These words of wisdom are popular on web, but I’ve found them in a little book: Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives by Patti Digh, the author and several more books and 37days.com blog. A lovely Christmas gift!

It may be somewhat oversimplified recommendation from the perspective of training for ultramarathon paddle races. I would perhaps replace “less” and “more” by “smart”. Nevertheless, it’s an essence of a healthy lifestyle and a good mantra to repeat to yourself during the incoming holiday season.

Keep paddling as long as you can find a liquid water!

I added these words to my stock photography portfolio.

Words, phrases, slogans, questions, alphabet sets, abstracts … I have more than 1000 pictures in the portfolio created with vintage letterpress printing blocks, a variety of fonts, both wood and metal. Wood printing blocks have nice ink patina. These pictures are available for licensing as royalty free digital downloads starting with $2 or/and as prints. I am also happy to create custom images. Please contact me for more information.

Related posts for those interested in a more advanced training:
Carter Johnson on Training for Ultra Marathon Kayak Races
How to Sit in Water and Paddle a Surfski for 260 or 300 Miles by Carter Johnson
13 Tips on Training for Endurance Paddling Races from West Hansen
Dawn Stewart “SandyBottom” on Training for Paddle Racing – A Cruiser Approach

I had a rather late start to my 2011 paddling season.

I have created Northern Colorado Fitness Paddling group on Facebook to coordinate our winter paddling on the South Platte River. I will post incoming events and updates there as well as in a calendar on a sidebar here. Paddlers of all skills and fitness level are welcome to join us.

Sunday afternoon, February 22, 2009. 2×4.5 mile paddling workout on the South Platte River: upstream from Kuner and back down the river, about 2.5 hours at moderate pace. Flow at Kersey: ~550cfs.

Four solo kayakers: Jeremy in a wildwater racer, Rob in Spencer X-treme canoe (see his pictures on Facebook), Belen in Seda Glider, and me in Thunderbolt-X kayak.

The graph from my Garmin Forerunner GPS shows our speed during this workout. It was possible to maintain about 3 mph when going upstream, but the downstream speed on the shallow river was not so good as one would expect. The river near Kuner and Kersey is slower and deeper than above the confluence with the Poudre River. It is getting even more shallow above Evans.

I am trying to do paddling workout on the South Platte every weekend. If you would like to join please contact me. I am sending e-mail to interested paddlers around Thursday with time and location taking into account weather and flow conditions.

I am planning two informal races on the South Platte like in recent years:
(1) 9 miles upstream from Kersey to Evans to join the club down river paddling trip on Sunday, March 22,
(2) South Platte River Marathon from Wildcat on St Vrain Creek to Kuner, probably two weeks later.
If there is any interest we can run more races, e.g., 5 miles upstream from Kersey to the Plumb Ditch Dam as a warm-up..

South Platte River below Denver – GPS/photo river guide

32 Shallow Miles of the 2008 South Platte River Marathon

2nd South Platte Upstream “Rotten Egg” Race – Results

Wesley Echols of Rhode Island, USA announced the launch of a new US surfski website
SurfskiRacing.com.

A collection of links to articles in my blog and other on-line resources.

This post is a first one from a mini series on training for long distance paddle races. I asked several racers with a potentially different perspective to share their experience.