Squeeze

This is the title of this week’s Blog, it is now 21:25pm, Sunday night, and I am tired so I’ll give my best and try and squeeze the last bit out this week right now.

Well, where to start? I was swimming my very first 4 km this week, and for some of you that might know something about swimming or just Ironman training in general- you have a lot of time to think. The first km is a warm up, but as soon as this is done you start thinking to yourself man alive I have another 3 of these to go before I can get out! But I tell you one thing, once you push yourself through that comfort zone and get out the pool after 4km, it is as always an achievement that you can’t explain to a civilian!!

Ok squeeze, most people reading this might wonder what this title has to do with an Ironman blog. Well it has everything to do with this blog, and from it I got my motivation for the week! What follows is a throwback to my day as a 98 kg youngster packing down with a 800 kg pack of forwards!

I played hooker once upon a time at a decent enough level to have done too many scrums to recall and scrummaged against too many hookers to remember.  But throughout all this scrumming and playing I learnt some life lessons that still do me proud. Believe it or not this week I am going to compare my life at present: to a scrum. Any half decent hookers will tell you he is the captain of the scrum, a hooker without a voice come scrum time is as useful as a farmer in London. The first thing a scrum is about is preparation, he gets the props and locks in a formation and lines the scrum up according to his feel, and so is life. It’s preparation for something bigger all the time. You prepare for a big presentation, you prepare for clients, you generally just prepare for life, and so is the first step of the scrum. The second step is winning the hit on the impact. Now I am no maths guy so I wouldn’t be able to tell you, but when two packs of 800 kg hit each other a lot of force is released!

Such is life as well, you prepare and then you hit, how you hit is up to you.  Your general mindset and all round focus in training as well as life. We prepare and we hit whatever session is open and we give all we can according to our mindset and our capabilities and of course on how good your preparation for the hit was. Now here comes the most important part of the scrum the part that makes or breaks the scrum, bar the hit- it’s called the squeeze. Man alive! when all the pressure is on and you are necking it from the front back and sides the only thing that saves you is the squeeze forward the ability to handle that pressure and turn it into a positive!!

Back in the pool now and I have written my blog in my head, but now comes the squeeze and it is a squeeze.  I have done 3,2 km and for most sessions that is a good distance, but not today. No, today I push harder, bigger and just squeeze more out of my  session.  I want more out of my life and just more out of myself showing me I’m capable of more!!

This of course doesn’t just relate to training. No, it relates to life. I’m never going to be average Joe: wake up, go to work, do a workout and sleep.  I’ll always strive to be more,  to squeeze more form life, because God has given me life and I plan on riding this course but once, but once should be enough!!

Praise God have a great week all!

AD