Testing what my ailing body will tolerate

I did a gym session Friday morning.  My left biceps and forearm muscles bothered me a lot--not necessarily during the exercises, but just in general as I went through my day.

My arm was still bothering me as I went down to the river to paddle yesterday morning.  I could feel the discomfort in my arm as I paddled, but the ailing muscles were not so directly involved as to impede what I was doing.  They bothered me a little more out on the Mississippi than they did in the harbor, so I probably need to steer clear of paddling in anything rougher than flatwater for a while.

What surprised me yesterday is that I felt as good in the boat as I had in a long time.  I felt energetic and motivated, and that's a feeling that's been elusive for me all year.

It was overcast yesterday morning, with a temperature around 60 degrees Fahrenheit.  In the afternoon a system of rain moved in, and it rained for the better part of the night.  By this morning the rain was gone but it was still cloudy, and it was quite a bit breezier with a temperature not expected to rise above the mid 50s.

For most of this fall Sunday has been a bike riding day for me.  But on a blustery day I would rather paddle than ride, and considering how good I'd felt in the boat yesterday, I decided to go back to the river. Once I was underway I again felt good in terms of energy and mood.  But when I paddled out of the harbor onto the Mississippi, the choppy windblown water there put more stress on my arm, so I retreated to the harbor after just a couple of minutes.

The Mississippi was flowing at -3.0 feet on the Memphis gauge this morning.  The forecast says it will drop to about -5.2 feet by midweek, but then rise back to -3.2 feet halfway through the following week.  So even though the river is still very low these days, there's been enough rain in the watershed lately to keep it from going back toward that record low level of almost -10.9 feet.  I hope this is a trend toward wetter conditions in the Midwest that will return the river to a more bountiful version of itself.

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