Another Paddle Scragged!

Darn this wind, and my lack of upwindable boards! I need a displacement board! Wah!

So I did half an hour on the rowing machine instead. Which I hated. Whilst rowing, I listened to a podcast of the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC: Diana Ravitch. She's one of my heroes.

Choppy Water and Family in Milford

The family took a trip to Milford, where Kirsten's sister Briita, her husband Charlie, and her kids Emma, Owen and Quentin live. Kirsten and I brought two boards and Britta had Big Red.

Gabriel and his cousin Owen on Big Red. Gabriel has the yellow PFD. In the background is Charles Island.

The two boys fumbled around for a while, but they eventually did okay paddling in tandem.

There's me, looking like I'm about to fall.

Miranda.

The kids in the water.

Gwennie seems to like my board.

Now both girls are after the board.

It's pretty easy to scramble on.

Pretty cute.

I did a solo paddle to Charles Island which took me about an hour. The chop was enough to be an issue, plus there was a lot of boat traffic. That said, I got a nice workout. That's the thing about chip. It keeps your speed down, but it makes the workout better. Kirsten met me on the way back and we goofed off more on the paddleboards. I did a back dive off mine. Later I took my sister-in-law Britta on a shorter paddle.

A fun day. One of the nice things about paddleboards is that they're pretty easy to use and get kids involved with them. They're fun to just climb on and jump off. You don't have to worry about much gear, just shlepping the boards from the car to the beach.

Water Loop and Paddle Fit

I wasn't in the mood to do my usual run, and the water was very flat, so I decided to do a loop. Here's my track:

This is about as flat as the Hudson gets. Of course the wind picked up after I started paddling. This is the view south towards the Peekskill Yacht Club. (I spend so much time on the water in Peekskill the club should give me an honorary membership.) And, yes, I had to get my board in the shot.

Here are the MotionX results:

Nice loop, then I started working out.

Name:		Water Loop And Paddle Fit
Date:		Aug 2, 2013 8:25 am
Map: (valid until Jan 29, 2014)		View on Map
Distance:		5.68 miles
Elapsed Time:		1:19:47
Avg Speed:		4.3 mph
Max Speed:		5.4 mph
Avg Pace:		14' 03" per mile
Min Altitude:		0 ft
Max Altitude:		0 ft
Start Time:		2013-08-02T12:25:15Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 07" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 56" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 07" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 55" W

The loop goes from the Peekskill Waterfront to Fleischman's Pier, to Fish Island (that's the northwest point on the map), and back. It's about four and three-quarters miles. After I returned, I did some extra distance and did board sit-ups, a plank and squats. Not bad considering it takes into account the extra time I was working out.

Wind and Current Together - Bad!

Paddled north whilst the wind was from the North and the tide was heading out. That first part was tough, and the second part was a piece of cake. Actually I checked my GPS at the bridge and I saw that I had done an average of 2.9 mph. Under those conditions, that's not bad.

Name:		Wind and Current - Bad!
Date:		Jul 30, 2013 10:05 am
Map: (valid until Jan 26, 2014)		View on Map
Distance:		7.25 miles
Elapsed Time:		2:03:51
Avg Speed:		3.5 mph
Max Speed:		5.9 mph
Avg Pace:		17' 04" per mile
Min Altitude:		0 ft
Max Altitude:		0 ft
Start Time:		2013-07-30T14:05:21Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 06" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 56" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 07" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 55" W

The big flag is showing some breeze. It's hard to tell, but it's blowing away from me.

Sometimes the breeze flattens the water.

Nice pic of the Bear Mountain Bridge with the southbound Metro North Train coming around to bend.

This barge is working on the retaining wall.

This sign is clearly not meant for me. I was heading downstream here with the elements. You can see some disturbance where the water pushes against the barge. Just as I snapped this picture the wind came from behind and doubled in strength. I was worried about getting pushed into that disturbed area. It would have been a modern version of keelhauling.

The Big, Big Loop

I don't enjoy jogging. I just have no fun with it. Besides all the usual reasons I've complained about, I have a weak right knee, so that can be a problem too. Sometimes, though, a jog through the woods is okay — cross-country running as opposed to the hamster wheel. I like to take a pair of heavy hands (2 pounds) while I run to get some upper body exercise too.

The only good thing is that I got some exercise in, and I found a well-done Star Trek podcast to listen to, which is good. It's called Mission Log, and it runs through each episode one-by-one. I also helped some hungry mountain bikers find their way to their car, which was amusing. I'm like a typical New Yorker that way. I love to give directions.

Jogged with two-pound Heavy Hands through Depew and Blue Mountain

Name:		The Big Big Loop
Date:		Jul 26, 2013 12:33 pm
Map: (valid until Jan 22, 2014)		View on Map
Distance:		3.26 miles
Elapsed Time:		44:40.0
Avg Speed:		4.4 mph
Max Speed:		8.2 mph
Avg Pace:		13' 40" per mile
Min Altitude:		174 ft
Max Altitude:		436 ft
Start Time:		2013-07-26T16:33:01Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 11" N
	Longitude:	73º 54' 53" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 11" N
	Longitude:	73º 54' 53" W

I use MotionX as a GPS tool, and it isn't bad. The major problem is that the app is a battery vampire. I can't get more than about 2-2 1/2 hours of use before my iPhone is sucking air. It does make good maps, though. I post these as JPEGs because the MotionX ones won't last on the website more than six months.

I like these maps.

Tide and Wind A Fightin'

Today was a reasonably early bridge run. The wind was blowing pretty hard from the north and the tide was pushing from the south. There are ways a clever paddler can take advantage of this. Heading north, you stick close to shore to avoid the wind, using the natural points on the river bank as a windshield. Heading back, you stay in the middle of the river (but out of the shipping lane) and use the wind.

The wind was strong for this time of year. It was a steady ten and went up to twenty.

There's some work going on here, fixing a retaining wall just below the train tracks. Some days there's a lot of activity here. Other days there's nothing.

This is where Kirsten and I rested last time. If the pictures seem hazy, I'm shooting with my iPhone, and that's enclosed in a waterproof pouch. The pouch os making the haze. It's like when I wake up from a nap after wearing my contact lenses. The whole world looks hazy.

Nice view of the Bear Mountain Bridge. I'm in a little cove just south of it. This is where I take a rest and consume some food. Today it was a Hammer Gel, or, as I like to think of them, my candy oysters.

The view home from the bridge. It's about 3.6 miles from here to Peekskill, which are the low hills in the distance.

Name:		Tide and Wind A Fightin'
Date:		Jul 24, 2013 8:42 am
Map: (valid until Jan 20, 2014)		View on Map
Distance:		7.28 miles
Elapsed Time:		1:43:13
Avg Speed:		4.2 mph
Max Speed:		12.5 mph
Avg Pace:		14' 11" per mile
Min Altitude:		0 ft
Max Altitude:		0 ft
Start Time:		2013-07-24T12:42:42Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 06" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 57" W
End Location:
	Latitude:	41º 17' 07" N
	Longitude:	73º 55' 55" W

Not a bad time if you consider how much mother nature was at play. On the way back I had a lot of fun using the little swells. Some times I had a couple of feet of my board exposed.

Cross Training

It would be so nice if I could get on the water whenever I wanted to. Man, I would paddle almost every day. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm not a professional athlete, just a working person with three kids, trying to do his best with keeping in shape and training for some long-distance runs.

Yesterday I did a PaddleFit jog, which is what I call my cross-training runs. There I get onto the track (one block from my house) and run as much as I can take whilst I do a few extra exercises each lap. Is this fun? No. If it involves jogging, it probably isn't fun. I don't think I actually hate jogging, but it would be fair to say I do not like it. Jogging is painful. Jogging is stressful. Jogging is boring. Jogging is, well, it's just yucky! Why do people like this sport?

I did two miles yesterday, though. I'm quite aware that two miles is a pretty pathetic distance, but it's about all I can take going around in circles on that track. Drives me MAD. If I'm running cross country, I can happily do more, but that has the advantage of being a lot less boring than the track. Instead of running around a human-sized hamster wheel, I'm jogging through the cool forest. Unfortunately with all the rain we've been getting these last couple of days, the forest is a mud slog. So it's the hamster wheel for me.

It does look like a large, earth-colored hamster wheel, and yes, I can see my house from here.

Tonight I plan on doing a workout even more pathetic, an Indo Board balance session with a 12 lb. bar. Doesn't sound so bad, right? But, I'll also be glued to the TV while working out, watching the final episodes of Orange is the New Black. Am I working out to watch TV, or watching TV to work out?