Sunday 19 February 2012

Déjà vu…


… is that strange feeling that you’ve done this very thing, before. It floods you with emotion, like a powerful dream bursting to the surface. I’m quite content to have only had a few déjà vu’s. I find them eerie – especially if I can’t recall the photocopied event. This week, however, I had no trouble linking my latest déjà vu to a very vivid day in my past. The birth of Jessica.

In a few weeks, my firstborn will be 17years old (yikes). The memory of her birth is as clear to me today, as it was the day it happened. For 14 hours (before I screamed “EPIDURAL”), I endured the type of pain that can only be described as barbaric, medieval torture. The contractions were not the worst part. The worst part was the countdown to those contractions. It turns out that the anticipation of pain, for me, is harder to deal with than the pain itself – as I rediscovered in my déjà vu flicker.

Fast forward to Feb 16th, 2012. I am on my bike in my 3rd set of progressively harder intervals. This is test day, and I am pushing very high watts (much too high for my current fitness level), and I have 2 more minutes to go.  I had set my own difficulty level for this test, as I was curious (as was my coach) to figure out where I was at. Legs heavy with lactic acid, it took every ounce of strength I had to rotate the wheel and finish. I struggled, pushing harder than I ever had to date.  

Recovery… 1 minute before the next, longer interval begins.

This one minute “rest” period had me in a full-on panic-mode.  Trying to catch my breath, I glanced at the time: 30 seconds to go, and then I’m on again. Don’t panic Carmen… breathe, breathe. As this was happening, I was transported back to 1995.  Staring at the timer on my Garmin was like staring at the fetal monitor so many years before – trying to remain calm, knowing that I would be in pain, in 10, 9, 8, OMG…7, 6, just kill me now…5, 4, how did I get here?... 3, 2, here we go again…1.

The only thing I gave birth to this time round, was knowledge:

1: Pace myself (I am getting a little too cocky with the watts I think I can push).
2: Pain I can handle. Fear of pain is something I need to gain control over.
3: If I scream out “EPIDURAL” on a bike, sadly, no one comes running.

1 comment:

  1. I really think you should scream out "epidural" one of these days. I would LOVE to see the reaction of the other cyclists!

    Loved this post, so funny.

    ReplyDelete