Motivation Part 2

Last night I went out on the Sheffield Friday Night Ride.  Fiona Harrison came along.  She's an Olympic bobsleigh racer who, after years of training as a heptathlete, was turned to bobsleigh.  From what I could gather last night, there seems to be a generic athletics programme and those who aren't just groomed or gifted in a particular area are diverted down the various sporting avenues which otherwise present themselves - hence how a girl from Sheffield ends up being an Olympic bobsledder.

I didn't last the whole ride.  I went to the pub with my team mates - largely to have pints and giggles but also to corner my friend and ask if I can borrow his daughter to do wedding pics.

The earlier parts of the SFNR were so good for me though.  We went to the international sports venue where we saw the gym that the Olympic teams and proper athletes use to train.  The plebs gym is next door.

Fiona told us about the lifts that they do and how her strength training contributes to a sport that, essentially, she doesn't get to practice unless she is in the location getting ready to race.

It reminded me that despite all the odds and the way the statistics are stacked in my life, I quite like using weights to train.  I'm not the kind of person who goes out and rides up and down hills in big gears just to get stronger.  I'm the kind of person who goes and rides up and down big hills in normal gears just to enjoy myself but I'm also the kind of person who would rather get strong by lifting an iron bar in my loft.  The outcome is that I am able to ride up the bigger hills faster and in bigger gears.

So now I am motivated to do some weights.  Even more so than last week when I moved my bike out of the loft so that I could actually find the weights and then responded by turning my ankle on my run.

And yet, I haven't done any weights at this point.  I am being responsible.  I am saving myself until after the Hell on th'Ills Duathlon tomorrow because lifting weights is not what I want to be doing the day before a race.  In the theme of being incredibly motivated when I'm not allowed to train, I am now incredibly motivated.