Wellllll...
I didn't race this weekend.
My plan had been to spend Friday night at my partner Susan Jordan's farmstead home in southern Mississippi, and then travel with Susan to the race at Orange Beach, Alabama, yesterday.
But "the devil fools with the best-laid plans," or "man plans, God laughs," or whatever other adage you prefer. In this case, Hurricane Zeta was the culprit: Susan's property sustained quite a bit of damage, including the guest house where I was supposed to stay. The storm knocked out the electricity there, and on Thursday evening it didn't seem likely that power would be restored before the end of the weekend. So, Susan decided she would not be able to host me and that she could not attend the race.
Upon learning this news, I pondered my options. I was already registered for the event, of course, and when I asked the director if I could switch to the single surfski class, he assured me that would be no problem.
The trouble was, the field as it appeared on the event's registration web page offered no competition for me at all. It had already looked thin when I was expecting to race tandem with Susan: in the long-course race there was only one other tandem surfski entered, along with some kind of non-surfski tandem kayak. Single surfskis in the long-course race? Zippo.
So, I was looking at a sevenish-hour drive and motel expenses just to race against nobody. I pulled the plug instead.
It's a little disappointing, but it's okay. If I've learned anything in Pandemic Times, it's not to get all upset when a race gets called off or otherwise doesn't work out for me.
And right now, my body is tired. I'm ready for a break. I've got a lot of other things on my plate--some are there because they have to be, others because I want them to be--and I want to give them more attention. One of them is healing this neck pain, which continues to make my days much less pleasant than they ought to be.
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