Taking care of business while savoring what matters

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling a bit swamped with things to deal with.  In addition to the ongoing haggle with doctors and insurance flunkies over my M.R.I. plans, I had a water heater that was acting up and in possible need of replacement, and I had a couple of new jobs in my woodworking shop that had just come my way Monday.  I considered taking a break from training activities and devoting the whole day to attacking the pile of stuff. But once I'd had a chance to drink some coffee and eat some breakfast and think things over, I decided the to-do would keep and I would feel better after some physical activity.

I did a gym session and then headed down to the river.  In the boat I warmed up and did three 8-stroke sprints, and then did twelve 30-second sprints starting every 3rd minute.  One thing I like about this workout is how taut it is: along with the warm-up and cool-down periods, it fits nicely into 60 minutes.  By the time I was back on the dock I was feeling a nice endorphin rush and looking forward to knocking out some chores for the rest of the day.  And I was feeling proud of myself for making the time for some physical self-care.

Yesterday was spent doing out-of-the-boat tasks, and I figured this morning I'd be doing what I do most Thursdays: some kind of calm, steady paddle.  But last night I got a message from my friend Amelia, a whitewater paddler from east Tennessee, telling me she was passing through town and wanted to paddle on the Mississippi River today.  So I got out a touring boat and some gear for her to use, and met her when she arrived in town this afternoon.  We spent some two and a half hours paddling at a leisurely pace, hiking through the underbrush on the Loosahatchie Bar, and checking out the scale model of the lower Mississippi on Mud Island.  We got rained on a bit, but the mixture of clouds and sunshine made the sky pretty and even gave us a rainbow as we were collecting our gear after the paddling was finished.  I might have gotten a bit more work done or some more specific training in if Amelia hadn't shown up, but I don't regret that even a little bit.  It's important to pause and savor moments sometimes.

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