I struggled with motivation this weekend. Maybe it was the weather (overcast, Fahrenheit temperatures in the 40s and 50s, rainy today), or maybe it was the winter solstice, or maybe it was the concern over this nagging injury I've got. Whatever the case, it felt like I had to overcome some extreme inertia just to get myself down to the river and in my boat.
Yesterday I paddled for 60 minutes, and for the most part I maintained a steady pace. There was a barge rig coming upriver, and while I don't normally surf wakes aggressively in the wintertime for safety reasons (i.e., I don't want to get soaking wet or possibly swim in cold weather), I was curious to see how my chest muscle would respond to a surf attempt, so I waited for the waves to die down to a modest size and then tried to sprint. The muscle didn't respond well.
Today I did a round of my new strength routine, and then went back downtown and paddled for 70 minutes. After warming up and doing three 8-stroke sprints, I embarked on a "pyramid" workout--pieces of 1', 2', 3', 4', 5', 4', 3', 2', 1' with two minutes recovery in between. Here I was paddling pretty hard but not at sub-maximum or maximum intensity, and my sore muscle held up just fine. So I'm glad I can train at a decently high level. But I'm going to need to do some high-intensity workouts in the coming month, and that means I need for this ailment to get better. I'll be out of the boat for the next four days and I hope that will help. If it's still bothering me after that I'll look into some more treatment.
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