I've been feeling pretty beat-up all week, and the main reason lies in my non-athletic life. I spent the first half of the week doing another big surge of work in that landscaping project I've been mentioning over the last month or so. Any project that involves pouring concrete and laying bricks is going to require a lot of digging. There's a reason digging is among the principal archetypes for backbreaking manual labor.
A month ago I mentioned some lack of feeling in my left leg, and since then I've had some similar problems in my hands and wrists, and I now think that's all the result of swinging the pick axe and shoveling up all that rooty, gravelly soil. I talked to my friend Rob, a chiropractor up in New York, and he said it was the likely cause. He also pointed out that the lack of feeling is a nerve issue, not a circulation issue as I'd suspected.
By Wednesday evening I was dealing with a new ailment: a sharp, stabbing pain in my right arm where the biceps muscle meets the deltoid. I think I know what caused it: swinging a hammer. I'd spent the day laying bricks on a section of driveway, using a brick hammer to keep them packed as tightly as possible. Particularly toward the end of the job it was taking a series of hard blows to get each brick in place.
It was hurting bad Thursday morning and I took the day off from paddling. It was perhaps slightly better Friday, but not by much. I did manage to do another round of the strength routine; I wasn't sure I'd be able to handle the bicep curls, but they went surprisingly okay. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the pain is, but apparently it's not in the main spot that the curls hit. I went slow and tried to use correct technique throughout each set.
Yesterday morning I got back in the boat. Every time I paddle I start with a set of back strokes away from the dock, and my injured spot hurt as I did so yesterday, but it felt okay once I was paddling forward. The discomfort was definitely there, but whichever muscle is hurt apparently is not directly involved in paddling.
I paddled to the south end of the harbor and met up with Adam Davis, who put in at the cobblestones. We embarked on a fairly long trip: we paddled up the Mississippi River along the Tennessee bank until we reached the mouth of the Loosahatchie River, then ferried across to the lower end of the Redman Bar, then headed back toward town by way of the Loosahatchie Chute. Here's the map of our route that Adam's G.P.S. device generated:
For me it was about a fourteen-mile circuit that took almost 140 minutes. I felt tired and a bit sluggish in the boat, and the long session left me quite worn out for the rest of the day. I took a nap after lunch and then spent the late afternoon laying the last section of bricks, using the hammer as little as possible. I'm happy to say that the landscaping project is complete except for a few finishing touches.
The main reason I bore down to get that job done is that I knew today was going to be a soggy one. Heavy thunderstorms moved in overnight and it poured rain all morning and into the afternoon. I try not to let rain stop me from paddling, but there was quite a bit of lightning today as well, so I stayed in and gazed forlornly out the windows for much of the day. We finally got a break in the rain around 3 o'clock, so I did a bit of stretching and headed downtown. I was still feeling tired and sluggish and I paddled for just 40 minutes. Since this whole pandemic wiped out my race schedule I've mostly been doing long, slow paddles, and I think that might be one of the reasons for my feelings of sluggishness. I need to make a point of working in at least one short, fast session each week.
It's my understanding that one more line of storms, possibly severe, will move through later tonight. After that it's supposed to be cooler here for several days, with Fahrenheit highs in the 50s.
Getting my arms all warmed up by paddling has helped my injured area feel better yesterday and today. Once my muscles cool down and tighten back up, the area starts hurting again. I hope this is something I can paddle through until it runs its course.
For more information on what this blog is about, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment