Meg Evans

On Saturday, my rowing club traveled to a nearby regatta. The 5K race course is on a reservoir, without much scenery, and in past years it often has been chilly and rainy. I rowed in the women’s double race because my husband, who recently became a referee, decided that he’d rather ref than row, so we didn’t compete in our mixed double this time.

The weather turned out to be gorgeous, so he missed out on a good row. Although there was a headwind, the water wasn’t too choppy, and it was sunny and warm.

My rowing partner, Deb, is pretty strong, and we were almost as fast as the guys from our club who were in the men’s double race. Needless to say, my husband didn’t miss the opportunity to razz them about how close they came to getting crushed by the ladies. It was all in good fun!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

I didn’t have much energy this morning, which was the result of traveling to a rowing regatta last weekend and training harder this year generally. I woke up late, felt exhausted anyway, and sat at my desk feeling blah most of the day, except when I took a break to do the grocery shopping. The training plan had a strenuous erg workout on the schedule, but I felt like there was no way I could do it, so I didn’t even try.

In the afternoon, my husband got on a Zoom conversation with our coach, who said that we should take into account the stress of traveling. Although we hadn’t felt as drained of energy after other road trips, last weekend we rowed pretty hard in our race and improved our time significantly. So, if it left us feeling like all we could do was muddle through the week, that wasn’t altogether a bad thing.

To de-stress in the evening, I did a mellow 20-minute online yoga session. Then, to further shake off the blahs, I decided to post an encouraging message for Nurturing Thursday telling myself that I appreciated my efforts. We all have days like this sometimes. Doing the hard workout tomorrow should work just as well.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

This whole year I’ve felt displaced, as if I need to do more to orient myself in both time and the world, but don’t know where to start. I expect most people are feeling the same way, after so much disruption everywhere. But, for now, it’s enough to start where we are.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

When I woke up this morning, I had been in a dream where I was two different people in different places, but both parts of me were communicating somehow and seemed perfectly happy with that arrangement. Although I don’t remember the details clearly—as is the way of dreams—what I do recall is that in both of my separate lives, I was happy and surrounded by beautiful things. So, I would say it’s a good sign!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

My family has gotten scattered around the country over the years. We stay in touch by phone and mail, but it’s not the same as seeing each other in person. I like to think of friends as being part of a larger circle of family. That helps with feeling connected—which, of course, is something we all need.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

My employer has been training the managers this year on Psychological Safety, which involves creating a supportive environment where workers feel that they can express their concerns and will not be punished for asking questions or making mistakes. I believe that it is more important than ever in today’s circumstances, after people got totally stressed out last year and are still struggling to recover. More kindness and understanding are needed now, rather than unrealistic pressure to be perfect.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

This morning, my husband and I had a Zoom meeting with our rowing coach, Christine Cavallo, to talk about the sprint races we did this summer and what we’ll be doing in the fall season. We let her know that we were pleased with her training plan and that we’d both improved our speed, endurance, and consistency. Christine said that when she looked up our results from last month’s racing, she was surprised to see that we had competed in several sprint events during the regatta. She would have given us more work, she told us, if she had known we would enter so many races!

Truth be told, before we signed up for online coaching this year, we hadn’t realized how much a regular training schedule would improve our fitness. It’s very good to know that there are so many possibilities—both in rowing and in life more generally—for improvement.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Instead of exercising on the rowing machine after I finished my work this evening, I decided that I could better nurture myself with a Restorative Yoga online session instead. It was very calming—all those rushed feelings from the workday fell away, and I breathed in life.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

The online coaching that I mentioned in last Thursday’s post was definitely worthwhile. My husband and I rowed in several races at the Masters National Championships regatta last weekend in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and had good endurance in the heat. The weather stayed sunny, with no disruptions to the schedule other than morning fog delays. Just after the last race of the final day, a storm blew in, but by then we were already packed up and getting on the road.

Our rowing team traveled together with friends from another nearby rowing club. My husband won a silver medal in a men’s lightweight quad with rowers from both teams, and my women’s lightweight quad took bronze. We also rowed mixed quads, which were fun; and we rowed our double and our singles, as usual. Although we got no medals in those races, we did well in comparison to past years, gaining both speed and consistency. And, it was especially good to be traveling with friends and seeing familiar faces.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

This summer I haven’t been blogging as much as usual because I’ve spent more time rowing with my husband. He signed us up this spring for online coaching from Christine Cavallo, who works for Tagalong. Christine is well suited to us because of her experience with the lightweight double, which is our preferred race. The training plan she created for us includes both rowing workouts on the water and indoor exercises on our rowing machine.

I have to admit that it felt exhausting when we were getting started, but now we’re definitely rowing faster and more smoothly together. My strength and endurance have improved noticeably, and my husband is looking better as well. The Masters regattas where we compete are just for fun—no prize money or anything other than cute little medals. But it’s a fun activity that we can do together and a good way to stay fit, and I am thankful to have something that we can work on improving every year.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.