Straight Out The Jungle.

Teachers inevitably get sick on the first day of the school holidays, and I'm no exception. When I finally start to relax after ten weeks of dealing with young delinquents, so does my immune system Stupid immune system! Now you have to work harder than ever!

It's not the first day of the school holidays, however - not for another week, in fact. But I'm still battling this cold. I think something similar occurred. My immune system, dealing all winter with severely reduced capacity due to the mystery sickness, finally got the boost it needed when I started finding my way out of it. For a couple of weeks there I was fucking invincible. But eventually that same boosted immune system decided it could relax and a cold snuck in. Now I'm ingesting weird and horrible herbal concoctions and mainlining Vitamin C, in the hope of convincing the stupid system to get back to work. I'll let you know how it goes.

As I stated earlier, when this cold first cropped up I figured I'd just train through it. This was, of course, a bad idea, and probably stretched out the cold's residency. But I kinda felt like I needed to - I'm starting this season so far behind the 8-ball, I was worried that another week off would ruin the entire summer for me. Worried? Scared, perhaps. Scared that this summer won't see the same improvements I've been able to make every year that I've been doing this. Scared that people who I'd previously been able to beat without breaking a sweat will make a mockery of me this time around. And scared that I won't be able to achieve the aims I've set out for myself.

Fear is a funny thing, though. For me, generally speaking, I'll be all worried about something, scared mostly about the uncertainty. But then something will click, and I'll figure out a way to deal with the issue, and then the fear will disappear. In this instance I figured out that the cold is the boss of me right now, and that I just have to listen to my body, regardless of what it is saying. At least for a little bit.

And as for the results? They'll come. I just gotta have a little more faith in myself. I know that I can work hard and get back to where I was last year - and perhaps even further. But it'll take time. I know it's hard, but I have to stop myself from rushing back into things. Again!