Sports, Shooting Sports

I know this blog is usually about some fairly laid back activities like kayaking and hiking but today we go in a different direction. St. Ambrose said, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." I say, when in Virginia long enough, y'all are gonna wind up shootin' (and quoting saints, apparently).

There's a group within the local Mensa chapter (yes, I'm a member) called BLAM: Blazing Lightly Armed Mensans. It's a group of Mensans who meet once per month to go target shooting. The group usually meets at the shooting range at the national NRA headquarters and let me say that the average IQ in the place goes waaaayyyy up when the BLAM folks walk in the door. Oops, there I go again, giving in to the stereotype that people who like to shoot are a bunch of idiot yokels. I have to remind myself that target shooting is a perfectly respectable sport - heck, it's even in the Olympics, including my favorite odd combo, the biathlon. It's just that if you hang around gun ranges in Virginia it's very easy to conflate those who enjoy shooting with Confederate flag-waving rednecks.

As a further digression, I learned the other day that the official adoption of the Confederate Battle Flag (the well-known "stars and bars") took place right nearby in Fairfax, Virginia. Generals Beauregard and Johnston chose it because the official Confederate National Flag of the time looked a lot like the U.S. flag and on a battlefield it's important to be able to tell who's you friend and who's your enemy.

Anyway, back to shooting. I've always felt like a total know-nothing when I've gone out with the BLAM group since I have absolutely no background in shooting. To rectify this I signed up to take the NRA basic pistol course. I have to admit I couldn't believe it myself, but sometimes it's good to stretch a little bit beyond what you normally do.

The day of the course comes and I show up at the address given to find that it's a private house - a typical suburban McMansion in Fairfax (no Confederate battle flags in sight, though). I ring the bell and a pretty, petite woman about my age answers, assures me that I'm at the right place, and leads me into her family room. It's a typical McMansion family room: vaulted ceiling, giant TV, family photos. Nothing unusual at all ... except for the big collection of handguns spread out on the coffee table. Revolvers, automatics. Big guns, small guns. The woman who answered the door introduces herself as Tina, the instructor, and gives a little bit of her background. It turns out that she's former Secret Service, former ICE federal agent, former air marshall. I quickly figure out that this little Southern belle is in fact one tough chick.

I was the know-nothing of this group too. My fellow students included a guy who brought several of his own guns along, a woman who says she currently keeps a loaded revolver in her nightstand for "home protection", and an Indian guy whose name was sufficiently difficult to pronounce that he went by "Z". Z is a current gun owner too. The class was a few days after the Tucson shooting of Rep. Giffords, which most present took as a sign that we all need to be carrying guns to protect ourselves from gun-wielding crazies. The majority opinion in our little group is that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and that as a result we all need to be armed.  I find myself once again a little bit of an outlier, but I keep my mouth shut.

Politics and paranoia aside, the course was very well taught. I learned everything I was looking to learn and feel much better prepared to hang out with the BLAM crowd. The class was supposed to end with a trip to the range at the Blue Ridge Arsenal but the range was 100% booked by a law enforcement agency doing practice. Instead, I met up one on one with Tina at the range a couple of days later before work. I opted to shoot .22 - the smallest caliber - so I could work on form without the bigger kick of larger guns. We went through a box of 100 rounds. Again, Tina proved to be an excellent instructor and I got better with each clip. Finally, my very last shot went right through the center of the bullseye. Success! I feel ready to start listening to country music and driving a pickup ... oops, there's that stereotype again.

A True Ice Pirates Paddle

The Chesapeake Paddlers Association has a number of weekly paddling groups, all of which finish up their seasons in late October when the water and weather turn cold. The hardcore nutballs of the Georgetown group continue paddling past the official end date. Known as the Ice Pirates, this hale and crazy group paddles year-round, weather permitting. I'm a part-time Ice Pirate myself. It's nice to use those Thursdays in winter to do something else - yoga, music, anything inside where it's warm and cozy. But there's also something very special about being out on the river in the winter when it's cold and quiet, so I show up to paddle at least once per month through the winter.

Last year was not kind to Ice Pirating. With the Snomageddon snowstorms and extremely cold weather, the river was too frozen to have paddled on, even if you could have gotten to it. This year also got off to an inhospitable start as an early cold wave froze the river in mid-December. This past week, though, there was a warm spell and reports started to come in that the river, while frozen in Georgetown, was navigable below Gravely Point. I was the source of one of those reports, having gone for a speedwalk by the river Christmas morning.

So mid-week the emails started flying: Was anyone paddling? Was it even possible? Advisable? After discovering that the Park Service locks up Gravely Point at night we decided to chance Columbia Island Marina. A group of six of us showed up to take our chances on this titanic adventure.

The marina has bubblers which keep the water moving thereby reducing freezing around the boats in the docks. Most of the lagoon was frozen, but we were able to get out by hugging in close to the docks. Once out on the river we saw that it was frozen upriver, frozen out in the middle of the river, but open along the Virginia shore. We headed that way to see how far we could get.

About five minutes into our trip we ran into an obstacle: an ice field. A section of the river which had been frozen was in the process of thawing but was still covered in large, chunky sheets of ice. We could see the ice field was only a few hundred feet long and decided to try to cross it. Getting through took a combination of trying to shove ice sheets out of the way with your paddle, poling against them to move your boat (there was too little open water to paddle normally), running your boat up and over ice, and just generally crunching along. We made it through, though it was more than a little nerve-wracking to do so. The traversal took its toll on my paddle too; when I got home I noticed I had chewed up one of the edges of the paddle a bit. Not a problem. I was using one of my homemade wooden Greenland paddles; I'll just sand out the damages..

Once we made it through the ice field it was smooth going. The river was open and the winds were calm. We paddled along through the crisp air most of the way to the southern end of National Airport (a security truck did come out and take a look at us at one point but must have decided we didn't look threatening). I was warm in my dry suit; only my hands were cold. There is just no answer to keeping your hands warm when paddling in cold water. As we neared the bottom of the airport we started to hit some more ice and decided that maybe it was time to turn back.

The trip back was much like the way out. The ice field seemed a little worse on the way back. The night way cold and maybe the river was refreezing. Maybe we were a little more tired and a little less excited. Or maybe we just didn't pick  as good a route through the ice. It took all of us a while to pick our way through the ice. Caroline and I were the last ones to make it through, but we made it.

Back at the marina I paid the price for not having brought gloves. My hands were cold, cold, cold as I changed out of my drysuit and loaded my boat. The loss of manual dexterity I experienced even on dry land in upper 30's temps is a sobering indicator of what to expect in case of a capsize. Yikes. But enough of that ...

Dinner was, as usual, at Noodles & Company, where we toasted our having truly earned the Ice Pirates name. But I'd still be happy if global warming had kept the river ice free for us.

Experiments in Speedwalking

I'm starting to worry that my running days are over. Well, worry may be too strong a word. I started running after Teddy was born since it was the only exercise I could do on the spur of the monent any time of day or night ... "the baby's asleep, I'm going for a run." I have never considered myself a runner in a "I am a Dancer and a Dancer dances" sort of way. Still, I like it in a lot of ways. It's a highly portable workout. It gets me outside day in and day out. It also is a more challenging aerobic workout than anything else I do. The problem is that it's also very high impact and I suspect that's one of the causes of my current achy back. I actually stopped running for a year and had far fewer back problems. Since I joined an early morning bootcamp class earlier this year (a class which is full of serious runners) I have been going back to it, with a corresponding increase in back issues. Now I have a herniated L3-L4 disk and feel like I'm 90 years old. The funny thing is I'm fine while moving: walking, kayaking, rowing, running. It's staying still that hurts.

Anyway, I've been looking to find activities to take the place of running. My current experiment is speedwalking. I wouldn't say I was racewalking, since I don't have that odd racewalking gait down. Rather, it's just walking as fast as I can with a fast cadence. So far the experiment has been a success. Thanks to my lovely Garmin Forerunner I know that I can get my heart rate pretty well up there - not quite like running, but definitely into Zone 4 (aerobic training). With running I get my heart rate up to about 150 BPM pretty quickly and stay there. When speedwalking my HR takes longer to ramp up and tends to sit in the mid-140's. My second speedwalk I got up into the 150's for the last ten minutes or so - not sure what was different or if I was just worked out at that point. The tables all say I should be exercising at abut 146 BPM but I seem to be able to handle a little faster. Maybe I should try speedwalking the hills of my neighborhood.

The only downside is I'm sure I look like a dork doing it. But, it still gets me outside, and it's much lower impact than running. I'm going to keep experimenting.

Meditation By the Numbers

V bought me a wonderful birthday present: a Garmin Forerunner, which is a combination GPS and heart rate monitor. I have been using it for all sorts of things: keeping myself from slacking off when I run, keeping track of distance when I run in unfamiliar places, and just as a HR monitor on the erg (rowing machine). It's very cool. I love data!!!!

I decided to wear my new toy while meditating to see if I could see any physiological effects from meditation. For my first trial I turned on some streaming ambient music and settled in on the couch. The problem was that right after I settled in an announcer came on and started talking up the station's Premium (paid) Service. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring this disturbance, but the heart rate shows otherwise. Or maybe it's just Heisenberg effect - knowing I was monitoring myself got me a little agitated. Anyway, after a few minutes the announcer finished and I settled into a body check-in: a mindfulness meditation where you turn your attention in turn to the different parts of your body. That settled my HR down into the 60's. After a while I switched to another technique; a "Yud Hay Vov Hay" breathing meditation I learned from Rabbi Jeff Roth. Interesting results there - a choppy and slightly higher HR before finally settling down. As a third step I tried a prone visualization meditation that I learned in a yoga class. That produced a very steady, slow heart rater. I ordinarily wouldn't do three types of meditation in one sitting, but I was experimenting. My conclusion is that physiological effects of meditation are clearly measurable through HR.

One thing really bothered me about my first trial, and that was the absolute numbers of HR. Because I exercise regularly I have a pretty low resting heart rate and I was surprised that my meditation numbers were as high as they were - particularly since an initial brief focused breathing test had yielded a HR of 56 BPM. So I decided to try again. The chart below shows my second result. I started with the same seated check-in as the first trial (minus the initial aggravation) and quickly got down below 60 BPM. I think I have an explanation for the little bumps at 4:00, 6:30 and 9:30. I was tired and I think I dozed off a couple of times. I think the bumps are where I caught myself and awoke with a start.

I continued with a repeat of the prone meditation. Again, my HR clocked right down into the upper 50's. Apparently I dozed off once there too, as shown by the wake-up bump just after minute 14. I was much happier with these absolute numbers, which I think reflect less HR elevation from experimental stress (and more tiredness-induced relaxation to boot).

I would love to be able to repeat this experiment with blood pressure. In the meantime, I may continue using the HR monitor as a new-found way of monitoring my meditation.

Oh, one last thing. I wasn't trying for a certain duration and so I find it interesting that in both trials I meditated for almost exactly the same duration.

Now, back to tonight's meditation ... drinking cognac while looking out the window at the snow :)

My new Forerunner

One of my Channukah presents was a Garmin Forerunner. This amazing little device combines a GPS and heart rate monitor to allow you to track your workouts - distance, pace, heart rate, time. I love it. It's been keeping me honest. Seeing my pace, I've been running harder. I have been using it on the erg and have been rowing harder (in that case I'm using it just for the HR monitor, since the GPS track of rowing in place isn't very useful). I wore it while raking leaves the other day just to see the impact on my heart rate (about 90 - 100 BPM, since you asked). I have even done a quick test of my ability to lower my resting heart rate through meditation. Initial results are positive: got down to 56 BPM. That was just a quick test; I need to collect a longer sample. If anything gets me out of bed in 20 degree weather tomorrow to go running it'll be the opportunity to collect another data set. I love data!

The thing does look like a "Dick Tracy watch" (for those old enough to know what that means) though. And speaking as a one-time GPS designer, the size and capabilities of the thing just blow my mind.

A couple of trips to the Shenandoahs

It's a quick trip from where I live to Shenandoah National Park: an hour and forty-five minutes at most. Every year I vow I'm going to take more advantage of this nearby hiking wonderland, however I'm ashamed to admit how often I go for extended periods without going there. Well, this Fall I have been true to my vow, having logged two recent trips to the Shenandoahs.

First, just I was really jonesing for a hike, Teddy asked if I'd want to come along on a Yorktown High School Outdoors Club hike to Old Rag Mountain. I felt pretty happy that he asked - not every teenage kid wants his dad tagging along on a school trip with his friends. I was also thrilled because this is one of the best hikes in the area. The hike is about nine miles of fairly steep vertical trails with some rock scrambling to finally reach a great view at the summit at about 3200 ft. elevation. There were as many adults as kids along on the hike: two Yorktown teachers (required), my friends Elisa and Steve, another Dad and I accompanied five high schoolers and one younger kid. A very nice group of kids - I think the kind of kid who would spent a weekend day hiking rather than playing Nintendo or going to the mall is the kind I'm inclined to like. Interestingly, the trail was much less crowded than usual - perhaps because it was at the very early edge of foliage season and most folks were waiting for more intense Fall colors to appear.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks: This past Friday after a crazy week I found myself with a day off and decided to head for the park again to get my own look at near-peak colors. I can make myself crazy second-guessing my decisions and I did so as I drove out to the park - such a long drive, this wasn't a great year for foliage because of a hot, dry September so why am I bothering?, I had so many chores to take care of, I needed to practice for an upcoming bar mitzvah gig, was it even worth the trip? These thoughts dogged me all the way to the park but disappeared the minute I was out of the car and on the trail.

It was a chilly, windy morning but I was properly dressed. The air was crisp and the view was notable even from the parking lot. I parked at Panorama (near Thornton Gap) and hit the Appalachian Trail headed to Mary's Rock. This is another vertical hike to a spectacular viewpoint - albeit a shorter one than Old Rag. I had my GPS with me and the elevation view of my track is pretty entertaining: flat across the parking lot, then a steep steady climb, gaining 1,200 ft in elevation over just 1.8 miles of trail. I had brought my camera along. Between the partly cloudy weather and the aforementioned sub-optimal foliage conditions, the big vistas were not popping with color to extent they sometimes do. However, there was plenty of color at the level of individual trees. I pointed my camera at stands of trees and even individual leaves - some of the leaves had strikingly beautiful multicolored patterns. I think I got some nice pictures.

The summit of Mary's Rock affords a nearly 360 degree view of the park and the Shenandoah Valley. Because of its sweep I think it's actually a more stunning view than Old Rag. I scrambled up the rocks at the summit to get an even better view. The view was so nice that I ignored the cold wind and stayed up on the rocks to eat my lunch. My Spaghettios Thermos (passed down from my children) hadn't kept the Asian noodles with peanut sauce I had prepared very warm but the dish was still tasty and just warm enough to help counter the nippy conditions on the mountain. I had the summit to myself - again, the trail had been fairly empty - though a couple of other hikers showed up just as I was starting down.

On the drive back I spotted a coffee roaster store in Sperryville. I was past the place by the time its presence registered, so I pulled onto the shoulder and drove about 100 feet in reverse back to the store. The place is a true roaster - they roast their coffee in-house. Their bags of coffee all carry roast dates, and the dates of the two bags I bought were the current day and the day before - fresh roasted! I poured a cup for the road (which they comped to me since I bought two bags of coffee!) and headed back home, this time without any inner second-guessing.

Tashlich by Mayak

My Tashlich by kayak video can be see here.

L'Shanah Tovah!