Just the other day, I became the fortunate recipient of a really good grade 2 hamstring muscle tear. Dear readers, let me tell you that the wrenching and popping sensations that accompanied it were just exquisite.

With Editor  Dom Moore  //  Photo Courtesy of Spikyshots / RRD  

I  was doing nothing more interesting, or useful, than a series of sprints, on foot. On the third repetition, I decide to go for it and kick the stride out more and just before my right foot hit the road the hamstring was still lengthening but also contracting with full force, and it tore. So now I’m hobbling about on Leki poles and off the water for a month, maybe more, but I am looking at the positives. First of all, I have a walking stick. Have you ever used one? It’s great. I feel like old man Steptoe, cantankerously pointing at things and rapping people on the ankles. A stick also adds gravitas to any gesticulations that accompany any rant or diatribe I find myself in the middle of.

I’m having a forced rest. The more I’ve been reading about the principle of ‘periodization’ in training (see Chase’s article this issue for a succinct explanation) the more I’m convinced I should apply it to my own paddling for better results. An important part of periodization is rest; as in two-months’ rest. It’s vital for physical and mental recovery so you can attack the new season with vigour. I can’t remember the last time I had more than eight days off the water.  And when I do get back onto the water, it’ll be on a river or on a harbour, and since I won’t be paddling hard to start with, I’ll have to focus on technique drills – something else I’ve neglected to do for too long now.  I’m not going to the Mentawais. Oh yes, this is the big one, the prime reason why I’m still smiling. The missus is off to the Mentawai Islands in two weeks with her friends. It’s a girls’ trip, and I couldn’t have gone anyway since I’ll be running the surf school. But just imagine if you’d booked the flights, how sick you’d be at the thought of finally going to the world’s best waves but were unable to surf them!? So being that I’m injured anyway, I really don’t care how good the surf will be when they’re out there.

Probably the biggest plus is that you won’t have to read the editorial letter I had planned for this issue, which was essentially a spikey rant about how too many members of our species are happy to just hand all control and responsibility for their own bodies, minds, safety and futures over to huge corporations and big government, and that how not enough people want real freedom but instead want a ‘nanny’ monitoring them. Then I was going to say that despite us being faced with the most important political decisions in generations, too many people refuse to research the issue and allow themselves to be distracted by manufactured inane gossip. And then I was going to say how there are four pillars to being an independent human being: health, education, relationships and wealth and that pursuing standup paddle boarding will develop self-discipline and foster mental alertness, emotional fortitude and physical resources which will help strengthen all of those pillars.

Anyway, with every day that passes I get one step closer to being reunited with my beloved pattern of leaving the beach having burned so many calories I can’t remember my own name before replenishing with a huge healthy meal in the evening and then passing out in a peaceful slumber to repeat it all the next day. I am actually enjoying this distance. A little bit of time apart from something can remind you of how lucky you were to find it in the first place.  Stay reckless. SUP

PHOTO Mat Fouliard, 100% human expression.