Ouch

Every... muscle... in... my... body... hurts...

Every single one. It hurts to type. It has been 3 weeks since I was out paddling. It's amazing how much strength and stamina you can lose when you stop exercising. Even for just a couple of weeks.

I've been sleeping in gloriously late in the mornings. Typical wakeup time last week was about 10 a.m. Getting into the office at around 11 - like most of the other engineers. It is so nice. But since I'm sleeping better than I have in ages, there's no time to paddle. And no anger driving the paddling.

But Sunday, I had agreed with paddle-girl to go on our morning paddle, which is at 5:30 a.m. in Santa Cruz. She calls it "dawn patrol". At that hour the sky is just starting to let through some daylight. We're usually on the water by 6. We can see where we are going, but just barely. We do wear strobes on our pfds so the occasional early morning fisherman can see us (and I can see her when she gets too far ahead of me).

Paddle-girl says she took it easy on me - but I was completely dead by the time we were done with a 90 minute work out. I needed her help to pull my 58 pound boat out of the water.

After I slightly recovered she suggested going for coffee.

Gasping for breath I waved at my clothes "I don't think I can go out in polite society like this."

"There's a place up the road with outdoor tables - you're fine."

Trust me, I've got a lot of funk in my wetsuit. I'm not fine. "Sure." I said.

After we loaded the boats onto our respective vehicles I stripped down to my briefs and hosed myself off on the dock and changed into some spare clothes I had in the truck. I think it helped. And paddle-girl laughed at me while I took a very cold hose shower.

We drove up to the coffee shop and ordered some lattes and muffins and sat outside. It was pretty cold - so we had the outdoor seating to ourselves.

"You look more relaxed than usual. Did you make up with 'big-boobs'?"

"Nope. I haven't heard from Heidi since before I went to on my trip."

"Got a replacement for her?"

Umm, why do you ask? I'm starting to wonder if paddle-girl has designs on me. "Nope, my therapist says I shouldn't be sleeping around."

"You're in therapy?" she seemed slightly alarmed.

"Uh, no, bad joke. I kinda had a bad break-up, and Heidi was the 'rebound-girl' I'm ashamed to say."

"Why are you ashamed to say that? I would think that someone with big boobs would make a good rebound girl."

I laughed. I'm hoping she was joking. "I think I hurt her - and I don't feel good about that. Heidi was really fun, but I couldn't give her what she needed."

"Wow, a guy with a concience." She took a long sip of coffee - she seemed to need to think about this. "Hey, are you going to the 'left-over' potluck on friday?"

"Yeah."

"Can you give me a ride? I'm having this guy do the brakes on my car over the weekend."

"Sure, I can drive you."

"Great, it's a date, then."