Wednesday, September 21, 2011
I was up, showered, eating and reading the sports page by the time John arrived a little after 5 a.m. As we began to pack the car and it became readily apparent that we’d be squeezed in like sardines, I began to let my irritation show. I knew that Paul had more than camping gear with him…he’d be on the road for three weeks after our camping trip and had a couple of boxes of things to bring along…and could see that there just wasn’t room. I cursed myself for not insisting on taking the van, which would have easily handled our needs. John tried placating me. “Dude…we’ll make it fit. After all…it’s just Paul in the back seat and who cares how much shit he has piled up all around him. We’ll be comfortable,” he said. Okay…that much was true.
We re-entered the kitchen from outside to pack up the six turkey sandwiches I laid out on the counter for the drive up. Dakota had been outside with us while we were shoving things in the car, but on one of John’s trips back inside, he’d let her follow. I stared at the counter where the sandwiches used to be and looked at Dakota who was slowly slinking up the stairs to the safety of her cage. She looked full. “I hope you weren’t counting on those smoked turkey sandwiches,” I said to John. He was looking at the counter with incredulity. “She ate them all? There’s not a crumb anywhere,” he said, admiringly. I thought about a forty-pound dog eating 6 sandwiches in 60 seconds…which would be the equivalent of a 160-pound man eating 24 sandwiches. I wanted to be angry but who was I kidding? I’d left them in snout’s reach and dared her to eat them.
We got to Paul’s place and as we pulled into the driveway and John’s headlights illuminated the mountain of gear stacked outside his door, I blew a gasket again. “This…will…never…work!” John explained my storage issues to Paul as I eyed the watermelon in the stack and started laughing. “Really, Paul? A watermelon in the car? How would we even eat it if we could squeeze it in?” He looked at me puzzled…as if traveling with a watermelon in the back seat of a car on a 9-hour trip was completely normal behavior and said, “I brought a knife.”
Paul is a packing aficionado and after rearranging everything we had…and leaving the watermelon home…found that he was comfortable and that we’d be able to proceed. We made the trip in about 9 hours, arriving in Keene Valley around 4 p.m. I made a spaghetti dinner at the trailhead so we wouldn’t have to carry the food and stoves into the camp site…which would help in keeping bears from visiting. We loaded packs and with about 40 pounds on my back, hiked the .6 miles into Round Pond and our camping destination for the next two nights.
The hike in wasn’t much of a workout, but combined with foraging for burnable wood through dense foliage, found that I’d sweat enough to need a cleaning in the pond. The water was cold but refreshing and Paul had a nice fire going by the time I returned. We had a pleasant night sitting around a fire and talking families, climbing, our lives and man trash. It was another day of serenity in the back country.
Hike duration: 25-30 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 70 to 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 250.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Final preparations...
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
I wasn’t getting any better and my concerns were growing. The Adirondacks can be very cold and damp this time of year and neither condition does much to improve a severe head cold. There really was nothing to think about though…I was going. I’d bring the Hall’s for my throat and the Sudafed for the congestion and make the best of it. I could have taken another night off from working out, but I’d get little exercise on our travel day and didn’t want two ‘slacker’ days in a row so I headed for the park for the Survival workout.
The workout wasn’t my best effort but I got it done and headed to Paul’s parent’s house to pick him up so we could do some last minute food shopping for the trip. I’ve learned that Paul, probably one of the most experienced backcountry campers on the continent, has a method to the calories he takes on a trip and wouldn’t want me packing his food. John would eat whatever I put in front of him...and then complain that the pinole was too dry. We went to BJ’s and grabbed some fresh and dried fruit, and the right energy bars. I dropped him back at home and promised to return at 6 the next morning.
The night before an extended trip is rather hectic for me as I look to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything essential and have the food figured out to meet our different tastes, caloric needs and the ability to carry and store it all. We were hiking only a short distance from the car to pitch our tents and could leave food in coolers in the car and eat when returning. This would simplify what and how much I could bring, allowing for more fresh food…something I could never take in a bear canister. Once I had it all together and mounded near the door to put in John’s Mazda the next morning, I again questioned the capacity of his vehicle. I wasn’t going to ask Holly to let me take the van for a week, so I would just have to squeeze it in. With that thought, I headed off to bed and set the alarm for a 5 a.m. start.
Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.
I wasn’t getting any better and my concerns were growing. The Adirondacks can be very cold and damp this time of year and neither condition does much to improve a severe head cold. There really was nothing to think about though…I was going. I’d bring the Hall’s for my throat and the Sudafed for the congestion and make the best of it. I could have taken another night off from working out, but I’d get little exercise on our travel day and didn’t want two ‘slacker’ days in a row so I headed for the park for the Survival workout.
The workout wasn’t my best effort but I got it done and headed to Paul’s parent’s house to pick him up so we could do some last minute food shopping for the trip. I’ve learned that Paul, probably one of the most experienced backcountry campers on the continent, has a method to the calories he takes on a trip and wouldn’t want me packing his food. John would eat whatever I put in front of him...and then complain that the pinole was too dry. We went to BJ’s and grabbed some fresh and dried fruit, and the right energy bars. I dropped him back at home and promised to return at 6 the next morning.
The night before an extended trip is rather hectic for me as I look to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything essential and have the food figured out to meet our different tastes, caloric needs and the ability to carry and store it all. We were hiking only a short distance from the car to pitch our tents and could leave food in coolers in the car and eat when returning. This would simplify what and how much I could bring, allowing for more fresh food…something I could never take in a bear canister. Once I had it all together and mounded near the door to put in John’s Mazda the next morning, I again questioned the capacity of his vehicle. I wasn’t going to ask Holly to let me take the van for a week, so I would just have to squeeze it in. With that thought, I headed off to bed and set the alarm for a 5 a.m. start.
Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Testing the illness...
Monday, September 19, 2011
I slept until about 5 a.m. before my sinus blockage and lack of breathing had me up. I could see I wouldn’t be going to work…I needed to beat this thing…so I used the nasal spray and went back to bed. I was up by 8 and after calling clients to tell them I would have to reschedule, went about trying to find a doctor that would look at me quickly. I tried the Cleveland Clinic in Willoughby Hills because I was told they took same-day patients, but found they weren’t taking them today. John suggested Urgent Care and I figured I’d give them a try if I got desperate…which I wasn’t just yet. I really don’t want to go into the mountains and sleep in the cold night air feeling the way I do, but Paul was coming from Alaska for this trip and unless I was suffering from pneumonia, I’d be going. I drove to Giant Eagle and purchased the things I’d need for your meals and came home to organize my gear and make the food.
I whipped up a delicious batch of pinole and made some gorp (good old raisins and peanuts…with M&M’s) but added banana chips to make it more paleo. It qualifies as something a paleo athlete would eat while competing to spare glycogen stores and keep the blood sugar where it ought to be. Actually, I use the pinole to serve that purpose and bring gorp as a tradition. John loves it and will snack on it throughout the trip. I also made some spaghetti. I boil the noodles ahead and put them in a Ziploc bag with sauce and frozen meatballs and carry this in to our first site for that first night’s dinner. After that, it’s most freeze-dried stuff that can be put easily in a bear canister to keep those giant raccoon-type critters out of the camp site and away from our food (and us).
By late afternoon I’d developed the notion that I should go for a run to determine how much the cold/upper respiratory infection was affecting my stamina. I figured a 30-40 minute effort would tell me what I needed to know without hurting myself. There was a misty rain falling as I exited the car. I’d been thinking I might combine the run with a Survival Workout, so I dropped in the mud and did 60 push-ups before starting down the trail at a fast jog. The run seemed easy though I elected not to do the workout too…I’d save that for the next day if I didn’t have any repercussions from the run. I finished strongly, running the last mile around a 7-minute pace and climbed back into the car thinking that although I had a stuffed-up head, I could climb.
Run workout: 35 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550.
I slept until about 5 a.m. before my sinus blockage and lack of breathing had me up. I could see I wouldn’t be going to work…I needed to beat this thing…so I used the nasal spray and went back to bed. I was up by 8 and after calling clients to tell them I would have to reschedule, went about trying to find a doctor that would look at me quickly. I tried the Cleveland Clinic in Willoughby Hills because I was told they took same-day patients, but found they weren’t taking them today. John suggested Urgent Care and I figured I’d give them a try if I got desperate…which I wasn’t just yet. I really don’t want to go into the mountains and sleep in the cold night air feeling the way I do, but Paul was coming from Alaska for this trip and unless I was suffering from pneumonia, I’d be going. I drove to Giant Eagle and purchased the things I’d need for your meals and came home to organize my gear and make the food.
I whipped up a delicious batch of pinole and made some gorp (good old raisins and peanuts…with M&M’s) but added banana chips to make it more paleo. It qualifies as something a paleo athlete would eat while competing to spare glycogen stores and keep the blood sugar where it ought to be. Actually, I use the pinole to serve that purpose and bring gorp as a tradition. John loves it and will snack on it throughout the trip. I also made some spaghetti. I boil the noodles ahead and put them in a Ziploc bag with sauce and frozen meatballs and carry this in to our first site for that first night’s dinner. After that, it’s most freeze-dried stuff that can be put easily in a bear canister to keep those giant raccoon-type critters out of the camp site and away from our food (and us).
By late afternoon I’d developed the notion that I should go for a run to determine how much the cold/upper respiratory infection was affecting my stamina. I figured a 30-40 minute effort would tell me what I needed to know without hurting myself. There was a misty rain falling as I exited the car. I’d been thinking I might combine the run with a Survival Workout, so I dropped in the mud and did 60 push-ups before starting down the trail at a fast jog. The run seemed easy though I elected not to do the workout too…I’d save that for the next day if I didn’t have any repercussions from the run. I finished strongly, running the last mile around a 7-minute pace and climbed back into the car thinking that although I had a stuffed-up head, I could climb.
Run workout: 35 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550.
Monday, September 19, 2011
"You're killin' me, Dave..."
Sunday, September 18, 2011
I think I need to stay away from this Dave Herpy guy and his classes at Kent State. I’m learning some fantastic skills for group leadership and kayaking, but I don’t think I’ll live through another day with him. Okay…I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
I stopped by John’s place in Twinsburg on the way home from Kent after my kayak training. I’d promised to drop off the air mattress I had in my trunk which I’d put there for the camping I never did during the training. I had hoped to camp at Mogador, but was disappointed to discover there were no state camp grounds on the reservoir. In any event, John was preparing to buy another thermarest for our trip to the Adirondacks, but I’d convinced him to try my air mattress before making the purchase. Like me, he has trouble sleeping comfortably on our camping trips, but I assured him this mattress worked. “And we have two of them. You bought one…which I took…and I bought one as a backup,” I explained over the phone earlier in the day.
I pulled in his drive and popped the trunk as he came out to join me. After tearing through all the gear in my trunk and not finding it, I concluded that I’d forgotten to pack it. “Good thing I didn’t camp out after all. I’d have been pissed to find out I’d left it home. I’m coming down again tomorrow to complete the training. I’ll bring it with me and swing by and give it to you on the way home,” I said. He was looking at me funny while I spoke…not that that’s anything too unusual for me. “You sound sick, dude,” he said. And he was right. I sounded congested…because I was…and I felt like I was running a fever. “I went in the water around 1 p.m. and then we paddled for another 3 hours before I had to practice our rescues. I was a little cold after the first dunking, but really caught a chill after the second one. I’ve been feeling a little stuffed up since then, too,” I said…not whining at all.
I headed home thinking of all the preparations and studying I needed to do for my final day of training. I had to completely rethink my on-land presentation and I wanted to go over some videos of the stroke and rescue I was teaching so I had a better idea how to do them. I started studying around 8 and didn’t finish until midnight…by which time my head was throbbing. I went to bed and fell asleep quickly, but woke at 2 a.m. with 100% blockage of my sinus passages…something I have never had. I moved to the recliner downstairs to try and sleep thinking a more upright position would help me drain and when that didn’t work, took a hot shower and tried to blow it out. Except I couldn’t blow since I was so completely blocked. By five in the morning, I concluded that I would not be doing the final day of training…there was no way I could go back in the water…so I laid down in bed for an hour before getting up to go to Mogador and explain my situation to Dave.
I arrived there in time to see the sun rising over the water and took some great pictures of the fishermen in their boats on the water in the shroud the of morning mist. The glow of the long rays of the morning sun reflected off the water and their boats and added to the beautiful serenity of the morning. How I wished I wasn’t in the shape I was and could join them on the water with a sleek kayak to cut through the fog to get some other great pictures. When Dave arrived, I strode up to him to explain the situation. “I come to a seminar three weeks ago and you give me food poisoning and this time you’re not feeding us…so you dunk me in a lake and let the bacteria make me sick,” I said with a nasal-clogged twang. “You don’t sound so good, John,” he said while probably thinking I was some kind of delicate wall flower who couldn’t handle the environment. And I felt that way. I mean I was perfectly healthy and fit all day yesterday and, it seemed, in a matter of moments…was sick. “Look…you were doing pretty well. You need some work on your strokes, but you know how to teach. Just come down next summer and help me teach an intro class and we’ll certify you then,” he said. What else could I do? Damn…but I was close.
Still…I learned so much over the two days and would be able to put it to practical use with my own paddling as well as with helping people just giving the sport a try and since I’m taking newcomers out all the time, that would prove invaluable.
I stopped by John’s place on the way home and gave him the mattress which he tried out and thought would work. John is a treasure trove of medication…he’s always got something wrong…so I asked him for his pharmaceutical assistance with my clogged sinuses. He returned with some nasal spray and Sudafed. “You can get addicted to that nasal spray…so use it sparingly,” he said. I was desperate to breathe again…which I needed to do to sleep again…so I squirted it and inhaled while leaning my head back…as instructed. In two minutes, I was breathing again. What a miracle elixir I’d just shot up my nose!
I went home and slept for a couple of hours before getting up to cut the lawn. Even riding the mower, I felt exhausted and was beginning to worry about my climbing trip…now four days off. I collapsed in a chair upon completion and watched ‘Stand by Me’ with Jason. I asked him about going to the park to do the workout, but he’d already lifted and declined. Probably a good thing since I don’t think I could have…or should have…done it anyway.
I think I need to stay away from this Dave Herpy guy and his classes at Kent State. I’m learning some fantastic skills for group leadership and kayaking, but I don’t think I’ll live through another day with him. Okay…I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
I stopped by John’s place in Twinsburg on the way home from Kent after my kayak training. I’d promised to drop off the air mattress I had in my trunk which I’d put there for the camping I never did during the training. I had hoped to camp at Mogador, but was disappointed to discover there were no state camp grounds on the reservoir. In any event, John was preparing to buy another thermarest for our trip to the Adirondacks, but I’d convinced him to try my air mattress before making the purchase. Like me, he has trouble sleeping comfortably on our camping trips, but I assured him this mattress worked. “And we have two of them. You bought one…which I took…and I bought one as a backup,” I explained over the phone earlier in the day.
I pulled in his drive and popped the trunk as he came out to join me. After tearing through all the gear in my trunk and not finding it, I concluded that I’d forgotten to pack it. “Good thing I didn’t camp out after all. I’d have been pissed to find out I’d left it home. I’m coming down again tomorrow to complete the training. I’ll bring it with me and swing by and give it to you on the way home,” I said. He was looking at me funny while I spoke…not that that’s anything too unusual for me. “You sound sick, dude,” he said. And he was right. I sounded congested…because I was…and I felt like I was running a fever. “I went in the water around 1 p.m. and then we paddled for another 3 hours before I had to practice our rescues. I was a little cold after the first dunking, but really caught a chill after the second one. I’ve been feeling a little stuffed up since then, too,” I said…not whining at all.
I headed home thinking of all the preparations and studying I needed to do for my final day of training. I had to completely rethink my on-land presentation and I wanted to go over some videos of the stroke and rescue I was teaching so I had a better idea how to do them. I started studying around 8 and didn’t finish until midnight…by which time my head was throbbing. I went to bed and fell asleep quickly, but woke at 2 a.m. with 100% blockage of my sinus passages…something I have never had. I moved to the recliner downstairs to try and sleep thinking a more upright position would help me drain and when that didn’t work, took a hot shower and tried to blow it out. Except I couldn’t blow since I was so completely blocked. By five in the morning, I concluded that I would not be doing the final day of training…there was no way I could go back in the water…so I laid down in bed for an hour before getting up to go to Mogador and explain my situation to Dave.
I arrived there in time to see the sun rising over the water and took some great pictures of the fishermen in their boats on the water in the shroud the of morning mist. The glow of the long rays of the morning sun reflected off the water and their boats and added to the beautiful serenity of the morning. How I wished I wasn’t in the shape I was and could join them on the water with a sleek kayak to cut through the fog to get some other great pictures. When Dave arrived, I strode up to him to explain the situation. “I come to a seminar three weeks ago and you give me food poisoning and this time you’re not feeding us…so you dunk me in a lake and let the bacteria make me sick,” I said with a nasal-clogged twang. “You don’t sound so good, John,” he said while probably thinking I was some kind of delicate wall flower who couldn’t handle the environment. And I felt that way. I mean I was perfectly healthy and fit all day yesterday and, it seemed, in a matter of moments…was sick. “Look…you were doing pretty well. You need some work on your strokes, but you know how to teach. Just come down next summer and help me teach an intro class and we’ll certify you then,” he said. What else could I do? Damn…but I was close.
Still…I learned so much over the two days and would be able to put it to practical use with my own paddling as well as with helping people just giving the sport a try and since I’m taking newcomers out all the time, that would prove invaluable.
I stopped by John’s place on the way home and gave him the mattress which he tried out and thought would work. John is a treasure trove of medication…he’s always got something wrong…so I asked him for his pharmaceutical assistance with my clogged sinuses. He returned with some nasal spray and Sudafed. “You can get addicted to that nasal spray…so use it sparingly,” he said. I was desperate to breathe again…which I needed to do to sleep again…so I squirted it and inhaled while leaning my head back…as instructed. In two minutes, I was breathing again. What a miracle elixir I’d just shot up my nose!
I went home and slept for a couple of hours before getting up to cut the lawn. Even riding the mower, I felt exhausted and was beginning to worry about my climbing trip…now four days off. I collapsed in a chair upon completion and watched ‘Stand by Me’ with Jason. I asked him about going to the park to do the workout, but he’d already lifted and declined. Probably a good thing since I don’t think I could have…or should have…done it anyway.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
"Time for a wet exit, people..."
Saturday, September 17, 2011
“Okay…to perform the ‘wet exit’ correctly, after you’ve rolled…bang three times on the bottom of your kayak to alert fellow kayakers that you’re in need of help,” Dave Herpy instructed as we prepared to get wet. The water was in the high sixties which is pretty cool, but we did have wet suits on. I was listening to what he was saying and that the three bangs would alert a fellow kayaker to approach with their craft and if you could grab the tip of their boat, might right yourself without coming out of the kayak. I was also thinking that the chances of that happening were about as good as the Indians winning the World Series and that I should just get the hell out of the thing as soon as it rolled over. “Won’t the fact that they can see the bottom of my kayak floating in the river be sign enough that I’m in distress?” I asked. I loved creating teachable moments for him…and he loved having me in his classes. Kept him on his toes. It really was no big deal and if nothing else, forced you to calm yourself, get your bearings…which is a little tricky when you’re upside down and attached to your craft with a spray skirt…and think about what you needed to do to turn this into something positive. When it was my turn to roll, I took a deep breath, rolled over and began releasing oxygen through my nose as I banged, removed the spray skirt and pushed myself out of the kayak and to the surface. “You okay?” my training partner asked as I broke the surface. “Everything’s good…but he lied. The water’s damned cold,” I said.
It was around 2 p.m. and we’d been training since eight that morning. All ten candidates had taught about some aspect of kayaking to the rest of the group so our teaching styles and grasp of the content could be evaluated, critiqued and improved upon for the final practical exam the next day. We were on the water now to demonstrate a stroke we had to teach to the group and then to perform two-person rescues. My partner Carolyn and I would be demonstrating the ‘heel hook’ rescue…something I’d never heard of and since I’d never been in the water with my kayak before, never done. I paddled over to her and brought up the subject. “So Carolyn…all ready to demonstrate our rescue?” She had gotten a mouthful when practicing her wet exit and I didn’t think she was particularly looking forward to going into the water again any time soon. “Oh yeah…it’s really kind of easy. I’ve done it in the pool and googled it. I know all about it,” she said with confidence. ‘Hmm’ I thought as the wheels began turning. “Hey…how about I do the roll and you rescue me?” I suggested this knowing that she’d have to do all the talking and I’d just do the acting. It would look like I’d known everything all the time and I kind of liked going over and really wanted to find out how tough it was to re-enter a kayak in water over my head. “Works for me,” she said.
Once she described what we would be doing to me, it actually sounded quite easy. Execution would be next. I rolled my kayak, came out cleanly and surfaced next to it, tapping the top of my head with my hand to indicate that I was okay. She paddled over next to me and the kayak and instructed me to grab hold of the bow (front) of her kayak as she began the process of flipping mine over and emptying the water from it. This process is actually quite easy. The rescuer grabs the bow or stern tip of the kayak and pulls it up from the water to break the suction created when it turned over. They then drag the tip up and over their deck in front of them and lift and rock the kayak to get the water from the hold. This is done in seconds and the empty kayak is then flipped upright and pulled along side their kayak, facing in the opposite direction. The rescuing kayaker then leans over the empty cockpit and hold firmly to the far side of the kayak…stabilizing it so the kayaker in the water can re-enter by sliding down the side of their kayak to a point just behind the cockpit. Next, they reach across their kayak to grab the ropes on their rescuers kayak and using these for leverage, pull themselves from the water to the deck of their kayak. From this position, they simply swing their feet from the water and into the cockpit, turn over and…back in and up. It all took about 90 seconds to perform…not bad for two rookies who had never performed the maneuver.
Carolyn rolled next and once again managed a mouthful of water. I watched her closely as I performed the tasks necessary to get her boat ready to re-enter to be sure that she was okay. She did well getting back in and I got the chance to see how easily I could manage to balance both boats while she did. As long as I had a firm hold on her boat and pulled it snugly against mine, there was no way either craft could roll over during re-entry. The simplicity of the process gave confidence I had never before experienced for being on the open water in my kayak. Though we would not be practicing self-rescue, I now knew how to do it and believed that I could perform it. I’d have to try sometime soon.
The training was tremendous and I learned more about kayaking in one day than I had in the previous 13 years of paddling. The instruction course we were training to present to beginning paddlers was an outstanding way for anyone to begin the sport. I could see its value in teaching them safety and skills that would give them the confidence essential to getting the maximum enjoyment from the sport. We had been on the water practicing strokes, paddling around to different training sites and performing rescues for almost 4 hours. I’d gotten a little too much sun and was quite tired from all the activity and stress. As I left the parking lot for home though, I knew I had a lot of work to perform that evening to prepare for tomorrow’s practical tests for certification. I also felt the beginnings of congested sinuses which I assumed was a result of my time in the water.
Kayaking: Four hours on the water.
Training Heart Rate: 75-125 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1,000.
“Okay…to perform the ‘wet exit’ correctly, after you’ve rolled…bang three times on the bottom of your kayak to alert fellow kayakers that you’re in need of help,” Dave Herpy instructed as we prepared to get wet. The water was in the high sixties which is pretty cool, but we did have wet suits on. I was listening to what he was saying and that the three bangs would alert a fellow kayaker to approach with their craft and if you could grab the tip of their boat, might right yourself without coming out of the kayak. I was also thinking that the chances of that happening were about as good as the Indians winning the World Series and that I should just get the hell out of the thing as soon as it rolled over. “Won’t the fact that they can see the bottom of my kayak floating in the river be sign enough that I’m in distress?” I asked. I loved creating teachable moments for him…and he loved having me in his classes. Kept him on his toes. It really was no big deal and if nothing else, forced you to calm yourself, get your bearings…which is a little tricky when you’re upside down and attached to your craft with a spray skirt…and think about what you needed to do to turn this into something positive. When it was my turn to roll, I took a deep breath, rolled over and began releasing oxygen through my nose as I banged, removed the spray skirt and pushed myself out of the kayak and to the surface. “You okay?” my training partner asked as I broke the surface. “Everything’s good…but he lied. The water’s damned cold,” I said.
It was around 2 p.m. and we’d been training since eight that morning. All ten candidates had taught about some aspect of kayaking to the rest of the group so our teaching styles and grasp of the content could be evaluated, critiqued and improved upon for the final practical exam the next day. We were on the water now to demonstrate a stroke we had to teach to the group and then to perform two-person rescues. My partner Carolyn and I would be demonstrating the ‘heel hook’ rescue…something I’d never heard of and since I’d never been in the water with my kayak before, never done. I paddled over to her and brought up the subject. “So Carolyn…all ready to demonstrate our rescue?” She had gotten a mouthful when practicing her wet exit and I didn’t think she was particularly looking forward to going into the water again any time soon. “Oh yeah…it’s really kind of easy. I’ve done it in the pool and googled it. I know all about it,” she said with confidence. ‘Hmm’ I thought as the wheels began turning. “Hey…how about I do the roll and you rescue me?” I suggested this knowing that she’d have to do all the talking and I’d just do the acting. It would look like I’d known everything all the time and I kind of liked going over and really wanted to find out how tough it was to re-enter a kayak in water over my head. “Works for me,” she said.
Once she described what we would be doing to me, it actually sounded quite easy. Execution would be next. I rolled my kayak, came out cleanly and surfaced next to it, tapping the top of my head with my hand to indicate that I was okay. She paddled over next to me and the kayak and instructed me to grab hold of the bow (front) of her kayak as she began the process of flipping mine over and emptying the water from it. This process is actually quite easy. The rescuer grabs the bow or stern tip of the kayak and pulls it up from the water to break the suction created when it turned over. They then drag the tip up and over their deck in front of them and lift and rock the kayak to get the water from the hold. This is done in seconds and the empty kayak is then flipped upright and pulled along side their kayak, facing in the opposite direction. The rescuing kayaker then leans over the empty cockpit and hold firmly to the far side of the kayak…stabilizing it so the kayaker in the water can re-enter by sliding down the side of their kayak to a point just behind the cockpit. Next, they reach across their kayak to grab the ropes on their rescuers kayak and using these for leverage, pull themselves from the water to the deck of their kayak. From this position, they simply swing their feet from the water and into the cockpit, turn over and…back in and up. It all took about 90 seconds to perform…not bad for two rookies who had never performed the maneuver.
Carolyn rolled next and once again managed a mouthful of water. I watched her closely as I performed the tasks necessary to get her boat ready to re-enter to be sure that she was okay. She did well getting back in and I got the chance to see how easily I could manage to balance both boats while she did. As long as I had a firm hold on her boat and pulled it snugly against mine, there was no way either craft could roll over during re-entry. The simplicity of the process gave confidence I had never before experienced for being on the open water in my kayak. Though we would not be practicing self-rescue, I now knew how to do it and believed that I could perform it. I’d have to try sometime soon.
The training was tremendous and I learned more about kayaking in one day than I had in the previous 13 years of paddling. The instruction course we were training to present to beginning paddlers was an outstanding way for anyone to begin the sport. I could see its value in teaching them safety and skills that would give them the confidence essential to getting the maximum enjoyment from the sport. We had been on the water practicing strokes, paddling around to different training sites and performing rescues for almost 4 hours. I’d gotten a little too much sun and was quite tired from all the activity and stress. As I left the parking lot for home though, I knew I had a lot of work to perform that evening to prepare for tomorrow’s practical tests for certification. I also felt the beginnings of congested sinuses which I assumed was a result of my time in the water.
Kayaking: Four hours on the water.
Training Heart Rate: 75-125 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 1,000.
Kayaking 101
Friday, September 16, 2011
It was the beginning of what was going to be a very busy nine days. I was scheduled to attend an Kayak Instructor Certification course offered through the American Canoe Association and being taught by Instructor Trainer, Dave Herpy, of Kent State University. The program began with a classroom session on Friday for five hours to be followed with two eight-hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday at Mogador Reservoir about 10 miles south of Kent. I’d be working Monday and Tuesday and then leaving for five more days in the Adirondacks. Some where in there, I needed to get in some good workouts. I knew it would be tight so I planned to make any time I did get really count.
I hit the park after work for a Survival Workout and started with an all-time push-up high of 62. Starting this way drives me harder throughout because it makes me feel like if I push, all my numbers will be higher. I don’t really know all of my numbers…it’s hard to gauge if you’re lifting more when you’re lifting odd rocks along the trail and that is on purpose…but I know my push-up, pull-up and pole climbing numbers well and managed to bust them all. I finished my last set of push-ups with a 59 which broke my two-day old record for three sets by nine and it now stands at 175. I suppose I should start thinking I can take it to 200 and get the one-set record up to 70, but that’s hard to imagine right now.
I figured the kayak training and certification would be difficult for me. Though I’ve been kayaking for 13 years, I’ve never used a sea kayak, don’t know all the strokes or the nomenclature, have never rolled and will be with people who live to kayak, I think. I like the sport and would probably do a lot more of it if it was easier to access. It takes about an hour to load and drive to any really good kayaking spots, and with limited time to work out, that usually means I’ll hop on the bike or go to the park 10 minutes away to get in a workout. Still…I wanted to learn as much as I could about the discipline and believed taking a crash course designed to make me an instructor to teach entry-level kayaking would improve my skills and knowledge base tremendously.
Once at the class…there were 12 other people…and hearing everyone’s level of experience, I no longer felt quite so intimidated. I surmised that although all of the people had time in the water with kayaks, none seemed to have done and extended trip kayaking…something I had done often…and so I at least had practical experience that would match or exceed half of the folks in the group. The down side was I was teaching two different things for evaluation to the group…the ‘pivot’ stroke and something on the topic of ‘balance, posture and trim’ as it relates to kayaking and knew almost nothing about either one. The course would be testing my ability to gather information quickly and turn it into a presentation that made it sound like I knew what I was talking about…you know…bullshitting. If it came down to that…I had nothing to worry about. After all, I have my PhD. in it already.
Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.
It was the beginning of what was going to be a very busy nine days. I was scheduled to attend an Kayak Instructor Certification course offered through the American Canoe Association and being taught by Instructor Trainer, Dave Herpy, of Kent State University. The program began with a classroom session on Friday for five hours to be followed with two eight-hour sessions on Saturday and Sunday at Mogador Reservoir about 10 miles south of Kent. I’d be working Monday and Tuesday and then leaving for five more days in the Adirondacks. Some where in there, I needed to get in some good workouts. I knew it would be tight so I planned to make any time I did get really count.
I hit the park after work for a Survival Workout and started with an all-time push-up high of 62. Starting this way drives me harder throughout because it makes me feel like if I push, all my numbers will be higher. I don’t really know all of my numbers…it’s hard to gauge if you’re lifting more when you’re lifting odd rocks along the trail and that is on purpose…but I know my push-up, pull-up and pole climbing numbers well and managed to bust them all. I finished my last set of push-ups with a 59 which broke my two-day old record for three sets by nine and it now stands at 175. I suppose I should start thinking I can take it to 200 and get the one-set record up to 70, but that’s hard to imagine right now.
I figured the kayak training and certification would be difficult for me. Though I’ve been kayaking for 13 years, I’ve never used a sea kayak, don’t know all the strokes or the nomenclature, have never rolled and will be with people who live to kayak, I think. I like the sport and would probably do a lot more of it if it was easier to access. It takes about an hour to load and drive to any really good kayaking spots, and with limited time to work out, that usually means I’ll hop on the bike or go to the park 10 minutes away to get in a workout. Still…I wanted to learn as much as I could about the discipline and believed taking a crash course designed to make me an instructor to teach entry-level kayaking would improve my skills and knowledge base tremendously.
Once at the class…there were 12 other people…and hearing everyone’s level of experience, I no longer felt quite so intimidated. I surmised that although all of the people had time in the water with kayaks, none seemed to have done and extended trip kayaking…something I had done often…and so I at least had practical experience that would match or exceed half of the folks in the group. The down side was I was teaching two different things for evaluation to the group…the ‘pivot’ stroke and something on the topic of ‘balance, posture and trim’ as it relates to kayaking and knew almost nothing about either one. The course would be testing my ability to gather information quickly and turn it into a presentation that made it sound like I knew what I was talking about…you know…bullshitting. If it came down to that…I had nothing to worry about. After all, I have my PhD. in it already.
Survival Workout duration: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 600.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Running fast...
Thursday, September 15, 2011
What would a week be without at least one trip to Dan’s with another car issue? The Honda ‘check engine’ diagnostic light flashed on and so I knew I’d be heading out to see him after work…effectively making a long bike ride impossible. Once there, he quickly determined it to be nothing and when I mentioned it was cold and didn’t want to ride anyway he couldn’t help but comment. “You getting soft already? It’s only 50 degrees.” Of course he hadn’t bought his riding shoes yet and wasn’t riding at all…easy for him to say. But yes…I was getting soft quickly. It happens every fall when temperatures start dropping. No big deal, but the first time its cooler and especially the first ten minutes until I’ve warmed up really tend to suck. No matter…I didn’t have time to ride, so I headed for the park for my weekly run.
Now…this is perfect running weather. I decided to run the course I follow for the Survival Workout because it tends to be less muddy and with the rains we’ve been getting, it seemed like a good choice. I ran a course that takes me about 33 minutes on a good day but since I haven’t run it since losing all the weight, I was challenged to push it. I have a split a little less than a mile which I reached in less than 7 minutes and would normally reach closer to 8. It felt so easy that I decided to pick it up. I don’t really have any other check points on the course since I run it so seldom, so as I was approaching the final mile I decided to run what I believed to be sub-7 pace. I finished in 30 minutes…a full 3 minutes faster than usual on what I figured to be about 4.5 miles. I was curious about the pace I was running and decided to stop up at the Mayfield Track on my trip home and time myself on the quarter at the pace I’d been running. I hit the track jogging, but quickly accelerated to the pace I felt I’d been running in the park and after completing a quarter mile and checking my stop watch, confirmed I’d been running a 7-minute mile pace.
It’s been a long time since I’ve raced the roads…20 years in fact. Finding that I am again running sub-7 mile pace for 4-5 miles without much difficulty on 4 miles of running a week has me thinking about racing again. The problem of course is the knee. I could continue to train as I have been and do a 5K road race now and again, but without doing a lot of training, I don’t think I’d be happy with the outcomes. I suspect I could run under 20 minutes for that distance, which would be competitive in my age group, but I know I would be frustrated by not being able to do the training to run faster. Maybe I’ll get that operation and then maybe I’ll race again. Maybe.
Run workout: 35 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550.
What would a week be without at least one trip to Dan’s with another car issue? The Honda ‘check engine’ diagnostic light flashed on and so I knew I’d be heading out to see him after work…effectively making a long bike ride impossible. Once there, he quickly determined it to be nothing and when I mentioned it was cold and didn’t want to ride anyway he couldn’t help but comment. “You getting soft already? It’s only 50 degrees.” Of course he hadn’t bought his riding shoes yet and wasn’t riding at all…easy for him to say. But yes…I was getting soft quickly. It happens every fall when temperatures start dropping. No big deal, but the first time its cooler and especially the first ten minutes until I’ve warmed up really tend to suck. No matter…I didn’t have time to ride, so I headed for the park for my weekly run.
Now…this is perfect running weather. I decided to run the course I follow for the Survival Workout because it tends to be less muddy and with the rains we’ve been getting, it seemed like a good choice. I ran a course that takes me about 33 minutes on a good day but since I haven’t run it since losing all the weight, I was challenged to push it. I have a split a little less than a mile which I reached in less than 7 minutes and would normally reach closer to 8. It felt so easy that I decided to pick it up. I don’t really have any other check points on the course since I run it so seldom, so as I was approaching the final mile I decided to run what I believed to be sub-7 pace. I finished in 30 minutes…a full 3 minutes faster than usual on what I figured to be about 4.5 miles. I was curious about the pace I was running and decided to stop up at the Mayfield Track on my trip home and time myself on the quarter at the pace I’d been running. I hit the track jogging, but quickly accelerated to the pace I felt I’d been running in the park and after completing a quarter mile and checking my stop watch, confirmed I’d been running a 7-minute mile pace.
It’s been a long time since I’ve raced the roads…20 years in fact. Finding that I am again running sub-7 mile pace for 4-5 miles without much difficulty on 4 miles of running a week has me thinking about racing again. The problem of course is the knee. I could continue to train as I have been and do a 5K road race now and again, but without doing a lot of training, I don’t think I’d be happy with the outcomes. I suspect I could run under 20 minutes for that distance, which would be competitive in my age group, but I know I would be frustrated by not being able to do the training to run faster. Maybe I’ll get that operation and then maybe I’ll race again. Maybe.
Run workout: 35 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 550.
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