I'm Scared

Immediately after my swim on the Truss, I questioned how this event would affect my paddling, and especially my confidence, and what exactly it would take to get back to that level again.  Obviously, continuing the paddle that river without incident helped, but I spent the next couple days in a conscious shock.  I told everyone what happened to me, hoping for some kind of resolution.  Based on what I had heard from other boaters, I knew I was going to feel weird and scared, and I kind of sat there waiting for it to sink in.  

The next Tuesday, I paddled the Upper Wind.  The level was medium/low and it was only class IV, but it felt a lot bigger.  That was one of the scariest days of paddling I've ever had.  But the hardest thing to deal with was the conscious fear.  Normally kayaking is scary in retrospect, I never feel out of the zone.  But on the Wind, I was scared in every rapid.  I'm sure my reaction time and movement suffered.  My sphere of awareness shrunk, leaving my running rapids pretty poorly, and I flipped once.  During the flip, my helmet cam hit a rock and was knocked off (luckily I had a back up piece of p-cord), but it didn't help my confidence.  Combine that with the inability to untie the knot due to cold hands, and I was feeling pretty helpless.  In the class 3 I kind of settled down, following a former Olympic slalom boater, trying to gain his skills by choosing his lines.  It felt good after that, but the bigger part of the river left me feeling gripped.  I didn't have good memories to look back on.  I was happy to get back on the water so quickly after my swim, but I wasn't happy with how kayaking felt.   (It probably didn't help that I hadn't repaired the tear in my drysuit...).  

After a week or so, I went through the helmet cam footage from my swim.   To be continued...