It's funny where you find your flow.
I crashed in Iowa last night, just south of Cedar Rapids. I didn't sleep well. My hip was aching from 4 hours sitting in the car. I kept tossing and turning, waking and looking out the window, waiting for the sky to lighten. Finally, at 8 am I got back on the road north.
Then I got lost in Waterloo. Not oh-crap-where-am-I lost, but simply misdirected. As I looped around to get back on the highway, I passed a sign for "public recreation area." This was followed by little icons of a snowmobile, ATV, dirt bike, and someone fishing. Fishing! That means water! Next thing you know I am on a gravel road, passing junk yards on my left and right, in search of any spot to get in my boat.
The pond wasn't much but I was thrilled. The dozen folks out drinking (aka fishing) already eyed my boat with skepticism but nodded back to a pleasant "good morning." The water was bordered by a small dirt levee on one side, apparently separating it from a wastewater treatment facility. But I figured the locals eat the fish so it couldn't be that bad. At least a dozen ATVs and dirt bikes were ripping it in circles around the small park. Good morning, Waterloo.
I felt flexible and powerful in my boat. My sprints were controlled and my hips and shoulders in sync. I just messed around for 30 minutes, but it made my day. That was the best I've felt in my boat in over a week.
Dropped off two slalom boats with Max in Cedar Falls, now there are just three riding above me. Onward!
All Iowa rest stops now have free wireless internet, by the way.
The Bear Paw whitewater resort, store & restaurant in northern wisconsin was leveled by a tornado a Thursday night. Everything is gone; thankfully no one was hurt. The buildings are just rubble, and a kayak ended up in a tree. I never made it up there, but I was looking forward to taking a clinic or racing there at somepoint. I hope their insurance is generous and they are able to completely rebuild, if that is what the owners decide to do.
News stories from Google
Nothing tops off a frustrating workout like finding your can of DAP contact cement has exploded in your truck. When it rains it pours, I guess.
Fortunatly, paddlers don't mind rain so much.
supraspinatus. Sounds pretty cool, huh? Well, guess what – you’ve got two of those little tendons. As do I. And like any cool thing, you’d think I’d take care of them.
But if you know me at all, you're already thinking how notoriously hard I am on my gear. Favorite things don’t get taken care of, they get used hard & regularly until they fall apart. Then I get another one.
But I can’t do that with a tendon.
My right shoulder is protesting today; the joint grinds and pops when I roll my arm around. There is some daily swelling, but I don’t like taking advil each morning. I was told back in 1998 that I might need shoulder surgery if I wanted to keep swimming seriously. At the time, I moved on to other priorities, but now that shoulder-heavy athletics are back in my life, surgery may be back on the table. We'll have to see what my tendons did on their own over the last 8 years.
And then there is my lower half. A knee surgeon and a back surgeon, when asked about my right leg’s circulation issues in my C1, thought I may have inflicted some minor damage to my sciatic nerve. “While the nerve should recover fully, they seemed to think it would take on the order of 3-6 months, and of course they thought you shouldn't spend much time in the slalom boat.” Yeah, right.
I am not going to stop paddling. Even if my bursa sac bursts open, my teres major gets a major tear, and my scapula needs the scalpel. I am going to work with my body to get through this. Which means not ignoring my shoulder pain (the standard practice) but listening to it. Responding to it. And finally using my great health coverage for the first time and seeing a doc & PT.
Another anatomical drawing of a shoulder here
More rotator cuff tendonitis info here
Few and far between as we may be, it was wonderful to stumble across other women in C-boats online: http://www.whitewaterracing.org/weblog/coloradocboatexpansion.htm
I’m now heading to Colorado in July, instead of Wausau in June, for racing and training! Intimidating and exciting – my first experience with events where you cannot do practice runs on the course before your race. I’m very disappointed that I won’t be able to spend a week in Wisconsin, but I will still be at Age Group Nationals & the Whitewater Rendezvous in Carlton.
This is a big challenge, sitting 3 weeks away on the horizon, staring me in the face. I have many goals, but first of all, there is no way I am swimming off the course in Golden. Which means I have to find that missing roll, tune it up and lock it down. Fast.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Last night was one of those practices where you feel like you accidentally brought the wrong body. Everything was disconnected and out of sync. My rhythm was sporadic at best, and I had to focus on holding a straight line upstream.
I had added foam ankle bumps to my outfitting to try and stop the complete circulation loss to my right foot. Instead, they made it worse and I ripped them out after a few loops. I have no problem ignoring leg pain – I assumed this would be part of getting used to the C1 – but my legs won’t let me ignore them. After 20 minutes in the boat, they cramp up pretty violently and I have to walk it off. I still have faith that time acclimating to the boat and actually outfitting it (I am simply kneeling on foam right now) will solve this. It simply has to.
I got pretty frustrated. My Tuesday night workout was magic – even after 4 days on a paddling trip, my shoulders and back were filled with explosive power. I didn’t have to look for my rhythm; it found me. I thought “I am finally getting good at this!” … Rivers, it would seem, are good at dishing out a humbling experience as soon as you think you have mastered something.
I wasn’t going to let myself go home like this; I stayed an extra half an hour. Finally, after some sprints, things fell into place. A workout like this, once I am done being pissy and blaming the water, leaves me even more motivated for the next day.
