Over the last five days I have achieved a great deal and also been incredibly scared; what I find interesting though is that the same hormones will have been produced - predominantly adrenaline but also cortisol - in all instances. On Saturday we went for a hilly bike ride, climbing a steady 550m in 6 six miles, but then of course having to descend the same on the other side! Descents are not my strong point, in fact they couldn't really be much weaker. My child-sized hands find it almost impossible to reach the brakes whilst on the hoods of my bike, yet I'll be damned if I'm going to lean forward on a steep downhill to sit on the drops, so that my fingertips can strain to sufficiently stop my bike whilst I pick up speeds akin to light and sound. And I'm scared of heights (or rather falling), and there were all manner of cars on the road, surely ready to mow me down as I hurtle downwards and around tight bends. No thank you. And so, after three patient attempts by my long-suffering husband to convince me to try it again after 50m of effectively braking down the road, he gave up cajoling his shaking wife to get back onto her bike, and instead cycled behind her as she ran downhill with bike in hand. Well, it's cross-training isn't it? I admit I find it overwhelmingly terrifying that I cannot stop, nor suitably slow my bike and have visions instead of head-on collisions with baby rabbits. I know that I need to conquer this consuming fear - and that throwing myself into a hedge if it all gets too fast does not a backup plan make - but I think I'll practise on some slightly shorter, gentle hills for now with some solid hedgerow to my left.
The beginning of this week in stark contrast, has been one of Personal Bests; on Monday I smashed my 7.5km training tempo run, which has a gruelling 25% hill to climb in the middle, by 5 minutes, and last night I achieved an 100m split in the pool in 1:35! After both sessions I encountered much the same sensations as those experienced when wobbling downhill on Saturday - heart racing, body shaking, energy levels pumped for flight, combined with 'I want to lie down now and eat ice-cream' (that last one must be the cortisol). It seems funny that two such extreme feelings can mechanically be so similar. I suppose that my body can't tell the difference between me pushing myself to run or swim faster for fun, and the sheer fear I feel when going down long hills; in both instances it is activating my fight-or-flight response, a built-in system to boost the body when under threat from predators. There's a thought... maybe I should get someone to chase me during my training sessions. A fool-proof plan. Nothing is going to get me down those hills (or achieve new PBs) faster than being tracked down by someone terrifying. Tony Blair perhaps, or my GCSE Spanish teacher with her glass eye. So if you happen to be in my part of the world, and see someone careering down a road being chased by a mad woman shouting 'Donde esta tu tarea?', fear not, it's just me harnessing my adrenaline.
No comments:
Post a Comment