Today was the desperate last stand of winter. I walked to the river in the early morning. The wind was in my face as I paddled upstream, and my hands were cold, but it was clear that the weather would be unable to hold out for much longer. The bleak sky was somehow not fully convincing, the wind not so biting as I remembered.
Flatwater is the bread and butter of day-to-day training. Paddling on the course all the time is like eating a lot of rich foods: delicious, but after too long with the cheesecake and the lemon tarts and the crème Brule, you are left with a stomachache and a cavity. It was a relief today to sit down to this simple breakfast of dark bread and bitter tea.
I was alone on the river. The gray of the tree-lined banks was interrupted here and there by patches of green and I felt less stiff the longer I paddled. Near the take out, I saw twenty-one water birds, black and long-necked, on a bare black tree. Maybe it’s pollution from the chemical plant upstream, but the water in this river is always very green.
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
