Sunset Got the Better of Me Today

This was the kind of day when you know you need to keep your ass at home. It's been a hard week, both emotionally and physically. This was yet another week when I had one night when I only got about two hours of sleep. I haven't been eating enough. And then my class pissed me off so badly yesterday that I told them so and even told one of the students, "I am not your mama!" So, when I woke up this morning, I was tired. I could feel the fatigue in muscles I didn't even know I had. And what did I do? I went to Sunset and paddled out during a big swell. On a normal day, I would have had a good session. Today, I reverted to my early days . . . as a kook! It seemed like I couldn't do anything right. Nothing felt right. I was so tired that I was actually shaking. When I raced bikes, my coach used to tell me that if you feel horrible before you've even ridden a mile, just turn around and go home, go home and do nothing. On those days, I would do just that. I'd usually go home, put my feet up (in an effort to rest my legs), eat, and sleep. (I think I worked a second shift job then, thus I had the the mornings and afternoons to train and rest.) I felt horrible today and still got in the water. Strike one! Once I was in the water, I felt out of sorts. Everything felt wrong. I thought my board (my beloved board) was too long for the conditions. I didn't have the drive to paddle for every wave. I barely had the drive to paddle for the ones I got. I just didn't have it in me today. Strike two! And Sunset was packed. There was hardly any room to go for waves. You'd turn around to start paddling, only to find someone in your way. At one point, I got a decent wave. I started down the line when all of a sudden, there's this guy in my path and he's trying to paddle back out (right in the middle of the lineup). I had nowhere to go. You know what happened next, right? Wrong. We didn't have a serious collision. But there was some contact. Luckily for him, I bailed in time to keep from mowing him down. There was no confrontation, no yelling, no fists (not that I would instigate a fight—nor will I run from one if I'm in the right). He admitted to being wrong. I told him not to worry about it and that I was just concerned that I had taken his head off. Still, that kind of thing can make a bad session even worse. Strike three! You're out! The only wave I had fun on was the one I took on the inside, close to the south end of the break. I'd parked by the dirt walkway so I had to get out down there. I was so disgusted with the session that I was actually paddling in. Luckily, while I was on the inside, I caught a nice wave that took me all the way in. I even had the nerve to do a nice little top turn on it. All in all, today's session was a wash. I should have stayed home. (On a lighter note: today's class was tremendous and that helped to raise my spirits.) I still plan on going out tomorrow. I ate a good dinner. I'll get a good night's sleep. I'll simply think good thoughts. But if I wake up feeling like shit, I'll take the day off.