It's all about PMA

TBH…….I’ve not forgotten the blog, I really haven’t. I’ve just been waiting and waiting for a really good moment, a good day, to have something really positive and inspiring to write for the next post. That moment just didn’t seem to come. And now I fight in two short days’ time. Don’t get me wrong, training’s been going well. I’m feeling fitter, faster and sharper. But prep for this comp has admittedly been an uphill battle. For whatever reason (and trust me I have many theories on this) I’ve found it easily twice as difficult to lose the weight (to get into my weight category -63kg) this time than any other comp. As such I’ve become overly obsessive about all things food and exercise and the dreaded black scales in the middle of my bathroom floor have unhealthily seemingly taken over my life, their figures determining my emotional mood for the day.

Post training pic with Mabbsy and Gallagher

 

Then last week disaster struck. In the middle of a training session I injured my MCL (the ligament on the inside of the knee) turning in for a throw awkwardly against a heavier opponent. I was devastated. I’ve had this injury before on both legs and know what sort of realistic recovery time it can take. And trust me it’s longer than the week I had. On the way home that evening there might have been a bit of a mini melt down in the car. I was 7 days away from everything I’d been training towards and my knee was in shreds and I still had a ton of weight to shift. (ok not a ton 3.5kg to be precise). I’m not gonna lie, giving up and eating a large cake and drinking a bottle of wine seemed a very real consideration at that moment in time.

 

Realistically I had two choices. There was the wine and cake route…..Tempting! Or I could do everything in my power to help the knee recover and get stronger: Ice, rest, mobilise, stabilize strengthen. Buckle down and keep working on the weight. And above all and sometimes the hardest one, stay positive and keep believing. I only had to take one moment to think about the people I’d be letting down,  to see there really was only one choice.

 

Two days later something small happened that made me smile and made the staying positive that much easier. I was lying on the physio bed talking to the physio about the injury and my judo, when my 5 year old boy Archie piped up all excited with pride in his face and all in one breath told her ‘my mummy’s good at judo she wins lots of medals she gives them to me sometimes I got a brown one last time, I do judo I’m going to win medals’ I was shocked, happy shocked. I’d not heard him say something like that before.

 

So, for Archie and for the rest of you Blog readers out there ….and for myself. … I will go out to Malaga on Wednesday. I will make my weight, no excuses. I will strap the hell out of my knee and I will fight hard to beat whoever they happen to put in front of me.

 

(And then I will come home and eat cake and drink wine)