Back on the ocean waves

Same ocean, different day. Me in bow and lucky girl from all the world's most exotic islands in stroke.

Wading in thigh deep, the ocean surging gently around me, cool water tinkling at my skin. The blades felt rough and cumbersome again after 2 months on the flat. Chunky in my little hands. There is nothing elegant about getting into a coastal boat whilst its bucking around. Its a case of sliding the seat back, hand on blades, ok, heave and in. And hope that the aim with your bum is about on target. No dainty inching yourself down. A couple of quick strokes on bow side to edge her away from an ignominious crunch against the concrete boat ramp as starfish and kelp glide by in their watery case. 

I'd opted to go stroke as I was a bit dubious that my shoulder injury was up to the heavy boats again after 3 months off coastal rowing. The diagnosis had been bicep tendonitis. Ouch. For someone as determined as me that was a lesson in not pushing through the pain… for it just reinforces the injury! 

I had the whole smorgasbord of health aficionados and quacks try to fix me. On two continents. A chiropractor/physio who stuck needles into my trapezius and insisted I do pushups; an osteopath who insisted i do NOT do pushups; a biokineticist who wanted to "connect" my legs with the rest of my body; a nubile young trainer who worked wonders with rubber bands and side arm curls strengthening those atrophied muscles; and finally my sports physio in England - also nubile - who attacked those same trapezius with what felt like a pneumatic drill. Each time there was agonising "releasing" of over-taught muscles and tendons which had a mildly masochistic pleasure. 

Long and the short 
1. decades of hunching over computers (like this one) 
2. not stretching after rowing - hmmm that coffee is always more beconing and 
3. a new quackery rowing technique being lauded by the 'coach' requiring mild bum-shove and hyperextension at the catch which is supposed to be the greatest secret at making you faster. All it did to me was hit the spot and sent it all into orbit. Those bicep tendons had got shorter and shorter until they'd finally had enough.

Not a month before that I'd had a similar injury - a torn serratus anterior and other unmentionable parts across my chest - just before a regatta. Again the injury was related to exactly the same issue - weak rhomboids and over-strong shoulders (and the new technique). It all connects. 

Well I was happy to get those soggy tackies* velcroed in and back on the ocean. And this was to be my last row with C. We headed out past a flotilla of bobbing African penguins. Jack Russell sized swimming machines setting off for their morning meal somewhere in the ocean. Their black and white bodies diving and reappearing in hyperactive succession. Past the boulders which the penguins call their home, rising like behemoths out the water and into the ocean swell. Solid lines of ocean came at us in huge gulps of water. Sliding up and under as I gasped in unaccustomed horror and kept reminding myself not to be so pathetic. 

My nerves had steeled themselves for quite long enough. It was hot and my shoulder was calling out for my fine boat. Home time. We turned the boat to surf with the rolling waves as it hesitated and then ran in turn. 

Suddenly there was an almighty flutter all around us, black fins scattering. My mind went on overdrive as I saw us being engulfed by some terrible monster of the deep. Terror filled shrieks pierced the air before we realised our ridiculousness, collapsing in jelly filled belly laughs. We'd rowed straight into a pod of sleeping seals. Their flippers sticking upright out of the ocean, flopping around like a field of kelp. It was a good long while before their poor little faces appeared in the distance, snorting wide eyed at us. 



* old running shoes