Why 212?

Didn’t sleep well. Tossing’ and turning’ with heart thumpin’ and burnin’. Literally watched the clock’s LEDs flip from 2-4 and then the alarm hit like a tomahawk on an empty warehouse at 0430. Paradoxically the run-up to my 0530 class was very decent. I actually felt good and ready to go, ‘must have been the day off yesterday’, I thought as I cued the set list and chatted with the regulars. 

Today was week 3 of our ramp to 8, meaning that the protocol forecast looked like pain:

10 minute warm up

5 minutes in groove zone sweet spot

30 seconds at 85% alternating sitting and standing

90 seconds recovery, 30/30/30 seated/standing /seated

Repeat 5 times

5 minutes GZSS

30 seconds ALL OUT 

90 seconds recovery as above

Repeat 3 times

5 minutes GZSS

30/90 at 85% as above

Repeat a final 5 times

Warm down, stretch, floor routine

I was OK until completion of first set of 85’s and then then the darkness began to invade the lightness of my being. I can only imagine how a pilot feels when power is compromised and the plane begins a slow and frightening descent into doom. With internal alarms sounding my poor body was shouting Mayday, Mayday. An idea card asks why? For the second time I can remember I asked the co-pilot to take the con as I excused myself and bailed to the head. None of this, especially in light of it’s trending regularity, is good. Am I going down in flames?

Prompting the question du jour: ARE MY DAYS AS AN ENDURANCE ATHLETE OVER?

Sure I rebounded and feel much better now, but OMG what an(other) scalding session. Ironically I used a Nike commercial from the early 90’s as rhetorical motivation, citing the water boiling at 212 degrees Fahrenheit and NOT at 211 as the difference between 85% (hot - very hot) and 100% (boiling). 

Little did I know that I was about to get boiled by my own home cooking. So I ask once more, perhaps testing the emotional unconsciousness of my self understanding, reason for being and metaphysical awareness as fate: AM I DONE, IS IT OVER?

Water boils at 212 degrees, that is fact. Doesn’t mean that I have to jump in it. 

YET