My second training week has been very different from my first. It started off with me fighting a scratchy throat and high heart rate. By Wednesday I was getting restless and took my morning off to get in the water and swim an easy 1km. I then went to join my training partner at the gym to do a medium gym session, but I found myself getting frustrated and left early.
It was another busy week work wise and I also had to prepare for my 3 week trip to Congo for the All African Games so there was a lot going on in my mind.
I had been battling to sleep due to the stress of the unknown with Congo and how would affect my recovery and then trying to wrap things up at work before I left. By Thursday afternoon I was ready to train and I was pumped. It was an epic session! We did some sprints and it felt great! It was my first time sprinting in over 8 months, I held nothing back and loved every second of it! It was so good. I was on a high the entire day the next day and promptly crashed on Saturday.
But it was a good week all round with my average heart rate being at an all-time low since I have been monitoring it. I had a great chat about my fears with my sports psychologist and she quoted a quote ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ I love that and totally did that in my swim session on Thursday evening in my sprints.
I can’t wait till the day when I can train normally again without fear and I often doubt and wonder if that day will ever come, but as my training partner said to me during our rehab session on Friday, I will look back on this time one day and realise how much I have learnt in this season and going forward how much I can help others going through the same thing or help prevent it from happening. I trust that she is right and that this season will come to an end soon.
I still have fear that I will regress dramatically especially now that I am traveling away from my support system into an environment where I have little control, but I trust that I have come too far over the last 8 month to regress and trust that as I continue to live out my dream, it will all turn out ok. Congo is part of that dream from a work perspective and having placed my dream sin Gods hands, I have to hold onto that trust with faith.
God knows what we need
I popped into the church on Friday morning to bring the guys coffee and ended up being prayed for before I left, what a blessing. God knows what we need and he will not let us endure what we cannot handle. So I prepare for Congo in Johannesburg for 3 more days before we launch into the next travel adventure. Hopefully I can get some training in in between helping the athletes, but if I don’t, it’s ok.