Messages

1

Flatwater and Touring / Great surf and turf weekend

« on: July 12, 2013, 12:19:32 PM »

My husband and I went up to Lake Placid last weekend to check out the course for the ADK 80k mountain bike race at Mount Van Hoevenberg and get in a little paddling.  It was fun to bike on the trails that we often x-c on and see what is under all of that snow.  A real bonus was an early-morning paddle at Lower Saranac Lake.  It's now one of my favorite lakes.  We saw 5 loons (one was a tiny baby) and one bald eagle.  We watched the rain come in and obliterate our view of the mountains.  It was an amazing experience to be out there in the misty rain.  Here are pics:  http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/lake_placid__summer.

Anyone else out there have some great surf and turf experiences to share?

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Flatwater and Touring / Re: Spill your quiver

« on: June 06, 2013, 01:08:18 PM »

My quiver:  M&M 12'6"
My husband's quiver:  Surftech Flowmaster 12'6"

We just started last August.  I'm afraid that space will seriously jeopardize our ability to expand our quiver unless we give up some other toys.

I will be able to find room for an inflatable in the future.

3

Flatwater and Touring / Re: Let's see pics of your favorite flatwater places

« on: May 22, 2013, 05:39:55 PM »

I was in Kingston Ontario visiting family - looked out the window and saw Lake Ontario glass so we had to paddle!

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SUP General / Re: I am a newbie, what do I need to know?

« on: April 18, 2013, 09:32:02 AM »

Welcome Ozzy!

I'm relatively new to paddling (flat water) and didn't know anyone in the area who paddles, so had to figure out a bunch of stuff the hard way.  If there are paddlers around you, hook up with them.  If there is no where to take a lesson, reading about technique and watching as many technique videos as possible really helps.  Posts in this forum have been very helpful to me.
Here are some things I learned:
- move around on your board.  Don't keep your feet planted.  Also, experiment with forward/aft positioning on the board.  I found that hopping is the easiest way to move my feet.
- carbon boards are very fragile - keep them away from rocks.  If you need to get your board repaired and there aren't any board shops in your area, ask a rowing club for a good repair person.
- as someone said, get a waterproof camera - you see some amazing things on (and under) the water.
- as for paddles, I didn't go for a huge blade.  Especially as someone new to the sport, I thought higher reps with a med to small blade would be easier on my shoulders.
- Google 'cross bow turn'.  This is really handy for turning a board that likes to go straight.

Have fun!! 

5

Flatwater and Touring / Re: What do you take with you?

« on: April 09, 2013, 12:19:04 PM »

Grapes and a white chocolate macadamia Cliff bar (and water of course).  Yum!

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Flatwater and Touring / Re: Snowstorm & Moonlight Paddling plus a wave

« on: April 09, 2013, 12:10:56 PM »

Very cool!

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SUP General / Re: Attorney surfer arrested for SUP related vandalism

« on: March 22, 2013, 07:21:53 AM »

So glad he got caught.  Most vandals don't get caught.

I agree that being a professional doesn't mean you are emotionally mature or stable.  But, being a professional means that they are more likely to get away with bad behavior (although they have more to lose if caught).  I know of a local nurse who got stopped 2x for drunk driving (once with a minor in the car) and got off lightly because of their profession; they keyed a car, confessed to the police, then begged not to be charged or they'd lose their license; and they got charged for hosting an under-age drinking party - that one hit the newspapers. They still have their license to practice.  Oh, and by the way, none of this was their fault.

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Training, Diet, and Fitness / Re: Chided for "competing for fun"

« on: March 14, 2013, 11:29:41 AM »

I think the guy was just jealous because you were winning the competion of who was having more fun in life.

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Training, Diet, and Fitness / Re: Why is Bread Bad For You? The Shocking Truth

« on: February 14, 2013, 09:22:03 AM »

Guilty.  Every day at 9am, my local food coop pulls ciabatta out of the oven.  I allow myself to partake once a week and I look forward to that ciabatta all week.

10

Random / Re: Nemo's gone - Left an interesting trail

« on: February 13, 2013, 03:42:39 PM »

Very cool.  Thanks for sharing.

11

Training, Diet, and Fitness / Re: Heart rate difference between Paddling and running

« on: February 12, 2013, 10:17:22 AM »

On a somewhat related note, I find it really hard to sustain a relatively high (high zone 3/zone 4) heart rate on the bicycle trainer compared to on the bicycle. I've talked to others that have the same experience.  I can only come up with 2 explanations:  1) mental - the trainer is boring and nothing like a real-life hill can motivate you, or 2) (this is a long-shot explanation), the variations associated with real-life riding make it easier to sustain a higher average compared to a very consistent trainer setting.

I can't wait for the ice to melt to try the HR monitor on the SUP.  I imagine that it will be hard for me to get my HR as high as biking on flatwater SUP'ing because of the lack of hills to motivate (and also because I'm a relative beginner and probably don't engage nearly as many muscles as I should).

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Random / Re: Mac fans and users, step inside pelase...

« on: February 06, 2013, 04:57:41 AM »

I switched from PC to Mac, then back to PC, and I'm considering Mac again.  Right now, I'm running both.  Actually, in the way early days, I used a Lisa.  That thing crashed all the time, but it was truly amazing compared to everything else in the office.

I had the bad luck to get an iMac (around 2003-vintage) that failed a couple of times.  Apparently (I say apparently because the Mac store guy disagreed with our internet research and our empirical experience), some capacitors in the power supply tended to fail and blow out the hard drive.  I replaced the hard drive and upgraded operating systems, only to find that some of my old (expensive) programs weren't compatible with the new OS.  So I put the old OS back, but many web sites won't work with the old OS.  Then the power supply failed, so I was going to give up on the computer, but my husband found a cheap power supply on eBay and fixed it.  So I have the Mac for Photoshopping because the screen is so good and the PC right beside it for everything else.  I'd like to get a new iMac, but haven't been able to justify the price (and I really want a new bike).  Just got a GoPro, so that might force me to upgrade.

13

Random / Re: We are the 5%!

« on: January 31, 2013, 10:36:32 AM »

Kind of surprising, but my world is skewed as many of my friends are mountain bikers and my co-workers are fairly active as well.

I've tried the gym thing and I just can't keep motivated.  The only thing good about the gym is the social aspect and the article tells you not to socialize.

One of the ways I justified buying my husband and myself SUPs was that it was good cross-training (core & upper body) workout for mountain biking and that it would be good balance training for skate skiing.  The real reason I got them is because SUP'ing looked like so much fun and when I tried it, I realized that it was as much fun as it looked.

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Random / Re: Largest Glacier-calving ever filmed !!

« on: January 31, 2013, 10:31:15 AM »

I thought I saw a whale, but realized it was blue ice the second time I watched it.

Very cool.

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Training, Diet, and Fitness / Re: The new year, training journals and keeping after it.

« on: January 29, 2013, 05:28:42 AM »

My friend Strava'd mowing his lawn.  He was disappointed that no one attempted to beat his record.