… 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.
I really think you should scream out "epidural" one of these days. I would LOVE to see the reaction of the other cyclists!
ReplyDeleteLoved this post, so funny.