Even in Kyoto

Busy times right now, so some background first. We had a grad student heading out to Bishop, California, on this past Monday, and he's doing a bunch of field respirometry measurements on small willow leaf beetles, and is still getting up to speed on respirometry in general, so that's been randomly sucking up time. On Friday at noon, just as I was trying to head out the door with my gear for the weekend, he called me over to the FoxBox in a panic because something wasn't working right.

I quickly triangulated the problem to the built-in air pump, and mentioned that I'd purchased a spare air pump a week or two prior so I could pump air in the dark for the circadian experiments. If he was desperate, he could take my air pump. So he did. But now I have another midnight timepoint tonight. I went back to the Albany Aquarium Store (awesome place), but they didn't have another air pump in stock. They're expecting to get another one today. Close timing.

Between sorting that out, cricket care, lab meeting, and wrangling student researchers, yesterday vanished.

Anyway, the weekend, which was more fun overall. Back in my Arizona Outlaw days, I got to hear a handful of stories about some regatta that happened up on Lake Tahoe. A couple of our Outlaw buddies who went out to the Marathon in Louisiana had gone up to Tahoe and had a blast. So I'd known about the regatta for years, but never had the resources and logistics lined up to attend. Well, after our fun times at the Open Water Regatta in Sausalito, M suggested we look into the North Lake Tahoe Regatta, so we did.

Logistics wound up being somewhat involved, but not terrible, altogether. Apparently D, a rower who works for Maas (open-water rowing shell manufacturer), had volunteered to drive his trailer up to the lake. That sounded leagues better than trying to cartop the Maas 2x all the way up there, so we said, "Sign us up!" So I de-rigged our club's Maas 2x last Wednesday morning, and met up with D on Wednesday afternoon to load it onto his trailer. He had an interesting and clever method for throwing it all the way up onto the top rack, and it worked beautifully. I think he wound up hauling around 15 boats, which allowed a comparatively large number of rowers to compete in the regatta.

Here's the trailer setup, later on. It was a fantastic small boat trailer setup:


So then, back to Friday. After wrapping up a busy morning in the lab, I headed down to the boathouse to meet up with M and drive out to Tahoe. We wound up making good time and didn't hit any especially crazy traffic, so we had enough time to stop for some espresso in Truckee before the evening banquet in Tahoe City at the Tahoe Yacht Club.

Like many yacht clubs, it was swanky:


And there were all kinds of fun trophies and photos on display.

When we arrived, we learned the regatta was canceled due to high winds. The organizers said the cancellation was because our two safety launch drivers decided it was too dangerous for them, especially given the number of race entrants.

I think they had a good point. I could see some impressive waves through the Yacht Club's spotting scope:



There were also large waves on the beach where we were supposed to launch for the race:


Even if we could row in water like that, we'd have a hellish time trying to launch the boats without immediately crashing back into shore.

So that was a disappointment.

Thankfully, there were a couple of consolation activities. Our trailer driver knew of a more sheltered beach, Commons Beach, on the other side of Dollar Point, where he thought we might be able to get in some rowing, at least. And he was right. We did. It was still bouncy over there, but rowable.



After rowing and a leisurely potluck lunch, we also got in a nice hike that included some scenic views of the lake and mountains. Vistas of the route that we would have raced, if it weren't for the winds and freak weather.

The near cove is Kings Beach, where we stayed and were supposed to launch. The winds were blowing directly towards Kings Beach, so it had the worst of the waves.



Dollar Point, our outbound destination:


Sunday morning, a different group of rowers got up early to try and fit in a second row at Commons Beach. It was chilly, maybe in the 40's, and as we worked on rigging the boats, it started to snow. "Time to channel your inner New Englander!" I declared to M. The brief snow flurry cleared up as we waded on in and hopped in the Maas for another couple of spins.

I have a better appreciation for Lake Tahoe now. First off, it was still cool enough to make the dusty hike enjoyable and not a hot and sweaty misery-fest. I think the cool weather also meant that tourism wasn't at its peak yet, which was also a boon. Secondly, I now know of a couple of lakeside swimming beaches that would be pleasant in warmer weather. It looks like it would also be pretty easy to drop in a kayak and go for a paddle. There's a 100-mile road bike route around the lake, so that would be a third option.

So maybe we'll just have to try again next year.

On Tuesday morning, I took the silver Kaschper out for a long row. It's time to start building up for longer distance rowing and racing. Of course, a "long row" was only 13 km, but it's a start. When I brought it back to the boatyard to rinse it off and dry it, I discovered a nasty punch hole right along the bottom of the hull that was definitely letting in water. So I notified the appropriate people, thoroughly toweled out the bow compartment, and put it away to completely dry for repairs.

So, back to the Blue Hudson this morning! It was fine. I can tell that I am now managing to make it to the boathouse at a satisfactory frequency to sustain and build technique and speed. Now I just have to try and keep that up through another round of circadian trials.

Tonight's a 9 pm timepoint, and tomorrow's a midnight timepoint, so on Saturday morning I'll sleep in and then I'll row with M on Sunday instead. We're getting ready to go out to a long-distance regatta on Lake Tahoe that we're pretty excited about. 16 km. Some of my Arizona Outlaw teammates used to go to this regatta and really liked it.

I managed to get myself out of bed to go rowing this morning. As usual, I'm glad I did. The wind was blowing up the BAP out of the south, as it often does, but the water was still nice enough for a good steady-state piece.

I'm continuing to work on my posture in the boat. A long while back, Iz had some useful feedback on how to think about it, and I've finally reached a stage where I can feel the feedback from my muscles when I'm doing things correctly vs. being sloppy. Good postural control at the finish/release makes for much smoother rowing and better preparation at the catch. It should also help smooth things between M's rowing style and mine.

The challenge is that I have to keep rowing with at least a minimal amount of consistency to hold onto improvements like this one. Days like Monday through Wednesday this week made that challenging, however, so I have to be satisfied taking what I can get.

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Wednesday through today I have been dissecting the crickets from this week's inulin experiments. My primary goal is to determine the flight muscle status for the long-winged crickets (pink, active flight muscle or white, histolyzed flight muscle). My main focus is on the long-winged pink-muscled crickets because they are metabolically distinct from the short-winged white-muscled crickets.

But on any given day, the ratio of long-winged pink to long-winged white varies. For the 11 pm - 1 am timepoint, I had 7 pink and 1 white, so that timepoint is set. However, for the 11 am - 1 pm timepoint, I only had 2 pink and 8 white, and for the 8 pm - 10 pm timepoint I only have 1 pink and 7 white.

So I will need to redo two out of the three timepoints. Based on the current results, I'll set up long-winged to short-winged crickets at a ratio of 2:1.

These dissections have been very tedious and labor-intensive because in addition to checking the flight muscle status, I'm also dissecting out and weighing it, and also the crickets' ovaries and fat body. The ovaries are straightforward, but the fat body is a diffuse and sticky tissue that has to be gathered up.

When I got to the boathouse gym this morning, I discovered that a piece of equipment I never use had been moved to another space outside. Its removal freed up a section of wall that's invaluable to me. I use that bit of wall to brace my feet while doing shoulder exercises on an exercise ball (to me, those balls will forever be Swiss physical therapy balls). Previously, I'd been trying to brace my feet against the piece of equipment, but it wasn't ideal.

The extra wall space inspired me to start adding this exercise back into my routine. It's really great for building shoulder stability and strength, which are crucial for preventing repetitive-use rowing injuries.

I also want to get even better at one-legged squats. They're a fast way to notice and work on correcting bilateral strength imbalances. I also feel like they're good for facilitating long-term mobility. As evidence: the notorious RBG does them.

I still need to figure out how to add a second strength workout into my weekly agenda. Maybe if I study crickets hard enough, I can figure out how to use them to bend the space-time continuum.

Kayak paddle strokes learned:
-Regular - paddle close to side of boat, maintaining "box" between paddle and shoulders
-Franken-paddling (locked elbows to practice using torso and core)
-Sweep-stroke - wide, long, shallow stroke to correct direction
-Backing up - look behind as you back
-Side-scull: good transition stroke for thinking about stability when flipping
-Conventional side-paddle (move boat sideways)
-Stretch with paddle

Signals (we don't get to do this with rowing oars, heh):
-Paddle raised over head: stop
-Paddle pointing straight up: come over here
-Paddle pointing straight up, moving up and down: come over here, FAST
-Paddle pointing forward at an angle in a certain direction: paddle thataway

The instructor also made useful comments about different boat types, including the utility of having sealed hull compartments (as with rowing shells, these provide buoyancy). It was also helpful to see how to paddle efficiently.

Kayaking is a great counter-motion to rowing, methinks. I should probably take the Level 2 and Level 3 lessons.

There's a lot of traffic in the Oakland Inner Harbor.

I time-trialed the silver Kaschper this morning. Three 1k pieces. They were all at least 5 seconds faster than the pieces I did in the Hudson a couple of weeks ago, and I could feel that I could get even more speed out of things with some additional work.

That wasn't the outcome I'd hoped for, but then again, that's why I went to the trouble of collecting the data.

The water was flat and beautiful. The National Weather Service expects the next storm system to show up Wednesday night.

[Women's March, Oakland: Proud to be part of the 60,000-strong crowd. Hoping that marching will translate into positive political action.]

So. On Thursday, I got a phone call about that bed that I purchased last Sunday: when would I like it delivered? Friday at 6 pm. Not only did an employee deliver the bed, he also assembled and installed everything. We are still getting used to not sleeping on the floor anymore. Maybe it's frivolous, but I'm relieved that I no longer have to argue with the edge of the futon whenever I sweep. I also really like my corner next to the bed, which also features the recently refinished sewing machine cabinet:



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Today was the annual meeting for the Berkeley Paddling and Rowing Club. My one-year anniversary for rowing here! It was great to hear about the projects from 2016 and plans for 2017. My goal for 2016 had been membership in the Century Club, which I'd learned about at the prior annual meeting. All it required was 100 visits to the boathouse to use the gym and boats.

I wound up making exactly 100 visits. Maybe it's better that I didn't know that at the time, one way or another. Still, I'm pleased.



I have higher expectations for 2017, although I'll admit things have been a struggle with how much rain we've been getting.

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I consulted the internet on how to bust open coconuts. David Lebovitz said to use the backside of a cleaver to crack it open.

I guess I was a bit too late with the coconut I picked up from the BAP. Oh well.

It's probably inevitable that on a morning where I make a mental note to remember my lunchbox, I'll then promptly forget it at the boathouse. I pulled it out and set it on a bench when digging around in my pannier for clothes. And of course it's a day where I'll be at the lab until 1 am. I was already going to have to scavenge for dinner. Sigh.

#firstworldproblems

The last time I got to use a Speedcoach with any regularity was rowing in Arizona, with K.

The Speedcoach GPS is going to be a tremendously useful training tool. I am glad I went ahead and got one. It's extremely difficult to make improvements to one's speed in the absence of direct and immediate feedback.

It was challenging to get up and out this morning, but I made myself do it.

None of the usual suspects were at the BAP. The Serious Double, P, and Old Man Double are all in Boston getting ready for the Head of the Charles this weekend. The water was glass-flat. I had the BAP completely to myself.

I took out the Kaschper because the blue Hudson is still drying out in advance of stern compartment repairs. The Kaschper is rigged higher and it took a while to get comfortable in it, but eventually I got back to a point where I could do a couple of hard power 10's.

Today I should order one of those Stroke Coach GPS units so I can start to structure my workouts better. After that, I think I want to time-trial some boats and oars. Maybe a 2x2 experiment: Kaschper vs. blue Hudson, Concept2 vs. Dreher oars. To be fully fair, I think I should do back-to-back pieces and reverse the equipment test order on subsequent practice days.

This is the best time of year for the project. In November, I'll tackle the Holiday Challenge by working my way through some of the marathon training program. It's almost time to start making race plans for 2017, and I'll aim to make it as good year as I can. All the better if I can mix things up with some 2x races in addition to the 1x.