The mind was willing, but the shoulder wasn't

I guess 3 days in a row was being a little bit unrealistic. I was so excited to go for another paddle this morning. 3 days in a row...coool I thought. It was me (in Marks Van Dusen), Mark (in Anton's Mustang K1), Anton in his TK1 and JJ in their double.

I started off feeling great. It felt relatively easy and I felt remarkably comfortable in the Van Dusen. About half way back up the river heading towards the lake I started to feel my shoulder aching and I noticed that I had dropped my right arm a bit. I tried a few different technique tricks to see if I could make it feel a bit better but it was just getting worse. Eventhough I had coped well with the other's wash earlier, it was just getting frustrating now and I was really struggling. Up at the lake I pulled in and got Mark to help me do a few stretches that Buzz (physio) had showed me as a trick to make it feel better. It seemed to work, but a couple of hundred metres into it, it started to get sore again. Very pi$$ed off.

Everytime I copped a bit of wash it would flare up because it was so fatigued and just couldn't help stabilise anymore. I ended up doing the last 1km with it tucked in so close to my body that I was just not paddling properly at all. Soooo frustrating. I'm sure everyone who paddled with me today would say what a bad mood I was in....so sorry guys. I promise not to whinge so much in future. I was not good company today.

I'm just a bit disheartened that it flared up so easily. I really don't want to have the surgery done, but I think it will have to be done eventually. Then again, it coped really well with the Hawkesbury Classic and with backing up at State 2 days in a row. So I don't know what the problem was today. I guess I haven't paddled 3 days in a row for quite a while now, so it probably wasn't the distance, it was just too fatigued doing 3 days in a row to function properly. I'll have to build up to it a bit slower next time.