Mikkel was doing an Olympic distance triathlon (1.5k/40k/10k), and finished the 10k final run without any noticeable pain in his foot… well not that wasn’t being over-come by the general pain you endure (by choice – we are a strange breed) during a triathlon and the adrenaline that accompanies it. It was only after finishing that someone pointed out to him that his shoe was literally saturated in blood! Upon taking his running shoe off, he discovered that somehow, the flesh between his little toe and the next one in, has completely split between the bones!!! As you can see from the “after” photo below… it was nasty!!!
I’m well known by my friends for having bad feet, but Mikkel, you’ve well and truly won that one mate. Rest up and recover quickly… and see you in a few days in L.A.
So how on earth can that kind of thing happen without even realising, let alone race 10k’s after riding 40 and swimming 1.5? Well that’s where the regular visits to “The Hurt Locker” come in. This sport is my job and so I have a number of different offices…. Below is one of them, which has been affectionately named “Hambro Institute of Sport” by Liz, my landlady.
It's the scene of many an hour spent riding my bike, doing my job of trying to grow stronger, faster, fitter…. Sadly in order to grow in these ways, the body responds best to being pushed beyond its current abilities and then adapts so that the next time, it can cope better. So my daily routine is to do just that, push beyond what I think I’m capable of and the recover so that I’m a little stronger. It's called “super-compensation”.
It's by choice then, that I climb onto my bike, or do up the laces on my Newton trainers, or don the speedo’s and dive into the pool knowing that part of the next few minutes or hours is going to hurt; sometimes REALLY HURT! There are of course sessions and days when this isn’t the case. Just like the film, you need down time to let your body and mind recover from the punishment it's just been dragged through. It's interesting in the film to see how the bomb disposal men let off some of this steam. I’m generally quite happy to watch a movie, or hang out with friends without it ending in a little free-for-all scrap like the movie. But there are also days when I take myself away from everything, switch off the phone, computer… and just go for a LONG walk in a local park, spend time with God praying… maybe have a whole day of complete mental and physical relaxation – my silence and solitude days. They are bliss and something that I realised with my over-training woes of last year, are just as important to my improving as an athlete (and indeed a person) as any training session is.
With this kind of recovery, I can mentally put myself back into the hurt locker again in the next hard session, run myself so hard that I throw up and almost faint (sorry to those people at Wimbledon Park track who had to witness this the other day – I was enjoying it, honest!). Almost every day there will be a time when I want to stop, get off the bike, take that extra 10seconds rest before pushing off the pool wall… but each time I manage to ignore that voice I know it helps make my ability to stay in “The Hurt Locker” that little bit easier, the size of the locker, that little bit bigger. Someone once said that “pain is just weakness leaving the body”. I’m not sure I think it's quite that simple, but when the stars are all I can see in the middle of a hard interval on the bike, it certainly gives a purpose to it that helps to endure it a bit longer.
Just like the main character in the film, who is addicted to being exposed to the pressure and stress of his job… it can become addictive to train hard. It's nice to do when you’re feeling strong and fit; you can feel your body working efficiently, as it's designed to do; you can feel the power you’re generating. When you’re unfit and out of shape, as I was back in November after my 10 weeks break, it's horrific and the suffering feels 10 times as bad. But the satisfaction of conquering it is always the same and always makes it worth while. Hopefully I’ll see some of the fruits of time spent in the locker at races in the near future… though of course I’ll spend a considerable amount of time IN the hurt locker during those races too…. There’s no escaping the “locker”.
Late addition: having just had a massage this evening after writing this earlier on… I can also add any time on my friend Wayne’s’ massage table to the list of “Hurt Locker” locations… it will feel great tomorrow I know but MAN it HURT tonight!!!
