Prepare for failure and you will always succeed.
When you understand that everyone will let you down; you will never be disappointed.
It begins even before I start to lift any weight. As the arginine causes nitric oxide to begin dilating my blood vessels and the creatine and amino acids I ingest beforehand start to make it's way into saturating the muscle cells, my core body temperature rises; it begins.
Between shutting my car door and walking the 3 or so sets of stairs to my haven of hell, all I can think of is how much pain I will be in and how much I will enjoy every second of it. The door closes behind me after the distinguished beep of my card swiping across the scanner. People naturally stare at whom has entered but I am not fazed as a quick click of my ipod sends rumbles of drum and bass to my ears, my silence.
No time is wasted, but the 5 or so minutes of moderate incline walking to warm up seems to pass by in an instant. A quick piss and I am already in front of myself, holding the weights to start my first set.
Here we go.
Rep after rep, set after set, exercise after exercise; and I'm only at front lifts. The drop sets on the beginning militaries absolutely wrecked and thoughts of completing this session begin to dim. The pain becomes unbearable by the second set of lifts but knowing that success only lies in reps past failure, I push on. 11, 12, one more, are the last things recovered from the previous set and it's time to finish. The twelve sets of militaries, and front lifts with varying grips prepare me for the second half of deltoids exercises. If this was pain, I didn't want to imagine what would come next.
A superset of lateral lifts and rack shrugs was about to put me on my arse. As the fuckwits behind me are laughing and throwing medicine balls are each other, my vision is tunneled; I'm surprised I actually noticed them. The set gets heavy and as I hesitate to go heavier for the next set, it still gets done. The third set sends me into hyperventilation but the torture is nearly over. It's a drop set on the last weight on the stack, and rack shrugs to failure. It's over, well, it's downhill from now anyway.
The bar militaries and reverse delt flies go by undisturbed and without too much drama. The slight pump in the biceps from the laterals end the weights on cable curls and off to the treadmill to warm down. I restart my playlist and it begins again. With lactic acid still present there's still lasting pain until 10 or so minutes have passed. A moderate incline walk on 5 speed saturates my already wet shirt and the halo of heat and stench which radiates from me makes me think what other people think and how much I didn't care. To get by every minute, I occupy my mind with quotes of those whom have succeeded. I think of how they got there and how I will make my own way there. 35 minutes later and my session is over.
Standing cold and clotheless in a freezing shower, I only think of what I can do better next time. 'I'll vary my grip for an extra set of lifts and increase my cardio another 5 minutes next session'. With a protein shake in hand- extra dextrose for nutrient delivery, I walk down the 3 sets of stairs after a distinguished beep of the door closing behind me and sit down in my car after closing it.
This is my life now. Am I obsessed; probably, but success stems from obsession
I will succeed.
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.
Those who never take risk will never have to worry about success.
The coldness of the winter has put a slightly more lonesome feeling in the air these days. Most of my deepest emotional memories stemmed from previous chilly winters so maybe that's got something to do with it. With the majority of the fellas still busting their brains to endure the last of their exams, this may have also been a contribution to the loneliness. The first week of the holidays passed by with catch up work and gym. Work has been great and gym as been awesome. Life to be honest couldn't be much better but then again I'm usually on a high during the colder months. The crisp winter air and clear cloudless blue and black starry skies of the days and nights respectively, to me, portrays what winter really should be like.
I love the feeling of being on top of a cold bed under a woolen blanket before the bed gets warm. I am never bothered to put on socks unless I'm already wearing them so the stretching of tracky dacks (or the sacrifice for bum warmth) usually presents some warmness for the little digits.
Along with the warm and cosy experience of winter that keeps me even warmer and fuzzier inside, I feel that most people seem less stressed and less irritated in general. Winter to me feels like the season of love, where it feels awesome to be around loved ones and even the thought of being with someone brings warmth into the insides.
I've made sure to make the most out of these winter holidays (If only our Christmas break were around winter, it'd make it even better). Finishing up about a week and a half ago, I've realised that it is only now that the guys and girls are finally catching up to completing exams themselves. I maintained a 106.7 after the week or so of cramming every night on the Maltesers and Micky D Mcnuggets so i guess all I've really done is changed the ratio between fat and muscle. It was definitely felt when i tried pushing 32.5 with much effort after doing 8 on 40kg dumbbells only a week or so before. But I've upped the cardio in response and hit the work hole up a few more days a week to get the muscles back to remembering what weight they used to do. I'm slowly getting my to do list things from years back done now and its kind of sad knowing how long half the things on that list had dragged out to.
I hit the wreckers to finally complete the jigsaw that was my car. After a solid effort I got to obtain an air con bracket off of a donor Honda accord, I seriously cannot wait to have air con again; now time to actually install the thing...its on my to do.
Ive been pretty content this past week or so. Actually, its probably more on the side of actual happiness to be honest. There have been a few things which have ticked me off lately but seemed to passed by pretty unnoticed hey. Phuccies' advice is to always see the bad days or weeks out and make sure that the next are better; I have bad hours now. Life has been very good to me but then again, its probably just how I've dealt with it lately. There have been other aspects of life which have been going in a better direction these days although I think it was only one thing that kicked it all off. I don't like to think that one single significant other has changed my thoughts about the majority of things in life but it definitely has had an effect.
Every time I'm online its her face book that I look at, not so much as to read her comments but just so i could see her. I made sure I attended every tutorial this year, not just for the fact that it was compulsory (I've skipped them before) but for the possibility of glancing over in a random moment to have her glance back at me. Obsessed you may think but to me even a slight smile from a random person can cheer up my day; let alone a glance from one whom was part of my history. I guess this is just another story to add to the woeful collection of broken love that encompasses my life, sarcasm? Its such a sad answer, no.
Life two weeks since the beginning of this post (its taken me that long to get here since I post whenever I can by adding bits and pieces on my phone) seems much more complicated than the once aforementioned. Today, although I'm fairly content, it was only recently that money problems seemed to have resolved. I'm kind of sick of having negative money every time a bill month comes round but i guess its a real relief once the month is over.
At night I cant even close my eyes without having several things keep them open. I have seemed to be stuck on the thoughts of three different relationships at the moment. The first one describes of actual problems which have arisen through my attempt to fix it. It still puzzles me how a simple gesture to get a friend to come and catch up isn't as appreciated as you'd think. Maybe its just me, maybe out of all the effort its not me that's meant to benefit, but then again, if shes happy, then I guess that's good enough.
TBC
