Bruised Ego

While resting, I caught a documentary. Somewhere near Botswana, there use to be a river  that provided a rich source of life to the animals in the vicinity. Out of the blue, the water dried up and left behind 4 water wells. All life forms will have to gather at these water wells for their daily supply of water. And for generations during this 25 years of dry spell, the predators had an easy time hunting for food because the supply was in abundance.


Tide took a change and just as the river dried up, it was filled up again. The area flourished and the animals no longer needed to venture into the predator's trap that the water wells forced them into. The herbivores were free to venture along the 100km river to graze and the predators were suddenly at a loss of the sudden lack of easy meals.


The documentary went on the depict how the predators adapted to the changes and how the predators cooperated to hunt - how the wild dogs worked with the hyenas to bring down their prey. Apparently, the two do not get along at all in the food chain.


Just as it was with the animals in Africa, my good Tuesday outing also made a turnaround for the worse today. I thought I had recovered from Sunday's half marathon race - result which I can not find online, but its ok nonetheless. Coach had set me up for a 100km bike followed by a 10km run.


Everything that can go wrong, went wrong right from the start. First I forgot the magnet for the Polar speedo. Then my Polar HR transponder refuse to emit any signal to the watch. Both I had to waste precious time to return home to fix it up. During the ride, after 40km, the ball of my feet were hurting really badly. Last hour of training, I realised I lost my nutrition bottle for that hour - and the bottle was only on its 2nd outing only! And the best part? I absolutely bonked on the ride. It was so bad that I took more than 4 hours to get back home - including 2 breaks in between. This same 100km route would have taken me under 3.25hours usually - and without any breaks. I was so devastated that I sat out the 10km run, to nurse my bruised ego.


How do I know I bonked? I could not push my HR up for one. And I know my legs absolutely lacked the pushing power. At every downstroke pedal, I knew there was something was amiss. I am not sure if this is what Macca means by heavy legs but I strongly suspect that it was. Tuesday's session must have taken out the remnants of my legs. It came to a point that I wanted to bail out half way through the ride. But I was already at Jurong West new extension. Wife was still at work. So I carried on the snail's pace and just could not wait to get out of the saddle.


I am getting my sports massage tomorrow night. Coach told me to skip the run as well tomorrow if I want to and just do the hour of spinning session. I will see how it goes. May just do a short 10km easy run before the massage instead of the intervals. I would not want to have to sit down and nurse my ego again, relating myself to the animals in Africa again...