Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Looking over the scribblings contained herein, one of the themes that struck me was about being late to the party, which in some ways sums up, if not my whole life than large parts of it. The reason that I bring this up now is that I’ve got some resolutions to spew. Most folks come up with these as the New Year approaches but in keeping with my “late to the party” theme, I’m coming up with mine right now.
What brought this about?

I took my new Mayo log to the South Shore for its baptism. Conditions weren’t exactly optimal (kind of side-shore and a little bumpy) but were on the smaller side, so I felt ok about going in without a leash. Out of two hours, I got two good rides and have nothing but praise for the Soft Tail. On the first one, I took off on a right, beat a white water section with ease and then stepped to the front third of the board and just trimmed. The smoothness of the ride fell into the warm knife through butter category. Later in the day, a similar ride on a left had me once more grooving on that glide. How does this tie in to the above? Two good rides in two hours when I had plenty of opportunities for more of the same doesn’t cut the mustard.

I could blame the conditions or talk about having to get my new board wired but again, that doesn’t cut it. I’ve been at this for somewhere in the vicinity of 12 years and the source of my frustration at not surfing to the level I am capable of(and I’m not bad) lies squarely within the realm of consistency or lack thereof. I don’t want to be a weekend warrior anymore and yet, life dictates that that is the case and due to the arrival of my new grom, I may be more of a bi-weekly weekend warrior. And that’s life. And I had opportunities in my time in LA to surf constantly and I didn’t because for some reason that is a mystery even to me, I only became a true drooling wave zealot and board dork once I arrived back here where my increased responsibilities and decreased wave consistency shortened my time in the water.

Late. Party. Youth wasted on young. Blah.

Where does that leave me? Well, I’m only 41, so I’ve got plenty of time to enjoy the ocean. I also don’t subscribe to the belief that, according to my brother in law, “Life is O-VUH kid!” because I now have two little guys as opposed to a more manageable one. I have, however, consigned myself to the fact that stating I don’t want to be a weekend warrior anymore and making it happen in the present is unrealistic as painful as that may be. With that realization, I could breast beat and bemoan my situation but I’m not going to do that because it isn’t my style. Instead, I’ve decided to make some resolutions that I can make happen right now.

• Strength Training – I used to exercise a lot and then kept getting sidelined by tendinitis, back issues and excuses that were just that…excuses. I am able to use the athletic facilities where I work and so I have been heading over on my lunch break to work out at least 4 days a week. I picked up a copy of Mark Lauren’s “You Are Your Own Gym” as I wanted to do something other than banging weights and have found that the body weight exercises I’ve been doing are just as, if not more challenging and extremely functional for what I want to achieve. I don’t plan on having paddling strength and endurance be off just because I’m not out in the water.
• Yoga – I need to do more of it for the flexibility, which starts to go in your 40’s(natch).
• Get a winter wetsuit and use it. I’ve said it before, I hate cold weather and cold water but a two to three month layoff is excruciating. Time to truly join the winter surfing ranks.
• Obtain a goofboard and work on footwork in my apartment while watching surf flicks
• Maximize whatever time I will have in the water to dial in my new boards, particularly the Mini-Zombie. I love logging it up but I want to go a little bit shorter as repeat viewings of movies like Innermost Limits of Pure Fun and The Hot Generation have me wanting to play with updated transitional shapes and also give a hull a try at some point soon.
• Move somewhere closer to the water so that I don’t have to drive 40 minutes to an hour both ways for a surf. Ok, this one may need some time to work out but a guy can scheme. Can’t he?