A New Year Filled with New Adventures

I've been neglecting my blog lately. The holiday season combined with some added responsibilities at work as well as marathon training has kept me from having the time to sit down and write about my surfing. Of course, all of this coupled with weather has also slowed down mine surfing. While I had ten used to surfing twice a week, the last couple of months, I've been only surfing once a week at best. Although Texas had a couple of cool spells in the fall, the first part of December was pretty warm. By Christmas week, temps were in the 70s and I was lucky enough to have some small waves to surf on Christmas Eve.

I loaded up my 9' because of the wind and the thought of having to control my 9'6" as I walk from my car down to the shore. I also brought my 5-4 wetsuit, and I'm very glad that I had it because the water temps were in the low 60s, which is just a tad too cold for a 4-3. The waves were weak and small, and although the dude I was surfing with didn't have trouble catching any waves, I had a more difficult time. I paddled like crazy, which was not only necessary because of the weakness of the waves, but also because of the strong current caused by the winds. It was hard to stay close to the jetty, which was necessary because that was where the surfable waves appeared. I caught a few though, and that always makes a session worthwhile.

Surfline originally promised waves for the last week of December. All of the surfers were betting on at least four good days of waves at the end of the year. However, just as weather forecasters cannot predict the weather, neither can surf forecasters predict waves. Although I, too, had been hoping for lots of surfing during my time off from work, I only ended up with my Christmas Eve surf. Since the holidays, the waves have been awful…except for when I'm at work. In fact, this past week, those lucky enough to get to Galveston during the week had two exceptional days of California-like surf. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it unfold on the webcam and reading about it in the many Facebook posts of surfing friends. Waves were gorgeous, and I hope that one day soon, we can have waves like that on the weekend.

Right now, my focus is on the Houston Marathon, which is next week. This will be my fifth marathon.

I have another one scheduled in February, but will more than likely, drop back to the half marathon distance. After that, I plan to take a little break from full marathons. I won't say "never," but I want to quit the training for full marathons for a little while. That might actually give me a little more time to surf. We'll see. Keeping my fingers crossed for nice waves throughout the rest of the winter and into the spring and summer. Happy 2016!