Doldrums

Well after my massive binge I tentatively weighed myself before heading to see the beast master and was very surprised to see I had only put on half a pound (yaaaaay!). That cheered my up somewhat as I dragged my feet down to the gym wondering how on earth I was going to cope with the terrible torture that he could devise.  We started fairly inanely with a warm on the bike but just as I was getting complacent he mouthed the dreaded word "sprint" - I think you may have gathered from past posts that I HATE these with a passion - but I tend to just grit my teeth, close my eyes and pedal as fast as I can until my legs won't work.

 Unfortunately this time I reached that stage just as Mark said - well done that's 30 seconds gone.  "Whaaaaaaaat!" my head flicked up, my mouth started swearing (God knows where I got the breathe from?)  Mark just laughed as a girl walking past started backing away nervously and told me to pace myself because I had started off like a bat out of hell.  I then discovered a very important lesson which I used in the next sets - that actually keeping my eyes open and keeping the pace that I've been set makes life so much easier! (obviously it's all relative as I was still struggling to keep the bile down by the end of the session)

Then we started throwing ViPRs and kettlebells around, some pad work and the dreaded TRX to finish - except not quite - much as I had been ready to finish about 30 minutes into the session, Mark still managed to finish with his suprising horrific, because it is so short, abs torture  which ended with an extra set of medicine ball tummy tennis (my name for it not his!) just to punish me for my naughtiness while he'd been away.  Luckily I didn't have to go to work afterwards so I went for a lie down!

I have to admit I'm having a bit of a wobble at the moment - Mark asked how my tri training was going and I had to admit I haven't really found my groove - it hasn't helped that I haven't been able to run or that I haven't got my bike sorted yet so I'm only doing spin training and haven't managed more than 20 minutes on a pace session yet.  I am starting to be very nervous about July 15th and wondering if I'm going to manage it at all.  I avoided training for 2 days and then forced myself (having downloading a load of inspirational tracks for running on the advice of my buddies) to head to the gym this morning after seeing a video of my friend Charlie Martell (who is rowing the Pacific solo) talking about the fact he was having a bit of a hard time at the moment!   I ran for the first time in about 6 weeks on the treadmill at a pretty slow pace for 10 minutes and then got on the bike to do a 30 minute pace session - oh my Lord I nearly got off that bike so many times.  The little voice in my head told me that I should just give up and that I'd never manage the tri so I might as well not bother - I had a fairly serious argument with myself at the 15 minute point when I realised I had only done half of the session and I felt sick as a dog.  The lady next to me on the sit down bike pedalling fairly sedately started to look a little worried at one point. 

I managed to finish the session and then headed back to the treadmill - I had initially intended to do a 10 minute run in the brick but after 1min 20 seconds the inner voice was back, luckily my sister had recommended a song by the Vines called F*&k the World - which came on at 2 1/2 minutes and got me through to the 5 minutes I had finally negotiated with myself because I was feeling a bit nauseous and slightly wobbly.   I have persuaded myself that I shall not be despondent as at least I have run for the first time without having to hobble out of the gym and I have now managed 3/4 of the bike time/distance and half of the run time even if I looked like I had run across the Sahara when I finished it!  I have a swim tomorrow before I head off for the long long weekend and maybe I shall feel inspired when I get back from my break!