Thunderstorm Racing

I paddled a leisurely three miles on my local lake tonight. I stopped at the county park and used the porta-can. After I stowed my sunglasses and hat, I donned my goggles and nose plugs and performed three extended paddle rolls just outside of the swimming buoys. I think that I have reached a plateau in my pursuit of rolling excellence. I need to seek out some expert advice on how to improve my rolling. I'm positive my rolls are not pretty, but they work. To steal a line from the movie "The Firm"- "It ain't sexy, but its got teeth." Oh well, I can work with teeth.

The total distance tonight was six miles however, and the return trip home was not so relaxing. After the rolling, I heard a "Thunder-dunder" off to the west. So I took a big swig from my water bottle and got down to a serious forward stroke. Heading westward, straight into the dark sky, I concentrated hard on a loose grip and lots of torso rotation, the good kind of torso rotation, from the core, below my navel. I covered the last three miles tonight in 35 minutes. That's a sustained average speed over 5mph. I even got a blister on the ball of my foot, from "peddling" the kayak, trying to fully transfer all of my forward motion to the hull. The cool part is I don't even feel sore now. I must have been doing it right!

I made it home before the bad stuff arrived. Just a few sprinkles, and the worst of the storm pasted to the north anyway. It was a good workout.