I went back to the chiropractor Monday afternoon and she worked on my neck some more. This time I think I'm detecting some slight improvement. The discomfort is still there but it's not quite as intense as it was all last week.
There's no question that stress is a factor. The medical field is learning more and more about the mental health toll perpetrated on Americans this year by the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic downturn, and the nightmare of an election season (for which next Tuesday might be nothing more than a segue into a new nightmare). I've been hanging in there, and I'd like to tell you I'm above all the chaos and woe, but the truth is that I'm just as susceptible to feelings of gloom and doom as anybody. It's taking some real willpower and concentration to make myself relax and not brood over it all. I have the added concern of my mother's health: though she had a successful surgery a few weeks ago, she still needs several months of chemotherapy, and she's starting that today.
At the moment I'm not feeling particularly motivated to go race this weekend, but that's actually probably the best thing I could do. And I'm pretty confident that once I'm out of town I'll get myself focused. Racing among distractions is a skill that you can improve with experience. All those hundreds of times I've gotten out and raced or done a hard workout when I wasn't feeling a hundred percent rarin' to go have prepared me for just this kind of weekend.
On Tuesday I did a round of the strength routine and then joined Joe down at the dock. Joe was having a busy day at work so we just paddled to the north end of the harbor and back. Today I went back to the river and paddled for 50 minutes, doing six 12-stroke sprints at two-minute intervals.
I haven't seen any sunshine here in just about a week. This week started with overcast skies, and yesterday the outer bands of Hurricane Zeta dumped quite a bit of rain on the Mid South. This morning I paddled in a sloppy drizzle driven by a stiff south wind. The rain is supposed to move out and the temperature is supposed to drop.
Meanwhile Susan Jordan, my partner in a tandem surfski this weekend, tells me the hurricane gave sort of a beating to her property in southern Mississippi, and I don't know just yet what impact that'll have on our weekend plans. The good news is that the current forecast calls for mostly-sunny skies and a high of 73 degrees Fahrenheit down at Orange Beach, Alabama, on Saturday. If Susan and I do in fact make the trip, I hope it'll be a welcome break from thinking about my mother's health, the greater public health, and the fate of my nation.
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