Two weeks up... Two weeks down!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post - And it's been a turbulent ride...

For some reason I entered last week in completely the wrong frame of mind. To be honest, I'd simply had enough... Any thought of training couldn't have been further from my mind and if you'd asked me then to sign up to Tough Mudder I probably would've said no...

Not only that but I began to doubt my ability at the event - My mind was telling me "Ah, you've got less than a month to go - You can't improve any from now until then so why try.", and I also began to question whether I'd really improved much at all over the last 4 months - Which of course is silly because there have been improvements (and you can't really do all that exercise and NOT get better... can you??!??) - but my head and heart just weren't in it. Doesn't help that I'm my own worse judge in terms of fitness improvements...

So I took the week off. Regrouped. Managed a bit of a jog on Friday and entered this, the second last week before the Mudder, in quite a better mind set. I'm not sure what happened. I think I just hit the wall in terms of training and the intensity of it had just got the better of me...

....

But, it's not what you experience that defines you, it's how you respond to it that matters - So on the weekend, exactly 2 weeks out from the big day, the team hit Lysterfield once again for our final group run - This time knocking off 18km - Our longest run ever, and roughly equivalent to the Tough Mudder Phillip Island course. And we all made it pretty well I must admit - Apart from a slight scare when one team member (and our works' CEO!) took a tumble on a downhill shale track and twisted his knee. For a moment we though it all might be over, but probably out of sheer stubborness he got up and kept going and seems to be ok.

The rest of this week is our last big hurrah - full on training for as many days as possible. It sure is easier to do an exercise routine when you can say to yourself "This is the LAST TIME I have to do this one!" :)  

And after this week we'll taper down - probably just a few simple sessions and lightweight jogs before a full rest a couple of days out.  Speaking of rest, we also discovered that the Sunday of the TM is the same day that daylight savings ends here, so we'll have an extra hour's sleep that night!!! Given I have to get up and be down there with my wife (who's volunteering) at 6am, that'll be much appreciated!