Focus!!
- 20 hours ago
- 3 min read
The six month mark of the passing of my husband was a biggy for me. I realise now that I'd been thinking about it for months.. ever since I read somewhere that it is common for the six month mark to be the worst in terms of feeling the loss and grief. It became a bit of a monster in my head and as such delivered in terms of being an emotional day. I have to say, I think I peaked early in terms of grief. I think I hit rock bottom around 4 and a half months in... that's not to say I won't hit rock bottom again but I think I'm over the worst for now.
Now, however, I have something else to occupy my thoughts! In two weeks time, I, and my fabulous crew, will be on the Isles of Scilly competing in the World Gig Championships... and I couldn't be more excited and nervous if I tried. Oh my!! Am I really doing this?? Me?? 55 years old (nearly 56!); never been that athletic; bloody love drinking wine; love accompanying wine with crisps.... and always carry Haribo in the car for any length of journey, no matter how short. My body is definitely not a temple - nor is it a shining example of healthy living. Yet here I am. Part of a crew of brilliant women, who love laughing and not taking life too seriously. This all makes it sound as if we are not taking the competition seriously, either, but let me tell you, we are. Since November, we have trained both on and off the water with the last few months rowing 6 hours a week with an Erg session as well, sometimes two. (For those who do not know what an Erg is, nor did I until a few months ago.. feel free to Google). We have pounded the coast and waters of the Carrick Roads; raced from Falmouth back to St Mawes numerous times; practised race starts; worked on our technique and competed in two other competitions. All for the Scillies.... and now it's only two weeks away. It's going to be a hell of an experience.
Last night at training we practised our race starts. This involves, for want of a better description, going hell for leather whilst trying to keep the discipline of the stroke. We had both of our coxes in the boat.. Rupert, who has been training us and getting our technique tip top and Lucy who is our race cox and will come with us to Scilly. This meant the boat was more heavy than normal and I found it so exhausting!! By practising race starts, you literally row for about a minute, maybe two, then stop and critique... I was absolutely finished after two minutes... the race is around 20 mins!! How the hell am I going to survive! I think training tomorrow will be doing a race piece which means we'll row for the full amount of time of a normal race, which will be good. I need to prove to myself that I can keep race pace for the full length.
Do not tell Rupert.. but we went to the pub after for a quick drink! Team building and bonding is also part of the training and we needed to make sure we all still got on really well. It turns out we do, but this may need to be tested another couple of times before we get out there....
Brilliant certainly pick up speed quickly👍🏼 good luck 🥰🥰