Pinball

This was one of those days where I was bouncing around like a pinball all day.  During the course of the day I did some work at my workshop, went by my building to check the construction progress, came home for lunch and a nap (I highly recommend naps, by the way; legendary distance-runner-turned-coach Alberto Salazar urges the athletes he coaches to take naps, saying it's as important as going for a second run in a day), went up to my rental house to collect some rent, packed up some of my things to move to the building soon, and disconnected the washer and dryer at my mother's house in preparation for moving them to my building.

I had planned to paddle today all along, and I managed to do so in the late afternoon even though it would have been easy to justify skipping it.  As Brent Reitz notes in his forward stroke video, if you get your paddle in you know you've done at least one good thing for the day, no matter what else happens.

I paddled the K1 in the harbor for 60 minutes.  I'm not entirely at ease in that boat, but I feel as though I'm making progress.  Those one-sided-paddling stroke drills I've been doing are going much better now than they were when I started them.  I think that's a big part of the value of doing stroke drills: you start with some specific movement, usually one that feels awkward at first, and as you become more proficient at the movement you get the satisfaction of a little noticeable improvement, and you come away feeling like something other than a failure.