River Tales

Jeff and I had a great trip down the Mississippi River covering a stretch upstream from Brainerd.

Wildlife along the River. The terrain changed dramatically during the 30 mile trip: rocks and small stones the first 10 miles, sand the next 10 and farmland with dirt/mud banks the last 10. As we neared Aitkin, the end of our trip, there were many dairy farms with pastures that allowed the dairy cows to walk to the river and drink. Cattle are pretty docile and didn't seem to care much about us floating by.

Nine miles upstream from Aitkin is the River's only diversion dam. In the early 1900s, the town of Aitkin was flooded twice and this dam was then constructed. It is an "overflow" dam that diverts the water around the town; once it reaches a certain height it flows over the dam into a manmade diversion channel. The dam is two stages with a slightly higher dam, a dip area, and then a lower secondary dam. It was constructed of boulders encased in cement. The purpose of the two dams is probably to slow the water flow.


There were constantly deadheads, dead trees, in the water to paddle around and many sandbars and rock outcroppings due to the low water, typical for August. The water was very clean and we used my Katadyn water filter pump to fill our water bottles. It filters out bacteria and sediment and the water tasted very good. Since we had no portages or rapids we loaded up the canoe with a lot of food and clothing, might was well be comfortable. It rained on our morning trip up, but not at all while we were on the River. Day one was cloudy and day two sunny to partly cloudy,
There are designated campsites about every 25 miles along the Upper Miss, maintained by the Minnesota DNR. This was the one we stayed at. It had been freshly mowed and had a table, laterine, and a large fairly flat area for tents. It set up on a high bank overlooking the River bend.

We saw deer, ducks, cows :-), fish, a bald eagle (no photo) and this bird which we believe was a Golden Eagle, or possibly a young Bald Eagle. It was brown and didn' t have the traditional Bald Eagle markings of a white head, tail and yellow beak. We chased it up the River for many miles. It was a very large bird whatever it was.

Small mouth bass
Bigger small mouth, bass 14 inches in length, weight uncertain. The bass loved the Shad lures, a fake minnow with a flippy tail and single hook.
Northern Pike, tons o fun to catch, mighty fighters. Red and white daredevils always work, and did in the Miss. All fish we caught were released.
An old railroad bridge showing how low the water was. About 10 feet below the recent Spring level it appeared.
Unloading at Palisade at the start of our trip, 30 miles up from Aitkin. The first day we covered 7 river miles, the second day the fishing slowed and we made good time so got in 23 river miles. Our choice for a second night campsite was unaccessible due to erosion so we went on into Aitkin, went into town for pizza and headed home to our nice soft beds. I think I am getting way too old for many more nights of sleeping on the ground :-) .

The weather was perfect for canoeing with daytime temps in the 60s, while scattered frost was predicted we are not sure how cold it was at night, but we were warm in our sleeping bags sleeping in sox and t-shirts. We surprisingly only saw one other boat on the River. No bugs on the water, wind at our backs 90 % of the time, and the fishing was better than we thought, a great trip to end the summer!

Tri season ends !!!

Swim, bike and run.... for fun !

Since my last posting dealt with the upcoming Tri season it is appropriate to get the blog going again. It has been an interesting year to date. My father passed away May 17 and that has changed my life in many ways. On just about every free weekend I have went to Des Moines to help Mom keep her life on track, which she is doing well. I help her with what household repairs I can and last weekend we trekked to Branson, one of her favorite vacation destinations.

The photos below are from the Brewhouse Tri in Duluth on Aug 2. Photo compliments of Lisa, thanks ! That was a very good event and a good test of my tri conditioning up to that point. The only real negative factor are the rough roads with many potholes and unfilled deep cracks. A person gets jarred on the bike pretty good.

Most days this Summer I have worked out 1-2 hrs per day either swimming, biking, running or at yoga class. Swims have been in local lakes and my purchase of a new wetsuit, Blue 70 Reaction, earlier this year has greatly helped my swimming. All swims are now a minimum of one mile, more than I am used to, but manageable for me. Added buoyancy is the primary benefit of a wetsuit: keeping the hips and legs raised so the body tracks in a flatter line, plus the suit has a slick outer shell reducing drag. The drawback in the added time it takes to remove it before the bike. Most say that for swims of over 1/4 mile it is a positive trade-off to wear one. I love swimming in this suit and am very glad I finally bit the bullet and purchased it at Gear West, although there was a great deal of buyer's remorse. A year ago I also bought a used Trek 1500 road bike that has greatly helped my times. The narrow tires with 100 lbs of air, lighter weight and aerobars are very beneficial to faster times with the same physical output.

The start of the run, the final event, at the Brewhouse. The trick here is to leave enough "umpf" in the legs from the bike to be able to give it a good effort, while getting as high of a biking pace as possible.

In this pic you'll see all three events, me coming out of the lake; stepping carefully over the pebbles on the asphalt, a lady entering on her bike, and another taking off for her run. Tris start in 5 - 24 waves depending on the number of entrants, based on age and gender. My first tri this year at Buffalo had 24 waves and today there were six. As a result there are racers coming and going for each event at varying times.

The start of the swim in Duluth. A gray, cool day, but perfect for racing.

Today's tri was the Lakes Country at Baxter. My tri friend Terry and I went up the prior night and got a hotel room, carbed up on pasta and hit the sack early. At the Brewhouse, I lost much energy the second lap of the bike and thought it was partially due to a lack of calorie intake the days prior, so focused on a good calorie, and carb, intake for this race. The two nights prior I also got ten and nine hours of sleep, well rested.

My goal for tri races this season was to finish in the back of the middle of the pack, having been far back in prior years. winter training was hampered by numerous injuries but I still felt this goal was realistic. For this race, I had very specific time goals having run the race two years prior.

Distances were: 1/2 mile swim, 17.3 mile bike and 3.9 mi run

2007

swim tran 1 bike tran 2 run ttl time

20:28 3:49 1 hr 4 mn 1:08 43:02 2:12:58

Est projections

19 3 52 1 39 1:54

2009

17:22 2:24 53:44 :46 38:53 1:53:07

finished 210 out of 300 finishers, back of the middle of the pack.

My goals for this race were to hit the swim and bike as hard as I felt I could, while leaving enough energy for the run, hoping to get under a 10 min pace, and cut my transition times. Since a person spends the most time on the bike, and my running is my weakest event, this plan seemed reasonable, and worked!

While sitting home the week before the race I penciled out what paces I felt I could do; note the projections above. These figures were from the Duluth Tri finishing times and based on the fact that I had maintained my conditioning between the two events. As you will see, I met most of these goal times, and for those of you who are avid runners, you will see my deficiency is my running, so that will be this winter's focus.

Lower transition times were due to changes not wearing socks and wearing the singlet under the wetsuit. I can also reduce another 30 - 40 sec by buying speed shoe laces removing the task of having to tie shoes and allowing them to be slipped on. At those trans times I will be very content.

Today's weather was perfect with a sunny sky, low wind and finishing temps in the mid 60s.

I have enjoyed the three tris I finished this Summer and will admit I am very disappointed to see the three month season end, but I have many other interests I can now focus on, and a month or so break will do me good physically. No major aches or pains, but...occasional aches in both feet, the left achilles, left groin and shoulders, so yes, the body could use a break. But I will maintain conditioning with many weekly workouts and weekly 1 -2 yoga classes. This winter I will also add regular weight workouts at my gym, Golds in Monticello, and of course there's that five lbs of body weight I could loose.