open letter to the river

I don't have your email, address, mobile number or twitter handle. We aren't friends on facebook. So I hope you read my blog. First off, this isn't an apology. It's an explanation. You can take it as a warning if you want, of what is to come, but I feel that it's only right that I keep you informed on my plans. You probably thought I was getting tired. Maybe you thought you were winning. Last week you got a little break, your wounds began to heal over and for the first time in weeks you felt like you were recovering from the twice-daily rounds of punishment I inflicted upon your salty blue fundament.  I was not being neglectful of my training, I didn't forget about you.  In fact, I grew more and more anxious and enthusiastic about our regular encounters with every hour I spent away from you. I longed for the heat that my muscles produce as I punish you, bludgeon you into near submission with thousands of strikes per hour. I spent afternoons lamenting the sensation that my heart might break through my sternum, that my lungs could burst like a balloon filled with one burning breath too many. I slept less soundly having not devoted hours of my day to your torment. I have a job to do, and it is at your expense. So, this letter is to inform you that I'm not just "back". I'm not only just here, again, as I was over the past weeks. This week, and the week after will be different.  It will be harder for you. You are going to bleed, you'll feel like giving up, giving in to the anguish, the repetitive and unrelenting nature of the torture. I'm not giving up on you, and I hope you don't give up either.  I need you to take all the punishment I can dispense.  There will come a final blow, and then it will be calm. You can look forward to that, if you must. There will come a day when I won't be here anymore, bringing you so close to death that you almost pine for it. It might be difficult to imagine now, river beast, but I think you'll miss me when I'm gone. Here's to a few more good weeks.  Sleep well. 

...FLATWATERKAYAKTRAINING...

Cool picture, eh? Anders took it with his camera. That's me in my boat out there. The water was nice and flat that day. It hardly fought back. 

Training has been awesome this week, the salty beast has taken a severe beating from my dual-bladed battle axe.  I thrash upon its blue hide repeatedly morning and night, until I am all but completely exhausted.  After its morning battering I provide it a short reprise for a few hours while I eat, go to the gym, go swimming or go for a jog.  In the afternoon it welcomes more blunt force trauma from my implement. It's difficult to see who is winning. Beating a river brute into daily submission is rewarding, but it is not without it's repercussions. I admit, I am tired.  My back and shoulders are sore, my hands ache, and 9 hours of sleep hardly feels adequate. But as I rinse the encrusted salt from my skin after every battle I feel that my muscles are stronger than they were the day before, my blisters have colloused and the skin on my hands is harder. As the onslaught continues I feel that I can administer it a more thorough daily trouncing. I don't know how much the river can take, it has shown few if any signs of weakness, perhaps it's capacity for abuse is boundless. But of one thing, I am certain: it isn't getting any tougher, and I am.     

::General Mills & National Cereal day::

If you're anything like me, then you've probably spent the last few hours (since breakfast, at least) totally stressed out about what to make for breakfast tomorrow.  Stress no further friends!  In celebration of National Cereal day (ok, I can't lie to my vankayak readers, this was totally a coincidence) my awesome sponsor General Mills has sent a care package to relieve that stress, and to answer your question, and many other existential and philosphical queries regarding the most important meal of the day.  Answer: you will be having Cheerios or Oatmeal Crisp for breakfast tomorrow morning. There, you can relax now. If you paddle a canoe or a kayak then you can come by my apartment at the Pines and I will give you a box of cereal and a box of granola bars for free.  If I am here.  If I am not here then please do not steal any cereal or anything else or I will call the police.  Once the great wall of Cereal is gone you can't get any free cereal here so don't wait until it's all gone.  

So now that General Mills and I have solved all of your problems, you can participate in a totally unecessary and fun survey.  In the comments section of this blog entry or on facebook please indicate whether you prefer the "Milk before Cereal" or "Cereal before Milk" method of preparation.  If you prefer a different kind of milk, beverage or fluid in your cereal, please indicate that as well.  If you want top points, then include your favourite General Mills cereal.  Write it like this:

I'm Adam and I prefer Cereal before milk and I use Almond milk because I am not a baby cow (or a baby almond but whatever, you know what I mean?), and my favourite cereal is Cheerios (Gold-Multigrain, Silver-Regular yellow box, Bronze-Honey Nut).

(I know my bed is unmade and I'm a slob, but I don't care because I was busy  DESIGNING AND BUILDING A WHOLE GRAIN WALL OF CEREAL TODAY...)

Behold, the great wall of Cereal.  Legend has it that this wall was constructed over a painstaking 7minute period by Adam himself and it is held together by gravity, maple syrup and the Power of Love. Now do yourself a favour and click that link.

::March on::

Well spring training camp has been ticking along nicely.  Plenty of high quality kilometers have passed under my butt.  My legs and torso and shoulders and back and arms have been getting stronger and more resilient to this kind of abuse, my paddle is starting to feel like the familiar tool I remember from 2011, my boat is reacting more swiftly to every strong stroke I execute, and every stroke seems to be just a little better than the one I took just a moment prior.  I haven't been worrying myself with times and speeds and specifics. My focus has been very simple: perfect paddling, lots of it.  I don't worry as much about my work in the gym now that I'm a 1000m-only paddler.  At least I'm not as concerned with pushing huge weights around anymore, not that the weights I ever pushed were terribly huge by any stretch of the imagination.  This is all to say that I am satisfied where my strength is currently at.  I am starting to run more, and I'm excited about that. 

I needed a refresher this weekend.  I felt that I should hit the road with my kayak on the roof of my car and paddle somewhere else for a change.  And there was a comic in Miami that I really wanted to see. His name was, and continues to be, Rob Delaney. On Friday, after a good morning session on the water and tough gym workout I threw my boat on the roof of my Mazda and hit the I-95 for a road trip.  The drive was quick, I went straight to Miami Beach Rowing Club. My boat and I were engaged in a kind of amazing-race style 24hr adventure.  Dodging the stares of some running-shoe-clad high school rowing champions I borrowed the MBRC dock for a split second, pushed off in any direction and punished their waterways for an hour.  I thrashed on it's salty hide with everything I had for 60 minutes.  It fought back with waves and surface tension.  I pushed my boat through the Miami intercostals for 30minutes, close to 7kms in any direction, the sun dropped below the horizon with an equatorial haste, I turned my skinny craft 180 degrees, and retraced my strokes in the dark.  The waters provided me with what I required, and I took very little in return.  I found myself back at the MBRC dock, I used their hose to wash the salt from my boat, paddle, hair and body, dried off and changed in the parking lot beside my car.  I mounted the boat, and drove directly to the Fillmore Theatre to catch the show.  

Rob was very funny, he's filthy, foul-mouthed, human and kind.  His conscience and compassion somehow pervade his perversion.  I left the show and got some really good Mexican food.  I checked into a fine Hotel that my sponsor, Roots, was generous enough to book for me.  The Soho Beach House proved to be a fine host, with a very comfortable bed.  There are few things in life that I appreciate more than a really good hotel breakfast.  The Soho knocked it out of the park.  Once I was full of fruit, coffee and croissant I grabbed my car and hit up the MBRC, once again in renegade style. I get some strange satisfaction from entering a moderately familiar city, using their facilities as if they were my own, pummelling their water into submission and leaving without anyone really noticing.  It's like espionage-exercise, I feel like an international agent athlete. Back on the water I felt a small sense of renewal.  I had some tough work to do in the hot morning Miami sun.  I welcomed every hard-gripping stroke with the same curious novelty I paid the refreshing, but deteriorating art-deco landscape before me.  Sometimes, a change is as good as a break. 

Adios South Beach... windows down and Rock n Roll loud, I drove north for 3hrs to Melbourne, my southern home every spring since 1997.  I'm mentally and physically prepared for another few weeks of work here.  I just hope the water can handle it.