>>>><Going to Dark Places<<<<
Ok truth be told I’ve been to many dark places-
When i was a runner, when i was in the army,
in prep for body building and even in life…
In fact the first dark place I Can recall it was a
rainy Sunday morning, I met my coach (running
coach) at Les Quennevais sport centre, probably
still half ticking from the night before.
Had 2 packs of airways to disguise the smell of
vodka from my breath so my coach didn’t know
i was dying before we even started..
I would have cancelled but this was a session he
put on specially because i had the county cross
country coming up….
We went to the sand dunes, first challenge- ‘the
big dipper’ 5 sets my coach waited at the top…
2 sets in, I was sick so sat down
Beside my vomit holding back tears…
He came down from the top. patted me on the
back and said,
3 more sets, this time I want the speed higher
from The bottom.
I looked up expecting to see him grinning as if he was joking
I must have looked like a lost puppy at the time.
He smiled and said what you waiting for-
Don’t let me catch you…I went for it,
Half way up Legs filled up, my head went light, I could
feel him catching me, I gave it everything, made it
He didn’t catch me…
His response ‘that was 3 seconds slower than your first
one, 2 left but if you get this one quicker than the first one,
it’ll your last on this hill’
So I jogged down, cursing him under my breath, thinking
wtf is this guy doing to me…
What am I doing to myself…Got to the bottom, and went for it the term balls deep comes to mind-
If I didn’t get the time, I
Didn’t have another rep in me…I went for it, this time not even half way up, my legs went to shit,
tried driving those arms through,’I think at times I was using my
hands on the dunes…
I made it-
My coach said-
‘Good…
But the first one was .5 seconds quicker.
One more left’
Oh
EMMMM
GEEE
I wanted to throw the towel in but knew I couldn’t give up, so went for it-
The time was probably the slowest of the lot, then he gave me some
Of his sports lucozade said,
You dug deep there, good effort, but do you know what?
I said what,
He said,
You’d have been even quicker if you hadn’t come to training with a
hangover now let’s sweat it oh and don’t turn up Like that again’
Moral to the story,
Dont make it harder on yourself than you need to, and to progress
you will go to dark places but you can lie to yourself-
But not to your Coach- they’ll see through it;)
