Back in the gym today with Chris at Epoc Coaching.  Good session as always working through lunges and lunges with twists, then squats with jumps and legs raisers.  Working through these various routines I can definitely feel the progress as my strength and stability is improving each time.  My balance whilst doing these exercises is left a lot to be desired, although it is much better than when we first started as I always looked drunk, some might say I probably was!!  For anyone esle who is going through the same sorts of things or if your just contemplating going down this route, it is tough at first but it does get better, maybe not easier, but you do get better.  Some of the things he has me doing I do wonder if someone is filming it then making a quick £250 on 'You've been Framed' or similar as I do look utterly useless at a number of the balancing and stretching routines.

To make the session even greater value to me I first went out for a run with Costa Darren, as ever he was all packed up rucksack ready and full with his work clothes and phone in hand capturing it all on Strava.  A great run through the centre of York with normal people heading off in different directions racing in between each other in the chaos of the morning dash to work.  For once we had to push on and not stop for the ritual of  '2 x triple espresso's with an ice cube please!' which actually shocked me and it didn't seem like the normal Darren I was running with, but then truth prevailed, he confessed to the deadly sin of having one or two before he came out to meet me.  This sent tremors through my body, what!!!!! I couldn't believe it, he's changing the routine, I had to stop momentarily to compose myself......

Now what was interesting, whilst grinding out some of my routines in the gym session with Chris was our conversation regarding my mental approach to the forth coming events.  I mentioned that I was finding that the more I discuss it with people and keep up with my recording of the journey, the more I'm finding I'm discussing the Psychological importance of mental toughness and preparation, and almost talking less about the physical training side of things.  Which if you read back to previous posts this is evident.  So when they say 'its 90% in your head and 10% in your legs'  its almost beginning to seem like this could be true.  Its the acceptance that 'I know its going to be hard', 'I know its going to hurt', 'things will ache...... a lot', and 'you need to do lots of physical training' but, all this becomes the psychology of the challenge, as I have to believe in myself to get to the end, to endure the race, and run through the pain.  So it becomes more and more important like I said last time about having procedures in place for when the doubting creeps in, such as the rules or the laws to which I will adhere to whilst running.  This is like putting a self preservation system in place because you've already accepted the hardships and difficulties that you will go through. So the message in here must be, the key to success is in the preparation and planning!

What gets you through???