Lots of rain, a rising river, and persistent arm pain

I started up a new gym routine Tuesday morning.  I replaced the bench press I'd been doing with pushups, and instead of doing dumbbell rowing exercises chest-down on the stability ball, I started doing rows with a hand and knee on a bench.

There was heavy rain in the forecast for later in the day Tuesday--the same system that brought snow to the upper Midwest and some violent storms to Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma.  Ordinarily I'd have paddled in the morning, well before the rain's arrival.  But I had some nuisance bureaucratic stuff to deal with Tuesday morning, so I went out in the afternoon hoping I wouldn't get rained on like I had the previous Saturday.  It turned out I had nothing to worry about: the rain didn't move in until after 7 o'clock in the evening.  I paddled for 60 minutes, trying my best to use good stroke mechanics and get a comfortable cardio workout.  I went home feeling dead tired from all the paddling and lifting.

I believe the low-water woes on the Mississippi River are behind us for this season.  The rain that came through here on Tuesday moved on into the Tennessee River watershed, and now the Mississippi is forecast to reach 10.5 feet on the Memphis gauge about a week from now.

The rain continued through the mid afternoon yesterday before finally moving out.  Today we had our first sunny day in what felt like forever.  The trade-off was a temperature some 20 degrees lower than it had been.  When I went down to paddle this morning it was in the mid 40s Fahrenheit.  It was a little breezy as well, but the sunshine made it not such a bad day to paddle.  Unfortunately my left arm was really bothering me today in the biceps and forearm area.  Just when I think I might be healing at last, I have a really bad day in that department.  I don't know what to do besides keep doing my rehab work and keep moving and have faith that somehow I will get through this.  I certainly want to believe that there is some great paddling still ahead for me.

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