The other day I was a bit off colour and since I had to organise my pap smear as well, because I'm such an adult, I popped in to visit the GP. We also organised all the blood tests that you have to have to stay in tip-top nick if you're a proper adult...including my thyroid, which has been exceptionally dodgy for over twenty years...and which I hadn't had checked for over two years #epicadultingfail.
Let's just say the normal range of thyroid simulating hormone (the stuff that kickstarts the thyroid) is usually 3-5 and mine was 75 and leave it at that, shall we? Given that the thyroid affects mood, energy and weight, I am in the running for Prize Nong of 2016. Oh well. I've always said that if you can't be a good example be a dire warning! Keep up with your blood tests, people!
So, the next week: the week I walked 21.1km about an hour faster than
I expected, and rode that mojo all the way through the Fear Wall.
I
really only did the half mara becuase I couldn't get a refund on the
hotel - I'd been away from home for five weekends in a row and I wasn't
expecting anything much. I was just happy I could be out there and
re-visit the MCG and get some bling. I like bling.
It was fun to
go through all the nutrition and hydration plans of My Old Life. I was
grateful to be certain I could walk that far. I woke up feeling good,
and I decided the approach would be 'not comfortable'. If I felt
comfortable, I had to go harder. I was so pleased that I could hold my
concentration and my pace - kms were consistent to 5sec except for when I
had to make my way through 5000 5km runners coming through the course
in the opposite direction, but let's not go there - and I felt happy that I was strong enough to sweat it up for hour after hour. Fight Song
came on the 1p0d and I got a bit teary - f*** you injuries and weight
gain and bereavements and f*** you always feeling overwhelmed and f***
you depression - I thought you took EVERYTHING. But not so! I'm still
REALLY STRONG and this is A GREAT DAY.
I didn't wear a watch, so I
was utterly gobsmacked and beyond thrilled to see 3.39 on the clock -
I'd been expecting well over four hours! Stupid Determination IS a
substitute for training! My finish line videos and photos show this
crazy grinning person who looks like Dumbo crossed with the Tin Man but
they're clearly wrong - I was floating. I was a f***ing superhero. I was
SO HAPPY.
Gosh I felt sorry for the chick who had to sit next to me on the bus on the way home. Unless she liked sweaty snoring.
The
spell of the bling was obviously upon me when I decided to ride this
wave of mojo all the way into the beach and take on the Scariest Thing
In The World - I told effbee I was going to do the local mini-tri!
Without going into too much detail, even thinking about these events
has been an abyss of fear, shame, and sadness for me. After I posted
that I was going, I nearly cried. I felt sick all day. I nearly made
myself late but The Spousal Unit was across that and had my bike and my
bag on the verandah ready for me. I rode off, wishing I could get lost
(it's 2km from my house) or forget how to ride or something.
Of
course it was fine! Lots of people I knew were there, and seemed
genuinely pleased to see me. They were not the hateful tormentors of
yore. It was quite fun! The bike felt much better than I expected. My
approach to the (ahem) "run" (equal counts walk/run) was 'stay
uncomfortable'. No excuses. No extra walks. It's not far. I was a little
bit distracted by kind Jacinta (is this your very first tri?) but she was being friendly and ran most of the way with me.
Last Wednesday I broke out of the prison of my own fearful thoughts and I'm never going back there.
Two weeks in October 2016 will go down in (my personal) history as The Weeks That Fixed My Life. They Changed Everything.
The first was, of course, the week my darling Bulldogs Won The Big One and re-wrote my life story. The second was last week, when I had the Second Best Day Ever walking a half marathon and then four days later crashed through all my fears like an action hero through sugar glass. This article sums it all up beautifully I think - especially first few paragraphs Sixty-two years of misery told every Bulldogs fan that the ball was going to bounce left. For so long, failure was a desert, and hope was a series of poisoned oases........ for more than half a century the team’s lone identity was failure......
And more than anything, the Bulldogs lost. They lost games, seasons and players, they lost the competition’s respect, and they lost hope..........
Why did Tony Liberatore’s match-sealing goal get called a behind in the ’97 preliminary final? Why did Chris Grant poll the most votes in the Brownlow medal that same year when he was ineligible?
The same simple reason: because bad things happen to the Bulldogs.....
If you grow up in a family/micro culture where your team is your tribe, this stuff shapes you. You learn that loyalty is all you have. Success and delight are for other clubs. You get really, really sick of 'the glory of struggle', but there's nothing else to do. I don't think anyone gets 'good' at disappointment. You get good at being resigned, and forcedly lowering your expectations, and loving your club even though they're crap, and at being quietly BITTER. It seeps into other areas of your life. I'm always quite surprised (and absolutely delighted) when things I've worked for go well. It's difficult and scary to Dream Big - and then when you've had a rough-ish spell over a few years, you almost forget how.
On the converse, however, if you are clever, you learn to notice and be very grateful and happy about very little things, which is a wonderful tool for a happy life! So there you go!
And another thing: people feel sorry for you when you follow the Bulldogs. I utterly LOATHE being felt sorry for. It's one of the reasons it's been very hard to return to racing as a fat person. If you kindly tell me that the Bulldogs are your 'second team', I secretly hate you (probably).
I plan and prepare and work hard and maybe don't aim as high as I should, because I have never had any reason to expect things to happen just because I want them to. They. Never. Ever. Do.
UNTIL NOW!!!!
We are the Champions, my friend! WOOF WOOF WOOF!!
As Captain Bob Our Spiritual Advisor wrote : the Western Bulldogs are ...a family. But like all families there is pain, hurt and damage done from the hard years. Too many hard years.
All of a sudden, so many years of heartbreak and longing...are behind us. The sunshine....has broken through the clouds, warming the faces of the clan.
Oh, how good it is to be in the sun! This all sounds utterly stupid, I realise, and it is, but the world changed when we won. It changed forever! The siren went, and the huge roar vibrated through the mass of the MCG and through our bones, and somehow, like some corny fairytale movie, life was different for the tens of thousands of loyal, brave, not-very-hopeful, elated-beyond-measure diehard Doggies who'd dared to show up in case the unbelievable happened. Sometimes things do go our way. Who knew?
PS I KNOW, I KNOW #firstworldproblem!!! But this is my blog and it's where I reflect on my little world.
*takes short break to watch the last three minutes of the game again*
I could focus on the fact that I'm no closer to fitness than I was several months ago - but not much further away from it either, I suppose, so there's that - and have done very very little training, and my foot hasn't really settled down properly blah blah blah blah.
Instead, I'm focusing on the fact that I have no doubt that I will be able to walk 21.1 km on Sunday at the Melbourne Marathon. That's a Very Good Thing. So that's what I'll be doing. See you on the other side with the bling!
More anon, amblers!
During our recent somewhat traumatic week at the eisteddfodau, during which we came to the conclusion that not only would Noddie no longer dance with her Idon'tthinkferalistoostrongaword duo partner, but also that we would remove her from the dance school altogether and take her to one in another town - blatant favouritism disgusts me, AND I know the difference between 'tough love' and actual damaging ABUSE even if her teacher doesn'tdon'tgetmestartedthewomanisafuckingmenace - Noddie and I began a routine of daily stretching together. By 'stretching together', do picture a lithe 12yo dancer blithely impersonating our green friend above, and by her side her creaky overweight middle-aged mum bitching about the pain, the pain..... but we do it nearly every day, and it's sort of fun. It's certainly doing me good. It's probably some kind of bonding thing too, and you're meant to do that with your kids, I hear.
My next post may be a reflection on how my darling Bulldogs' Grand final win will change my life. How does one approach living when chronic disappointment and existential pessimism is no longer a valid world-view??
