The last six months of training have been really hard. Harder than I imagined, harder than I thought I could endure. I think the adage that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger' is probably true. I have mentally collapsed in a heap so many times (often multiple times a week) and every time I've learnt a little bit more about myself, and gotten up for more.
1. There is such a thing as biting off more than you can chew
The last six months has seen me deal with my first Winter in over 5 years, homesickness, a move from the city (where I'd built a great network of new friends, and had a few handy old ones I could lean on) to rural Norfolk (where I knew no one), a new job, a career change (goodbye accounting). Plus training for The Tour.
I've nearly made it to the starting line, and I don't know if I would change my choices even with the benefit of hindsight, but it has been really hard. I'm not sure if balance is necessarily I good thing, or something that I could do well, but I am looking forward to a little more of it in my life in 4 weeks time!
2. My biggest limits are the ones that are in my head
My Mum sent me some inspiring words to keep in mind for The Tour, including: 'You started off determined being born six weeks too early' and 'Once upon a time you couldn't run around the school oval'. Eight years ago I arrived back in Australia after a gap year, seriously overweight and unfit. 4.5 years ago I ran 5km for the first time. Nearly every time I run a part of me can't believe I'm doing it- running (at all), cycling 100km+, swimming for 4km, these are all things that I still find it hard to believe I can do.
One of my big achievements in the past six months of training is to recognise that I can overcome the limits I put on myself. I have gone further and faster than I thought possible, and have recognised that this is only the start of my journey as an athlete.
3. I am an athlete, and I love to race
I am an athlete. Thinking that in my head, let alone writing it down in a public forum leaves me feeling like a fraud. But I am the office fitness freak, the girl who 9 times out of 10 would prefer to have one drink and an early night and a run in the morning, than to get plastered and paint the town red. Training has become part of my life, my happiness and my self-identity.
More surprising is that I love to race (although not as surprising as enjoying running, which was a long time coming). When I stumbled over the finish line of Cairns Half Ironman 2012, nearly in tears, I wondered how I could find the motivation to train (which I loved), when I found racing so thoroughly unenjoyable. Maybe I've tricked myself into it, and a serious improvement in my fitness has helped, but now I love being out there on course, putting my training to the test, with a bunch of people who for the most part are racing to find a better version of themselves.
4. All or nothing. Win or lose. Succeed or fail
I am so, so, so hard on myself. The bar of success is often undefined or impossibly high, and failure ends up being too many of the likely outcomes, even if most are positive. All or nothing. My training weeks either consist of every box being ticked, or none of them, a poor or missed session throwing me off until I am given the artificial clean slate of a new week.
A few years of endurance training has taught me so much about how I work as a person, and allowed me to find strengths I didn't know I had, develop discipline and persistence, and to see how my weaknesses hold me back in ways that are easier to paper over in other areas of my life.
5. You can't achieve great things alone, and even if you could it wouldn't be much fun
The hardest thing about the past six months has been the amount of training I have done alone. Running and triathlon have been a social activity for me since I started (for a long time I didn't think I could run alone, or without music), so doing the majority of my training alone in the past six months has been a huge emotional drain for me, and left me feeling really isolated.
I might have done a lot of solo pavement pounding and pedal pushing alone, but my cheer squad has been huge and invaluable. To those who understand, to those who don't, the people who think I'm crazy, the people who are jealous, the people who've donated to the William Wates Memorial Fund, who've read my blog, listened to me talk about my training, trained with me. Thank you all.
Maybe I could have done it all alone, but I doubt it.
6. My next crazy sporting endeavour will probably be to raise funds for BVS
There have been some seriously generous supporters out there, and I and the William Wates Memorial Trust are truly grateful for your support. But, friends beware, there is a new fundraising cause for me just on the horizon: research and treatment into a condition that commonly effects female cyclists, but is rarely talked about, Broken Vagina Syndrome (BVS). Many suffer in silence, but with 21 long days in the saddle I plan to use this blog to give an insight into the terrible condition and launch a platform to fundraiser for the reconstructive surgery that might be necessary post-Tour.
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