I went to the doctor Friday afternoon. An x-ray of my pelvis showed nothing wrong, and the doctor said I probably have a muscle tear in my left hip area. That sounds plausible to me. I do a lot of rotating at the hip--in the boat, of course, and also in my stretching and warmup routines--and it's entirely possible that I cranked it too hard at some point and tore something. And I think I made it worse once I discovered something was wrong. When something hurts, I tend to want to stretch the area in an attempt to alleviate it, and in this case that was the wrong thing to do because it probably exacerbated the tear.
There's not much you can do for a muscle tear except rest and let it heal. So that's what I'm doing. My current strength routine (which I'll talk more about when I get a chance) doesn't affect that area, so I'll do that a bit more frequently this coming week since I'll be out of the boat. I also plan to stay generally active, riding my bike and doing whatever else I might think of that won't aggravate the injury. And I never have any trouble finding things to do in my non-athletic life.
The doctor thought a week or so out of the boat would be enough time for the muscle to mend. After that, I need to ease back into paddling for another week or two. With the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race five weeks away, it's not an ideal situation, but as long as I don't rush things I think I'll have time to recover and be decently ready to go by the 18th of June.
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