Last night, the Good was that Vicki and I went kayaking. I enjoy it so much – being closer to the water than in a canoe, it seems like you’re just flying along. Vicki was a little pissed at me because every time I tried to do a succession of 5 or 10 good technique paddle strokes, I’d end up 20-30 metres in front of her. Towards the end I think I figured out how to do good technique without pulling too hard, so I could paddle well but not too fast. I feel a good sort of pain afterwards – muscle tiredness, but no untoward joint pain that I can detect.
The Bad was that my TiVo recording of the Alpe d’Huez time trial cut out just as Lance Armstrong was about to catch Ivan Basso and Ullrich was still out on the course. Dammit – I wanted to see Lance’s climb on the upper parts.
The Ugly is that after a few hours of feeling that my glasses weren’t working out, I tried a few hours without them, and the net result was horrific eyestrain – not sure if the eyestrain came from the time I had with glasses or the time without them. I know that this morning my eyes are all gunked up, which seems to be happening because of the dryness I feel when wearing my glasses.
It was fun, and my left shoulder isn’t sore this morning, so whatever I did to it wasn’t anything to worry about.
Next time, though, I think I’m dispensing with the splash skirt.
Oh, and I was only pissed because we couldn’t talk while you were waaaaaaaaay down the creek. I didn’t want to go kayaking alone. [Insert sad face]
Those little kayaks really are a treat. C1 and I did a little sea kayaking a couple of years ago, up at Acadia National Park in Maine, and really enjoyed the hell out of it. Been meaning to find a good opportunity to do it again ever since.
And one of my fondest memories ever is of taking a tiny little toy kayak out on a pond in the middle of the night when I was at some student conference in the middle of nowhere in college. The lip of the seat was maybe two inches above the water, so I was down closer to the surface than I’ve ever been without swimming. Everyone else was asleep, and there was a bright moon and a heavy mist on the pond. I just spent an hour or so skimming across the water, slicing through the mist, listening to the woods and the sound of the paddle and the boat itself.
If I could have ten moments from my life to live over again, that’d be one of them.