Bang Bang

At the end of my first round of Blaze last night,  brain wanted to go home. Fortunately, only my PT (who runs this Thursday class) picked up on the issue. Everybody else thought I had an off night. I cried for a bit in the car afterwards, again in bed. It didn’t help, not did it make me feel any better. It happened, it’s done, and there is nothing sitting here that can be dome to improve the situation. Anxiety can only managed, not eliminated. Once upon a time I would have run away.

That’s not happening any time soon.

Somebody yesterday introduced me to the concept of Callahan’s Law, and it makes perfect sense: from the spike of anxiety comes a final understanding, that joy is forged from my own pain. Before I wasn’t physically or mentally capable of doing the transformation: even last night, in the depths of exhaustion, stuff got done, things were completed and real, tenable progress made. The bad session was needed to enlighten and move forward: lessons have already been learnt.

Today we’ll be back on the bike, because it transpires my legs are now where the most work needs to be done.

Ideally, my paper doll colour bars need to match that of my right arm: weight on hips and lower stomach is included in my legs ‘colour’ and that is where the majority of excess fat now resides. It means carrying on the ‘something every day’ mentality that was going to be kick-started with power-walking, but cycling is just as effective. Taking the Fitbit off left wrist and placing it at the bottom of cycling shorts reproduces the movement required to count as steps. Strava does the rest.

This will be the benchmark week for effort, showing what factors contribute to those scores in purple and red. I can cycle for longer and score lower, if the amount of effort placed in maintaining RPM (spin speed) and Watts (effort in each spin) is not high. The harder it is to pedal, the more Watts are burnt, if there’s sufficient understanding of the principle here. Wednesday’s ride therefore, where there was more effort but less time, scores higher. Ideally, that ought to be the benchmark on high energy days.

Today there won’t be any weights because two days of Blaze means the top half of my body’s knackered. We’ll see, when I get on a bike later (probably at lunchtime) how much is left in the legs. If it’s a 9 today, that’s as productive as a 15 or a 25. Right now, there’s no contest, just the need to start eating away at the shortfall. Oh, and there’s a good chance I’ll fuel with dirty sugar before it begins.

Sometimes, you’re allowed to cheat.