New Years Eve

New Years Eve Day was a marathon paddling day for Brian and I. We paddled the Kinnikinic in the morning with 9 other paddlers and then scooted to the Vermilion to meet up with Bryan Jake and Dennis. The Kinni was absolutely stunning. There was lots of wild life to see. The Vermilion was low but really fast. One oddity we noticed was that the sand bars in S-Bend and after the last drop were gone! It was so deep in that last pool (under the seal launch spot) that you couldn't touch the bottom. The put in was a little slick. The take out worked good with team work to get the kayaks up and out. Great day on the river!












Many more photos to come...gotta go party now! Happy New Year!

XC Skiing today

XC Skiing the bluffs of Red Wing looked better than paddling today.

Paddling oportunities for the New Year

The Vermilion is open. Also the Kinni and Cannon. The Mississippi in Red Wing is open with the boat launch at Colvill Park ice free and they plowed the snow off. If paddling the Mississippi from Colvill go upstream. Down stream the ice is still on Lake Pepin. I haven't seen any ice sheets floating down the Mississippi lately, but there still could be some, so keep an eye out for them.
Nora
12-29-05 Today I added photos of the Verm and Cannon that I took on the way home from work this evening. Good chance I'm paddling the Verm friday at noon. Anyone else?

Merry Christmas everyone!

Hope it's the best!
Nora

Flamenco Dancing

Have you ever seen Flamenco Dance? A few years ago I had the pleasure of seeing Susana DiPalma and Zorongo Flamenco at the Southern Theater. WOW! I never knew Flamenco could be so passionate and moving.
Susana DiPalma is a woman that I greatly admire. She has lived a life of traveling the world to learn Flamenco with the masters. She now teaches and performs in the Twin Cities. I have been lucky enough to see two of their shows at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis. The story and choreography has been world class. Pedro Cortes Jr. provided the Spanish guitar music. He's an incredible musician!
She is doing another show on Feb. 25th and 26th, 2006. Unfortunatly it looks like I am working those two nights, but if gypsy dance and guitar are in your blood(they're in mine!) I highly recomend going. You won't be disapointed!

Eagles at Colvill Park

I stopped at Colvill Park this weekend and both days counted about 30 Bald Eagles. They winter here because the Mississippi is open all winter and they can feed. The bay at Colvill is the main focus for them. Usually the bay is open up to the boat launch but due to cold weather it's frozen along the shore. The main channel is open but there are lots of ice sheets floating down stream. Not good for paddling. Click on the photos to enlarge and count the eagles.
Also of note today. I tried and did several off side rolls! Whoo Hoo! (in a pool of course)

Brrrrmillion 12-13-2005

Beautiful day for a hike at the Vermillion River. There hasn't been a soul down the put in trail since the snow. Lots of animal tracks! I followed a fox's path from the top of the trail to the falls. Nora

Winter Exercise

Now that my Vermillion paddling has more or less come to an end for the season I am changing my habits over to winter. Since the end of last April I have been on the body for life diet. I started with the weights and aerobics that the book recomends but soon found that kayaking the Vermillion gave me a great combination of weights, aerobic and resistance training so I substituted kayaking for the books recomended exercises with good results. I have lost 38 1/2 lbs and had a great year on the river. Now that winter is here I am looking to accomplish a few goals. I feel I need to extend my endurance especially targeting extended intense exertion. I also hope to increase muscle mass and strength. I read in the Star Tribune an article on interval training. The stats they threw out were amazing. It basically said that I could increase my endurance by more than 100% in two weeks by following a basic plan. The only thing they asked for was 20 minutes 3 times a week. You pick the exercise. The generic recipe was 5 min. easy warm up. 1 min maximum intense exercise, followed by 4 min. low or medium exercise. Repeat the 1 min and 4, three times.
Tonight after weights I got on the Eliptical machine. Minutes one thru five were at level 2 warm up. Minute five was at level 7, followed by four minutes at level 3. Minute ten was at level 8 followed by four mimutes at level 4. Minute fifteen was at level 9 followed by four at level 5. I finished with minute 20 being at level ten and cooled down at level 2. Since being back at the Y my Eliptical work out has seemed like more work...today I feel I had gotten a better workout and wasn't tired and bored. Looking ahead at what other aerobic exercise would be beneficial for me I've decided to try lap swiming only using the interval plan. 5 warmup laps, one intense followed by 4 easy. I'm hoping I can do this as lap swimming in the past has bored me to tears. Has anyone else trained interval training?
12-29-05 update
I tried interval training for about a week. Judging from the response to my heart rate it works very well. Just one problem with me is that I get bored with this kind of training really fast. After we recieved that nice snow the cross country ski trail at Mississippi Golf Links looked so much better...that is until it melted the week before Christmas. I hoping to get more skiing in soon.