Another great rest day! No running or weight lifting. Up late, 8am. Ran through the first part of my routine as usual. Drank water. Made coffee. Used the restroom, washed my face. Got dressed. Except instead of hitting the gym, I worked on a personal project. Then around 11:30 headed over to pick up my friend and her son for breakfast. What do we eat when we hang out? Salvadoran food of course (she’s Salvadoran too)! YUMMY!!! If you’ve never had Salvadoran food YOU ARE MISSING OUT!!! TRY IT NOW!!! Here are just a few to choose from…

The picture below is the dish we ordered. It’s a Salvadoran sampler platter. It has a little bit of everything. It’s like an All-Star lineup of many of the top favorite dishes Salvadoran cuisine has to offer all-in-one. It takes a while for the food to get to us because they are packed for brunch. But when it does… Life is good!

After eating, we all agree that we need to get moving or we’ll go into a food coma. We decide to go paddle boarding. I’ve never done it before. My friend and her son are vets. They’ve done it a bunch. She’s been telling me about it for years. I’m excited to try. But I can’t lie. I was afraid. Especially because we were going to do it on the ocean, not at a lake. And there were a bunch of boats around leaving trails of waves in their wake.

But I’m not the type to let fear stop me from doing something adventurous like this. I actually love what it feels like to conquer my fear. It’s feels like the adrenaline rush of winning a competition.

When we started out in the shallows, I quickly lost my balance. I realized it was going to be even harder than I thought. So I decided to start off by paddling out on my knees. I would then stand up once I felt more confident.

In the meantime, my friend and her son were off! They seemed like pros with a well-practiced routine. He sat in the front and she stood in the back and paddled. Soon they were way out on the water. Cruising past the pillars of an enormous bridge overhead.

I tried to keep up. Once I got my balance I started getting more confidence. I realized I could make the paddle board go really fast once I figured out the rowing. Soon I caught up to them.

Then I started getting the urge to stand up. It grew as I got further out and felt that I could control the paddle board better. My courage started growing too. Finally, I thought to myself… go for it! So I did. At first cautiously. I tried standing with my left foot first, but that didn’t go so well. So I stopped. I tried my right foot and I was able to stay steady. “Okay, we’re onto something” I thought. “I can do this. Go for it.” I say to myself. So I did. Next thing you know I was standing up!! 🙂

Cool. Over the next few minutes, I literally get my sea legs under me. Engage my core and thighs to steady myself. Now I start maneuvering and going faster. I’m keeping up with my friend and her son. Yes! I’m starting to feel good. Like I have this thing under full control. Can you guess what happened next?

Yeah. I fell in.

But it’s all good. I’m a decent swimmer and was able to get back on the paddle board without losing hold of my paddle. I got back on. Stood back up and kept at it. It was easier this time.

Fell again a few minutes later. Got back up and it was even easier. Finally, we made it to the beach on the other side of the island, which was our destination.

We decided to switch things up. My friend wanted to let her son stand up and paddle. So she decided to try to come on my board. She sat in the front and I tried to stand on the back. What ensued was comedy! 😀 Good thing we were still in the shallows because we could not keep the thing balanced and we had to jump off.

In the meantime her son was off and heading back. Far ahead of us. So I decided to kneel as she sat in front and paddle that way. We caught our rhythm and started cruising. We quickly caught up to her son and she jumped back on his board because we realized we had to return the boards in half hour.

We raced back. Not literally. We just had to hurry. The cool thing was I did the whole rest of the return trip standing up and without falling in a single time! That’s improvement. I’ll take it.

I can’t wait to try this again! It’s a good workout. A great, healthy way to spend a lazy weekend, while still staying active and continuing the process of getting healthier.

Okay, time to go to sleep. Back to my early morning routine tomorrow. Starting week four! Day 22 coming up. See you bright and early.