It was a new month, so I started up a new gym routine on Friday. This one consists of pushups, backups on the stability ball, and bent-over rows with a dumbbell. Pushups are something that's seemed much more difficult since the onset of my nerve impingement problem. I'm starting with 2 x (5 sets of ten at one-minute intervals). We'll see how that goes.
Yesterday morning I woke up sore in my pecs and lats. I guess that's to be expected after starting up some pushups and rows. I went down to the river and paddled for 70 minutes. I did some surfing behind a barge rig down near the Harahan and Frisco an Memphis-Arkansas Bridges, and it wasn't as much fun as it should have been because several times the pilot idled the towboat's engines. This happens occasionally: some pilots don't seem to like the idea of kayakers and canoeists surfing their wakes, and their response is to throttle down their engines like this one did, or to blast their horn at me, or to get on their P.A. system and and tell me to get lost. Maybe they think what I'm doing is unsafe, or maybe they just have no patience for such tomfool shenanigans. Whatever the case, my response to their objection goes something like this: (1) As long as a paddler is reasonably fit and has mastered a certain set of prerequisite skills, I believe that it is not particularly unsafe to go out and surf barge wakes; and (2) The Mississippi belongs to me just as much as it belongs to the commercial shipping companies, and if it's okay for them to churn up waves on our river, then it's okay for me to go out and surf those waves.
Because of those surfing interruptions I didn't make much progress back upstream, so I had to ferry over to the bank and slog back up to the harbor. I could feel the soreness in the semicircular area of muscle beneath each armpit, and was suitably taxed by the time I was back at the dock. The temperature continues to be above 90 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend, but the wind has shifted to the north, bringing in some not-so-humid air, so the heat wasn't as oppressive as it could have been.
I was still sore this morning, so I did an abbreviated version of the gym routine. Then I went back to the riverfront and got in the boat. I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and saw another barge rig coming upriver just above those same bridges, so I paddled out to try some surfing once again. This time the pilot didn't mind what I was doing, or if he did, he made no indication. And the waves were SWEET!!!! I spent a good ten minutes getting one nice long surf after another. By the time the best waves had pulled away from me I'd surfed most of the way back up to the harbor's mouth. Saving myself that extra paddling during the dog days of summer is something I'm always grateful for.
Lately Monday has been the day of the week I've taken off from athletic stuff, and I'm looking forward to some recovery time tomorrow.
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