Fighting with my brain, a summer cold and unexpected pains

Coming back from the race weekend, I wasn't feeling eager to go back to training at all. It doesn't help that work is draining me emotionally as well so by the evening I am a huge mess. Case in point, on Monday I went to my Taekwondo class and right off the bat my instructor asked me why I didn't come to the belt grading. Not giving me a chance to answer, I spent the rest of the class with tears in my eyes, as the negative thoughts took over. I was convinced that he thought I was a coward and knowing this wasn't true, I could not shake off the feeling of having been misunderstood. We went through all our patterns and I had a very hard time concentrating and I kept making mistakes. At the end of the class I burst in tears and I had to talk about it with the instructor. Of course, it was all in my head, as usual - but anxiety had reached its peak and I had to fight a panic attack and the shame of losing my shit in front of a bunch of kids. Not pretty.

In the following two days it went from bad to worse. On Tuesday I fell sick with a cold and my tooth ache came back. On Wednesday I started two more medications and the cocktail made me dizzy and nauseous. I also got my period and in my infinite wisdom, I decided to go back to Taekwondo. We started the class with conditioning (insert sprints, lunges, frog leaps etc), followed by a gazillion side piercing kicks. Let's say that I did my best, but by the end of the class I was surprised that I had not passed out.

On Thursday I went swimming with the tri club at Professor's Lake and fought the chop for 2 loops then called it a night. I didn't want to make my cold worse since Friday morning I was going to meet with a bunch of friends for a Canada Day bike ride. Since sleeping hadn't been that great the entire week, I was definitely feeling tired and the weekend had not even started. I was not looking forward to the 5:30am alarm clock, and as a matter of fact, I even procrastinated getting out of bed and ended being late.

I met with Emma, Sam, Kim and Ivanka in Burlington after a 40 minutes drive for which I was ill prepared. I had to find my helmet, shoes, gloves, bottles, shades and put everything in the car along with the bike. Thankfully Zin had inflated my tires. Alas there was no coffee and I ran out of time to pick one from Tim Hortons. Once again, I started the day in a state of panic.

To add insult to injury, 15 minutes within the group ride it started pouring. And it pretty much did not stop for most of the ride. We were soon soaked to the bone, but tried keeping the spirits high.

About 30km in the ride Sam got a flat and I wiped out in slo-mo because my shoe refused to unclip while trying to stop. With a bloody knee and achy wrist, I helped Sam change the tube because she was shivering so hard, poor cookie. I even inflated my first tube ever because I never got a flat myself in 5 years and this was my first application in the field. ;-) I don't remember how many f-bombs I let out during the operation, but I think I broke a personal record.

For the next 25km all I could think of was a hot Mocha at the Starbucks where we parked our cars and a warm change of clothes. I am glad to report that both were a success. All in all, despite the super soaker and bruised bum, it was a lot of fun.

The next morning, another early alarm going off, but this time for a swim with Sam at the quarry. She'd never come to Caledon for a swim there and I promised to go with her the weekend before. Summer cold and achy limbs don't care, the premise of a breakfast with this girl was a good enough reason to jump in the water at 7am. The air was cold, but the water was super warm, so the swim was rather awesome. I did two loops for a distance of 2.2km in just about 50 minutes, then drove down the road to the Red Onion where Zin joined us for brekkie.

I spent the rest of the day/weekend on the couch, nursing my stubborn cold and praying for my tooth ache to leave me in peace until Tuesday when I'll have the tooth extracted. The cat was the best and kept me company. I hope I didn't give him my cold, because we snuggled pretty long and hard.

What else is left to say? On Sunday evening I was really craving a run, so I went out for a 5km around the block in my Hokas. No knee pain, but geez - that felt hard! I tried running "easy" but the heart wouldn't have it any other way but in Z4-Z5. Oh well, I have to keep reminding myself how badly out of shape I am. And I'm still sick, which most likely plays a role as well. Let's see what the next week will bring. I think I'll need a lot of exercise to chase all demons away, if not I may just end up punching someone in the office and that's not going to end up well.