Words

I love words that don't look like you expect them to. Faux pas and Cockburn are examples of that. For me epiphany is another word like that. Speaking of epiphany (see what I did there), this morning I had a little bit of one.

Not a big epiphany, just a minor one. I realised that whilst I still have my cough and it is really annoying, and it may be effecting my training, it isn't actually stopping me training. I have six weeks until my next race, more than enough time for this cough to go away. In the mean time I can still train, I may be slightly off the boil, but other than that I am pretty okay. So given that, I don't really need to let the cough cause me stress anymore. I can just relax and let my body get better, while I get on with training. It isn't a perfect situation, but it is doable. Realising that has let me relax a little bit.

As a result I am feeling a bit more positive about the world and not quite as mopey today, so that is good, time to get over myself a little bit I think.

I started day off this morning with a bit of a swim. I went down to Claremont pool but didn't swim with the squad. The session on my program was for a bit of a gentle rolling over of the arms and so that was nice. A slightly less traumatic way of getting the body swimming again, rather than heading down and burying myself with a Wednesday morning Swim Smooth set right off the bat. I will get back to doing that next week. But this was a good way to ease back into it.

I was tempted to head down and do the swim in the river this morning. For this kind of session I often would. However, as I said yesterday, the days are getting shorter in Perth. It isn't quite at the point where swimming in the river in the morning would require me to swim in the dark, but it is getting close. Needless to say, that ain't happening.

I have a run tonight and it will be similar to my swim, nice and easy, just getting myself going again. An added benefit of these easier sessions is that it also gives my chest a bit more time to clear. It feels like it is right on the cusp of being better so I am keen to keep it improving.

I do like weeks like this one, where it is all pretty cruisy and recoveryery (that is now a word) and then you get to the end of the week and BAM, 200km ride. Try that one on. Just to remind you that you are actually training for an Ironman. Guess what I have on Sunday morning.

To finish, if you want to see a good example of somebody mentally collapsing, have a look here. These are my official photos from the Geelong 70.3. As you flick through them, they give a good illustration of somebody in a world of increasing unhappiness. I think photo 16775 might actually capture the moment I gave up.

Anyway that is behind me now. This afternoon, for some unknown reason, I suddenly started looking forward to Ironman Melbourne. I wasn't expecting that, but bring it on. 40 days to go.