@#$^@#^! and #T#%^&!!!

Last night was an ACE day. After ten weeks of not racing, I was dropped and lapped in my crit. In fact, I was lapped multiple times, and all I could do about it was cuss.

At minute 12 of a 30 minute crit, I said to my legs, "Go!" and I distinctly felt them roll over, belch loudly, and happily say, "PIE!"

Translation: Ya make us sit around for ten weeks, eat badly, stress a lot, make us do 500 diesel miles in one week, and THEN you want to go fast? Uh, rewind to the RAGBRAI part about the pie, please. We liked that better."

So. I had plenty of time for self-recrimination while I was being lapped, and yeah, I used it to cuss myself out.

Then my mental voice of calm and reason kicked in. "Hey, you! Remember that part about wanting to pass your classes? You know, the big life goals? You did that. And remember that part about wanting specific grades? Well, you did that too. And RAGBRAI, you know, can I really ride 500 miles in one week, all that?

Listen, Poptart (it continued). You achieved the big goals and made the right choices to get there. You surveyed your options at the time and chose the best available one. You are NOT allowed to beat yourself up over a thirty minute podunk crit in East Nowheresville. You ARE allowed to get back on the wagon, hit the gym, and do exactly what your coach tells you to do, so that you get leg speed back in time for cyclocross season. Got that, poptart?"

When my own personal voice of calm and reason sarcastically calls me "Poptart", I know I am being foolish. Or I'm hungry. ;-) In any case, it was right. Back to the gym.

Whitewater Kayaking, Part 2

Long, but possibly worthwhile; you decide

We were back the next day at the Pigeon river (a class 3 river). Back with the inflatable kayak, rigid kayak, paddles, life jackets, crash helmets, and wetsuits.... and several buddies. As we started out, Steve explained how to ferry the boat across the river ("Point the nose upstream, paddle so the boat goes sideways, don't let it go sideways to the current.")

I did that. It worked fairly well. Then we were off, and I turned the inflatable around and the current grabbed me. It became abundantly clear that I was not in charge here (the current definitely was) and that my wimpy attempt at paddling had zero effect. In mere moments, I was trying to turn around, looking for help (and a look at Steve showed that he was already in the drink, and seemed too busy to offer any help) and trying not to panic.

Okayyyy.... let's review my options. That would be: (a) Panic (b) Get out (c) Cope. Uh.... Panicking is never productive. Getting out of the kayak in rapids like these is also a bad idea...someone would have to come and get me, and anyway, exiting the boat into the river is dangerous and not advised. Okay, that leaves me with "Cope".

Right about then, I went over a rapid backwards while desperately trying not to. (Uh.... let's review those options again?) I finally managed to steer toward the bank, only to have Laura (one of the buddies) tell me I looked good over those rapids but I needed to start paddling.

Uh... I distinctly remembered paddling for all I was worth. What gives?

It soon developed that there's a right way and a wrong way to do that (lean forward, plant the blade of the paddle in the water by your toes, move it forcefully toward your hips.) Uh... a bending and twisting motion, from everything I've heard, is a great way to blow a disk in your back. Well, too bad. I needed to be able to steer the kayak, so bending and twisting was the order of the day. Once I made up my mind to do that, it got easier to paddle, but I still had a lot of trouble moving the kayak around.

We continued. I was handling the small rapids okay, but anything harder was going to be completely beyond me.

Then it did get harder. One look at the upcoming (very difficult looking) rapid, and I flatly refused to do it. (I guess you could say my fear of violent death kicked in.) Result: I ported the boat…. that is, I got out of it and walked it along the bank.

It was a heavy boat (even though it was inflatable). I was pretty frustrated. Okay, that’s an understatement: I’d absolutely Had. It. The bank was steep, rocky, and overgrown. Result: I made it about six inches at a time with the boat. I was pretty sure everyone else was waiting for me (argh) and equally sure I wanted no part of this (double argh) but couldn’t find a graceful way out of it. There was no way I was getting back in the boat. I didn’t care what happened next; my sole plan was to get the boat down to the take-out site, approximately six inches at a time.

After what seemed like a long time, I’d made it all of thirty feet when Steve appeared. After one look at me, his face took on the blank-faced expression you normally see only on guys trying to talk to people who have bombs strapped to themselves… not that I have seen that expression up close and personally (much ;-) but hey, I see it in movies.

After a few more rounds of moving the kayak about six inches at a time, he suggested we put it in the river and let it navigate the rapid on its own. We did that, and made our way down the bank on foot. Steve’s relative calmness apparently rubbed off on me, because by the time we reached the kayak again, I was ready to get into it despite swearing, thirty minutes earlier, that I would rather do anything else than that.

I’ve thought about why I can be talked into stuff like that, and I’ve finally concluded that years of coaching have had their inevitable effect: I know that a coach will ask me to do things that will be hard, or will hurt, and I am going to do them anyway, and they won’t be nearly as bad as I expect them to, and I’ll like the result.

And so it was: Over the next hour or so, I figured out how to make the kayak move approximately the way I wanted it to (which helped with the fear issue a lot), how to use the paddle as a rudder, and how to pick my way through a rapid. (Mostly…. I went through more than one rapid backwards without exactly planning to do that.) Steve’s friends, having deduced that I was really scared and frustrated, gave me plenty of coaching (which I appreciated very much) and repeatedly taught me the right paddle stroke to use. (I would listen, and then try to paddle the right way, and then get taught again by someone else… which meant to me that I still wasn't doing it right and should try again.)

By the end of the day, I was doing all right at it, and wanted to try again. It did take a little discussion to convince Steve that no, I wasn’t planning to kill him and yes, I did end up having a good time despite my initial fear and frustration and yes, I was interested in trying it again.