorcycles running around a pylon course on part of the ice, and the ubiquitous ice fishermen, and there were were out nearly half a mile from shore. We hit ice a few dozen feet short of where the time trial turn-around was, so I said “to hell with it” and paddled out into the ice. My Looksha does an ok job of breaking thin ice, but when I went to turn I got about 90 degrees around before I hit thicker ice that I couldn’t break through easily and turn at the same time. That’s when it hit me how silly this little stunt was. I had to paddle backwards a bit, breaking ice with my paddle for every stroke, and then once I got into thinner ice, turn for home and paddle back, still breaking ice. Not the smartest thing I ever did, but not dangerous. At the worst, I would have had to paddle backwards around the curve that I’d already cut in the ice, and I didn’t have to do that.

It was a great day out, and I’m hoping there will be more thaw days.

NYMCRA has announced their points calendar for this year. It’s only seven races this year, instead of the ten last year. Assuming that these races are going to be on the same weekend as last year, here’s what my race calendar looks like so far:

Probable Date	Race	Points Race	Comments
15 May	Round The Mountain	Y	I didn’t do this one last year because it was too early. It was pretty rough. I may need to use the Looksha.
5 June	Tupper Lake 9 Miler	N	Not a points race, even though it was last year. It was my first real long distance race, and it’s very well suited to me, being a river without massive waves or long shallow stretches.
12 June	SLVP Madrid	Y	Up near Ogdensburg, NY. 9 miles with a portage. I know nothing about it, but the Google satellite view shows Madrid is on a river with a lot of shallows.
26 June	Rochester Open Water Challenge	Y	I’m hoping I’ll be comfortable enough in waves by then to use my Thunderbolt, or maybe borrow a surf ski.
10 July	Armond Bassett	Y	This was my first 10 miler last year, and in spite of the thunderstorms and my bad pacing, I’m looking forward to it again. It will be a perfect race for the Thunderbolt.
17 July	Electric City Regatta	Y	12 mile race in Rotterdam, NY. I don’t know anything about it, but the web page says it starts on the upriver side of a lock, so it’s probably an up and back race.
1 August	Owasco Lake Challenge	Y	I missed this one last year because Vicki and I went to Pulaski with the Huggers Ski Club. I heard it was a good one.
8 August	Great Race	N	This isn’t a points race, but I enjoyed it this year and Vicki is talking about maybe doing the short course.
25 September	Long Lake Long Boat Regatta	Y	My favourite race last year.

I’ll probably fill in some non points races too. I enjoyed Tupper Lake last year, and even though it’s not a points race, I’ll probably do that one.