Technical Difficultly

Pulled hamstring, left leg. I knew running last night that I was pushing it. It started to hurt so I stopped. Now this morning, it's definitely pulled.


You can't surf with a pulled hamstring. As stated, I can barely surf with a healthy one.

I may be going at this too hard. I also need to seriously consider a stand-up longboard, and going back to Yoga.

Why the stand-up paddle board? The knees. It's the damned knees. Two things I worked on yesterday: the leg bench, and the leg extension machine showed me how weak the knees are.

The latter machine I used in the resistance mode. You lift a modest amount of weight, then let the knees, tendons slowly drop it back down. The left knee is particularly tender. The right knee is still strong.

Likely that the left knee bears all the weight for that instant I snap into the standing position. It does this while it attempts to also keep the board on course.

The "snap" itself has become sort of a lumbering, quasi-drunken style squat that has a fifty-fifty chance of resulting in a full stand-up. Once up, I'm all good: I get back far enough on the Walden I can carve and turn. But that snap, especially with this weight, is killing my knees, the left one especially.

Usually I know a surf session is over by the percentage of later waves I end up riding on my knees rather than risk losing a good wave with a slow, wobbly pop-up that results in a fall, which is also very embarrasing for me and my son, who paddles away from me at this point, usually after a smart remark. Hard on the ego, a strain on our good time when it happens repeatedly.

A stand-up paddle board would eliminate this part of the proceedure altogether until I am back in shape enough to compete with my son, or at least not topple over like a ton of bricks on every other wave.

Another advantage that I am seeing with this stand-up paddle boards is, if I want to watch Sean while he's at work in the water, what better position to overview everything than from the standing position?

I am seriously looking into the stand-up paddle board today, while I let my hamstring heal.

As far as the Yoga thing goes. I formerly attended sessions of Bickram Yoga in Eau Gallie. These sessions were pretty intense but they did wonders for me, physically.



Dad's stats:

Pre-breakfast weight: 243.5 lbs Not an ounce was shed in the previous 24 hours, despite efforts and injuries.

Sean's stats:
Weight 134 lbs
Height 5'10"