Kayaking the lazy river.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

One day after the workout that should have left me a cripple went well. I never had anything near the soreness I’d felt a week ago after my first bleacher workout, and I’d done considerably more this time. The body adapts so quickly, which is a nice thing, but I must admit that at age 55, I didn’t expect mine to be still adapting so quickly. I often tell clients ‘the more you do…the more you can do’ and I guess it’s time to once again have the faith as it relates to my situation. Let’s face it…I’ve been doing quite a bit for four months now and so my body is ready for new challenges…at least more ready than it was in February. Having said all that, I figured my running legs needed a night off, so I texted Savannah to see if she wanted to go kayaking.

“Sounds good,” was the reply, which surprised me a little. She was out kayaking on Lake Erie recently and said she liked it. I suggested then that we go and she’d said okay, but I thought it was just to satisfy the old man. Apparently not.

We strapped the kayaks to the rack on her jeep and headed for the Upper Cuyahoga River and Russell Park. I like putting in there and heading down river to a take out just above Camp High. It’s probably around 11 miles with only one slight rapid in Hiram and is perfect for a gentle two-hour run. I always see beaver, great blue heron, muskrat, deer, trout or salmon jumping from the water (catching deer flies, I hope), hawks and the occasional eagle. It is amazing to think this is the same water that flows through the flats on its way to Lake Erie.

We only had an hour and so would head down river and then return against the flow. Savannah wisely wondered about this and how much more difficult it would be. She’s an engineering student…always thinking logically.

“Actually, this is a really cool section of river. If you stay to the right you’ll have the current with you and the same thing on the way back.”

She wasn’t buying it, but the current is so gentle, it only takes about 10% more time returning…and we wanted a workout anyway. We applied bug spray, but he deer fly were completely unimpressed. They don’t know me here too well and so I decided to introduce them.

“Smashed that one good. I’m going to leave his remains on the outside of the kayak as a deterrent,” I said.

“Right, dad…that’ll work,” Savannah replied, swinging madly at the little bastards.

“Got another,” I said and gently placed it with its buddy. I nailed four more and had them arrayed around me on the kayak…and then they stopped. The remainder of the hoard moved over to Savannah who was not nearly so adept in killing them. She was raising her voice and calling them nasty names…but they were unimpressed.

“I’m telling you…start a collection of dead bodies. It works wonders.”

She never got the hang of smashing them, but did well with the kayak, maneuvering nicely through the limbs and trees that had fallen into the river. We were in 17’ sea kayaks, making that kind of boating a challenge. She said her neck and upper back were getting sore though, and so we turned and headed back to the put-in.

“Come about twice a week for three weeks and you’ll be fine,” I said. She paid careful attention to how we mounted the kayaks on the jeep because she wanted to bring friends to try later on her own.

Later that night, Holly asked me to join her on her 25-minute walking loop around the block, which I gladly did. It wasn’t a hard day, but I ended up with 90 minutes of activity and a break for the legs.

Kayak duration: 60 minutes. Walk duration: 25 minutes.
Training Heart rate: 90 kayaking, 75 walking, 125 killing deerflies.
Calories burned during workout: kayaking – 450, walking – 125.