Coxie.com - High winds, cold season and halls

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Written by YogiB

Halls have become my new best friend. I can't do anything without them. Breathing is a challenge without my halls and lots of Kleenex. Working out is out of the question. School is hard because I don't want to gross out my classmates by blowing all the crap out of my nose so I can breathe.

At least at practice, only my stroke has to watch, and he thinks it's cute that I am sick as a dog, like "Aww, how cute, she's sick but she came out to cox us anyway." The truth is, they would murder any of the other coxes on the team if they tried to cox them. As you can probably guess, I have been hit hard by the evil evil cold season. Luckily, I wasn't sick when I went to ID camp in Chula Vista at the beginning of the month. Nope, I had enough luck to get sick as all he** two days before our first race. Oh, it was great. As we were launching for our quad race at about 6:35 am or so, I had to use a coaches' megaphone to get their attention because they couldn't hear my voice over the annoying chatter that accompanies a regatta at our lake (or any racing venue for that matter.) I have a stuffy nose, congested head (Friday I shampooed my hair twice thinking the second time that it was conditioner. I realized as I lathered that it wasn't the same lather that my conditioner has. I was so out of it.) And one of the worst coughs.

The cough actually didn't show up until Sunday, after our races (it was a one-day regatta, which got cancelled less than four hours into it due to high winds.) The sore throat and lack of voice came from day one. And it was getting better until Friday (Thursday I got out of a presentation in my animal behavior class because I needed to "save my voice for the race". I got a lot of laughs when I said that.) Friday, I went to a pasta party and I wasn't exactly conservative with my voice. I had a lot of fun, but I paid the price come Saturday morning.

After our successful eights race (first by 2.64 seconds over 500 meters), six of my guys walked to my house (ten minutes from the boat house) and they warmed up with hot cocoa with those little marshmallows, surround sound Nordic sprint skiing, and donut holes, while I dried their long sleeves in the dryer. I brought them blankets, wrapped them up and waited on them. Being sick as a dog is about the only thing that can make me cry so I took my mind of being sick by taking care of them. I got water to make sure they were hydrated (I haven't got to the point of asking them what color their pee is yet, but I'm getting close), made sure they were all comfortable and warm. Apparently they were getting mad at me for not taking care of myself (I heard that from one of my friends later that evening.) They asked if they were going to have to take care of me next. My mom said I should push for a day at the spa.

Practice lately has been...unusual I guess you could say. We had one week with 3 days of no water time. We are used to hitting the water everyday. If we don't go out one day, we always go out the next day, but that hasn't been the case lately. Our lake is surrounded by hills, so we are fairly sheltered. Wind doesn't stay a problem for more than a day or so.

Not only has the water been less than great, our whole team is sick too. The majority of the girls have somehow seemed to avoid it. (Maybe they got their boyfriends on the guys' team sick and they got the rest of the guys' team sick. Mmmm. Hadn't thought of that.) When we stop for water in between pieces, one person will cough and then the rest of the boat is reduced to coughing fits. My coach thinks it's hysterical to watch. He's not too happy that he had to postpone the second round of seat racing until everyone is better. The weeks until our first big regatta (Brentwood for those of you who know it) are ticking down, and we want to have the fastest guys we can. (We seat raced to set the boat for the first regatta, but most people were sick, what a coincidence, and the results were too close for comfort, so Ed, coach, made a few decisions, and we set the boat.)

Well, I guess I should shut up for a while (a few days) so I don't bore everyone. It's good to be back.

Never forget to fight. Ever.

~YogiB

P.S. Good luck with your seasons and as always, SEND FEEDBACK PLEASE!!!! Anything you've got I'd love to hear, bad stroke stories, stupid coaches, sprint kayakers cutting you off, underestimating other people's stupidity, your dog learning a new trick. They are all great!

Oh yeah, DON"T GET SICK!