Sunday evening and all day Monday I felt just awful. I wasn't sick, but my whole body ached and my eyes were tired and watery. It was all sort of puzzling because I'd had a decent night of sleep, my diet hadn't been any worse than normal, and I'd been attentive to hydration like I usually am. Whatever the case, I took it easy on Monday.
I was feeling fresher by Tuesday morning, and I did a round of the strength routine I've been doing lately and then headed downtown to paddle a loop of the harbor with Joe. Once again I felt some light pain in my injured rib area but nothing I didn't feel I could paddle through.
On Wednesday I got the bike out and rode back to Overton Park near my house. The fallen trees and other debris had been cleaned up from the loop in the woods. I expect there are some volunteers to thank for that service. Like so many modern-day city governments, my city's has decided that providing parks and green spaces for its citizens shouldn't be part of its job and has farmed the upkeep of several of our biggest parks out to nonprofit conservancies. The conservancy that runs Overton Park has limited funds at its disposal and relies on volunteers for "emergency" tasks like cleaning up after a severe storm.
Anyway, the volunteers' efforts allowed me to do another set of laps on the loop. I did four laps, once again doing the carless section "on" and the other section "off." After the first and third laps I stopped to do sets of Hindu squats. I felt pretty good throughout the whole workout... my legs must actually be getting in shape.
I had a full day of non-athletic activities yesterday, but I managed to get in another round of the strength routine. The core exercises on the stability ball and the lunges might be the most taxing things I'm doing these days.
This morning I was back in the boat in chilly, blustery conditions. I warmed up and then did a drill I learned watching the Mocke brothers' "Masters of Surfski" video that involves paddling at varying cadences (stroke rates). I did twenty strokes at a fairly slow rate, then twenty strokes at a medium-fast rate, then eight strokes at the fastest rate I could manage. I did three five-minute periods of this drill, with five minutes recovery in between.
It was the hardest I'd paddled in a month. I've definitely lost some in-the-boat fitness, but I'm hoping the hard out-of-the-boat workouts I've done, on top of the good workouts I'd done before I injured my rib, will help me get it back quickly. I could feel some slight pain in my rib toward the end of the 60-minute session, and for the rest of the day there's been some very slight discomfort, so I need to be careful to give it the recovery it needs before I paddle hard again.
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