I Have Been Sporty Lately

The past three days I've done more varied physical activities than I've done in probably the rest of the year so far. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's highly unusual to find me breaking a sweat sans leotard.

Saturday was the annual extended family picnic. It's basically a bunch of old people I don't know eating kielbasa and shrimp cocktail talking about other old people who either died or didn't show up. Not exactly Memorial Day, but what can you do. It's two redeeming qualities are that it is the only day a year that we get whoopie pies and that it is the date of the annual family no-holds-barred badminton game. For some reason all my second cousins and great aunts get wicked pumped about playing badminton after all that kielbasa. Seriously. I was planning on wearing a cute skirt but switched to shorts because I knew it was going to get rough.
Teams are gathered randomly, but since there are still little kids that want in we usually divide into boys vs girls. The girls had the advantage that our youngest player [my 7-year-old third cousin] quit shortly after the start of the game, but the boys had to play with her 8-year-old brother [who got cracked in the head accidentally from his dad's racket, which was kind of funny, but only because he wasn't seriously hurt]. We severely trounced them in a double header, at which point my great uncle started to complain about his knee. Sore loser.

On Sunday I went to capoeira. My super hot instructor who I have a huge crush on [he's 25! I could totally do/date a 25 year old!] went away on some spiritual retreat in the mountains for a week so I'm not going to see him again until never! But at least I got to look at him for a good month or two there. And when we said goodbye we totally hugged. Twice. Ha.
But anyway. I went to this class called "Capoeira for Women" and nearly died because it was so intense. With hottie instructor we'd spend some time jumping around to loosen up, possibly learn a new move, and then circle up and play. With this guy, who was dreadlocked and had a gross blond beard thing happening, we did horrible awful conditioning for a full hour. At one point I was taking turns kicking and dodging with him and had to throw up my hands, say "oh, my god," and walk away because I couldn't breathe. To top it off, we didn't play at all, lame. On the other hand it was kind of nice to sit and do abs for the first time in forever.
When I went to the store to get Gatorade after class [I usually stick to water, but I was in serious need of electrolytes and artificial colors] I was so sweaty the guy at the counter asked if it was raining out.

This morning I was surprised to find that I wasn't sore at all from capoeira [I should make a capoeira label], which was good because I had plans with my Dad to go canoeing. This might seem totally out of the blue for me, and it was. My Dad and I canoed one time when I was probably 12 and he's been wanting to go do it again since then, just our schedules have never permitted it. Until today. We packed up some subs, Doritos, and Gatorade and left the house at sometime before 9 am.
We did 10 miles in 4 hours, but only because we were huddled on the shore for over an hour while this wicked thunder and lightening not-to-mention-hella-rain storm passed over. It was so cold and wet that my Dad put a nylon backpack on my head to keep me warm because I didn't have a hat, which is kind of nice and also kind of insane, mostly insane because my Dad put the backpack on my head after we had been sitting in the downpour for 30 minutes. The times that we were actually on the river were pretty good, though. I was the front seat, so I just paddled my little heart out and my Dad steered from the back. We saw some huge-ass birds and laughed at a family in a raft who were literally paddling around in circles.

In conclusion:
My cute shorts need a serious grass-stain treatment, my feet are tore up, my hands and thighs are cramping up, and I have the sniffles. Is that how sporty people feel all the time?