Mental vacation

Man flu

My training front has not been very glamorous lately. The hamstring/glute problem is still very annoyingly present, and as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, for this reason, switched my training regimen to more traditional weight lifting and endurance training for a while. Unfortunately, right after the first test day, I got severe symptoms of the flu. We had Corona in our family and even though my tests were negative, I assume that I got it myself. The symptoms were very similar to the spring when we had it last time. A week and a half went by completely resting because I was sneezing like a schizophrenic elephant and farting alone pushed my cardiovascular system to its limits. The planned Cooper test naturally moved into the future.

The whole summer has been quite busy and there has been a bit too much to do for one man at times. In that sense, the week’s forced rest was quite welcome in a way. I spent the first couple of days just enjoying the fact that I didn’t have to do anything. Just be. And sneeze my ass off. However, I am so work-oriented that being still for a few days slowly turns into a little anxiety and then absolutely intolerable. I also noticed that when there are enough days without doing anything, I tend to get a bit stuck in a way and steadily start to procrastinate. Couldn’t even get myself to write the blog, even though there was plenty of time for that. A peculiar squirrel wheel – it sucks to have nothing to do but it also sucks to perform.

With nothing to do, I had time to wrestle with the demons inside my head again. Even though I know my gains aren’t going anywhere, I get anxious when there is an unexpected break in training. Now, because of the hamstring injury, this all felt twice as unfair. For a moment, I wanted to run butt-naked into the yard in the freezing cold and scream to the sky: ”Why my God? Why?”. However, I thought that it would hardly help, so I stayed inside. With my clothes on.

Now I’m back in business and the first hard training session is over. I actually didn’t even remember what it’s like to be with some honest DOMs. If a fart made me gasp for breath last week, now it makes my glutes and lower limbs scream like a James Brown with the shits. It’s still a rather nice feeling after a long time – you feel alive and it’s great to be able to train. Oh yeah, and I did the Cooper’s test too – there wasn’t much left to tell about it, but what was left will come in the form of the next article.

Summation

Winter is coming and these diabolical diseases begin their autumnal cycle. I cross my ringers, arms, legs, and probably my ankles too, fervently hoping that this fall’s illnesses were here. As a fundamentally positive Finn, I still expect that the traditional ”Magic of Christmas” (=hellish vomiting sickness) will find us in the near future. After all, it’s already been a year since the last one.

How’s your autumn been going? Healthy on sick?