one of those days, in one of those places

i went into today's swim training feeling quite tired. i had not been getting enough sleep the past week (no thanks to a very disciplined 7am+ body clock and my recent penchant for sleeping past 12)

warm up was ok, though i could tell that i was not in a good shape. then came the pulling set, 8 x 200m. i did the first set with a rpetty good timing, and i thought it was gonna be one of those days where i just have to power my way through it.

i was wrong.

by the 4th set my mind was feeling so heavy and a bit delirious. i was just pulling brainlessly and my eyes were so heavy. so halfway through the 5th set i stopped. i had to do something about it.
so i ran off to buy a can of coffee. it was my first coffee in over a year, and i hoped that the sudden caffeine rush would wake me up.

and ta-dah! it did work. my mind was a bit more awake, and i resumed training with a good 400m kicking set.

next up were 4 sets of 6 x 50m. got through it with relative ease as compared to the pulling set earlier on. i could feel my body waking up.

last set was 5 x 100m "goal" set (just a different name from target set) goal was PB + 5s. for me that meant 1:15. (holy shit)

first 100m was a disaster. 1:19. baaaaaad. told myself i really have to push myself to not waste this training.

second 100m 1:15! obviously i was happy, and now i had a feel of what this time felt like, i knew how hard i had to work to hit the time again.

third 100m 1:16. not bad. and this time i really had to push my tired mind and body through it.

fourth 100m 1:17. uh oh, starting to drop time!

last 100m 1:16. whew! good end to the training.

what was more remarkable about the goal set today was those second 50m of the swim. with my head still feeling kinda heavy from the lack of sleep, i had to push my swimming muscles to keep pulling and stretching out to maintain the stroke, despite how useless they felt. i was in that part of the mind where i was fighting the body's urges to stop. physically and timing-wise this was definitely not my best. BUT mentall, it was a triumph today, when you tell yourself to push through that second half of a 100m, to keep stretching out the arm and pulling no matter how tired you felt.

i guess this is what makes triathlon, or endurance sport so addictive. as much as there are team mates and supporters cheering you on when you race, you have to reach deep down into yourself, and find out whether you are a fighter or a quitter, to whether you can push yourself to reach something somewhere that you once thought was impossible (or more often the case, unwilling) to go to. and when you get there, you come out of it more than satisfied, and hopefully, wanting more.