Category: Pain

Some random thoughts about the blog

Last night, lying in bed trying to get to sleep, I had a few random thoughts about my blog.

  • If I were to just put the already generated pages of Maddy’s blog and the memorial blog, and not allow new entries or comments, then it doesn’t need a blog engine behind it, and so therefore I could upgrade *this* blog to the newest version of MovableType or TextPattern. I can’t currently upgrade MovableType because the current version’s free license only allows one author.
  • I should make a new category for a pain diary, but not put it on the main page. Sort of like how on Maddy’s blog only her entries go on the main index, but other stuff posted about her by others goes in the category index on the side.
  • I should put all the updates I’m doing to the navaid.com site into a blog, either this one or another one. I should also transition the copilot-announce mailing list to Gradwell.

WHY DO I EVEN FUCKING BOTHER!

Why did I allow myself to think that my fucked up body and the universe that obviously hates me with a passion would allow me to find a sport that I like, that gives me a moderate amount of exercise and which I can do without causing unbearable pain?

Today my elbows are extremely painful. Much worse than they were yesterday. Much worse than they were after kayaking. I know this place, I’ve been here so many times before. Once I get to a certain level of pain, EVERYTHING aggravates it, and even if I quit kayaking cold-turkey I’ll be in massive amounts of pain for two or three years to come.

I thought that this time it was going to be different. I thought I was being careful, I thought I was taking it slow, I thought I was stopping when it got painful so I was limiting the damage, I thought I was allowing decent recovery between sessions.

I’m crying now. And not just from the pain. I hate this. I just want to crawl into a cave somewhere and curl up and die.

WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN EVERY FUCKING TIME?

More on last night’s kayaking

My elbows are still a little tender today, but not really scarily sore like they were yesterday.

I forgot to mention something funny from yesterday. I got out of the kayak and stood up, and immediately fell over. My entire legs had fallen asleep, both of them. I’ve never had that happen before. I think I have to convince the kayak place to take those misplaced thigh pads out or switch to a different boat.

Probably not the smartest thing I’ve ever done…

…but it was fun.

My elbows have been painful all week, so it wasn’t the smartest thing to go paddling today. But I look some Alieve and vowed to concentrate on good technique and keeping my wrists relaxed. It probably helped. My elbows don’t feel much worse than they did before.

We got there around 6pm. The guy working there asked if we could be back by 7, because he had a birthday party to go to. I was a little reluctant, because normally we go for an hour and a half or more. But then he said “Oh wait, you guys are in the frequent paddler program, right? Ok, I’ll just leave the padlocks on the paddle and life jacket racks open, and you can just put everything away and lock up when you’re done.” Cool. It’s nice to be trusted.

As we were getting ready to leave, a woman left in her own fibreglas kayak. She looked like she knew what she was doing as she headed up stream. The thunderstorms of this weekend have raised the creek level and flushed out the stinky algae we encountered last week. It also meant we were facing a stronger than usual current.

I don’t know why, but it seems like practically nobody was on the creek today. We saw a few people, but we also saw plenty of turtles, swans and herons, more so than we usually see in an evening. Three quarters of the way up to the wier, that same woman we saw heading up was coming down, this time with two other women. She told us that the weir was nearly impassable. We got there and found she was absolutely right – there were trees blocking the non-passable parts of the weir that were forcing all the water through the middle part, and the middle part had an extremely strong current going through it.

Vicki held back while I tried it. I started very strong going up one side eddy, but as soon as I put the nose of the kayak into the stream I got pushed sideways and I also got rolled a bit. I should have been expecting that, but it’s been too long since I’ve done this sort of thing. The fact that I got surprised by it and nearly took on water in the cockpit made me decide to not do this – I didn’t want to swamp way the hell up the creek. If I’d had a spray skirt, I would have continued. But instead I just braced and ferried into the other eddie.

Vicki and I headed back, and it sure was fun going with the strong current. Vicki was really getting into it, and paddling much harder than usual. That suited me just fine, because it meant I could paddle closer to the speed I paddle when I’m alone, which is a more efficient and better exercise speed for me.

Even though we took the long way home, we got back just on 7pm, and the guy was closing up. We put our stuff away without his help, and he refused to take our money even though we used up our pre-paid rental hours. I guess we’ll get him next time. It’s nice to be trusted.

Man I wish my elbows didn’t hurt so much.