When you hit that wall

“You do what it takes.”

If and when you hit that wall hard in the last few miles you will often do anything to get home. I know, I have.

·         You pray (even if you are not the praying type).

·         You swear you will never run another mile (even if deep down you know it won’t be).

·         You swear proper.

·         You beg.

·         You cry.

·         You curse some more.

·         You count up in nines, spell backwards the alphabet and try to remember the names of every pupil in every class you ever sat in in order to take you mind off the pain.

·         You curse again when this stops working.

·         You give up giving the crowd high fives, they only push you back-wards.

·         You get rid of anything that is weighing you down from hats, belts and wristbands.

·         You eat muscle, chew fat and burn absolutely everything for energy even if that means throwing your dignity, pride and self-respect under the bus just so you can squeeze another few hundred metres out of it.

·         You see Jelly Babies as more sacred than the Holy Communion.

·         And when a local looking middle-aged woman holds out in her hand a small brown sweet /mint/chew/bonbon/toffy you don’t care if it’s a Werther's Original or something used to cure river blindness you just grab it, gobble it and move on.

Because when and if you hit that wall, you do what it takes.

(Thankfully it was a glucose tablet though the river blindness hasn’t been back since.)

Yesterday’s training

First session on the bike. A short but intense 4 mins, with 30 second intervals on and off pushing really fast. Repeated twice. And I didn’t forget the glutes and calf exercises.