It’s been quite a while since my last post, and a lot of
water has passed under the bridge since then. Following a successful first
season, I took what I felt to be a well-earned break! After 10 months of being
more disciplined than I ever have been before, and for large periods of time
living like a monk, I was more than ready to let my hair down. Never have 30
days passed so quickly! After eating like a king and drinking like a fish,
book-ended by a stag do in Ibiza and a wedding in Italy, the first session back
was borderline inhumane. I’ve now been back in training for a month, and the intensity
is really starting to ramp up. The sessions are longer, harder, and more
focussed, than anything I’ve done before, and I walk away from each session
convinced it’s the hardest session I’ve ever done; that is, until the next one!
I think only now do I truly understand the demands of being an athlete, and
getting home and barely having the energy to get to the top of the stairs
before I crawl into bed is becoming a familiar sensation. What I’ve discovered
is that previously, too often I found a way to cheat, to make things that
little bit easier for myself, so that whilst I was still working hard, it wasn’t
quite the limit of my ability. No more! My coach told me that I needed to learn
to ‘live in uncomfortable’, that I’ll never find it easy, as it will always be
progressing to a higher standard and a more demanding schedule.
Philosophically, it’s quite a hard message to assimilate, to truly believe that
you’re ready to hurt that much for that long, and then go back and do it all
over again the next day. It means that I’m concentrating increasingly on
accepting the pain is going to come, and pushing through it. I’m fairly certain
that everyone has a mental or physical limit, but I wonder how many people ever
find it. I know I’m certainly not there yet; when doing six 150m runs last
week, I fell to my knees, seeing spots after doing the fifth run, convinced
that I couldn’t take another step. But, after barked encouragement/admonishment
from my coach, I was back up on my feet and finishing the last run, although
there was something of the outer body experience about it! I know that if I’d
been on my own, I would have stopped before that last run, and having someone
there to remind you what you said you wanted to achieve, and knowing what it is
you need to do to get there, is an enormous help. The indoor season starts
again exactly 2 months today, and I’m really looking forward to measuring the
improvements that I feel I’ve made so far this winter. By then I’m hoping to be
about 5kg lighter, and have a much more polished and fluid running style. I’ll
hopefully find the time for another update before then, but in the meantime,
the likelihood is I’ll be bent over, drenched in sweat, hopefully progressing
and living up to my potential.
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