Mind Games

Mind Games

Wednesday, 27 August 2008

My arms, shoulders and back were solid with lactic acid after a punishing 45 minute weights session. By then we were late for a final climbing class on the wall before our proficiency test the following week – something we had decided to do after our introduction to crevasse rescue in Austria. We had to be there. After ninety minutes swapping between scaling the wall and belaying (acting as safety by holding the rope on the ground whilst your partner climbs) I thought my forearms were going to explode. As the session finished and we passed through the doors of the hall I said to Simon, “So, that’s it?”

His answer was not what I hoped, yet I should have predicted it. After all, he had told me outright that morning that I would have to make up for my sleeping in.

“We’ll just go down to the ski-machines and you can make up this morning’s session. Okay?" he said.

I am beginning to learn that Simon sticks to the plan when it comes to training. There is little point in hoping that he will cut me any slack when I am at my physical limits – he hasn’t yet. And why should he, I suppose.  Antarctica will not clear a path for us just because I am feeling tired.

Up to this point we had always done our ski-machine training side by side. Twice a week we had worked on them. We would complete intervals of one minute hard followed by one minute easy repeated for an hour. Sometimes it would be two minutes hard, two minutes easy or intervals of three minutes hard, three minutes easy.

These interval sessions always left me in a sweaty mess of quivering limbs and heaving lungs. But at least I had the luxury of focus – I knew how long I was going to have to maintain the effort before I would get a break. I had an opportunity to pace myself. But tonight, Simon decided to take that luxury away.

This time Simon wasn’t on a machine following the same programme. This time he was a pure trainer. I began moving on the ski-machine. Simon stood beside me and said, “I just want you to keep going at 100 revolutions per minute. I am not going to tell you when I am going to change the resistance or for how long. I just want you to stick at 100 rpm and keep going”.

I had no watch, no focus and no idea what it was going to be like. As he outlined the session, my body began talking to me. Doubt filled my head, my legs felt heavy and my arms were weak.

Simon was feeding me one piece of information – the revolutions per minute, nothing else. “102…99…101”, he said. This was the warm up but I was in trouble already.

As I felt the resistance increase I heard Simon saying “95…92…88.” It was my first piece of hard work and the revolutions per minute were plummeting. I was on the brink of stopping.

“Lift it!” He shouted. But I was lifting it and 100 wasn’t coming!

It is difficult to describe how the session went on. I remained deep within my own head. Occasionally Simon’s information feed would pierce the haze of pain but I was largely in a battle with myself. Trying to relax, trying to keep control of my body and trying not to just stop.   

It only lasted for about 45 minutes and I did complete the session.

This marked the start of the mind games that all of us will face in Antarctica. With the endless unknown in Antarctica, every day will have elements of that ski-machine session. When the serious questions are asked we will need to be ready. We will need to be physically ready and we will need to be mentally ready. I suppose the interval sessions will help, the days dragging tires around the park also, but the mind games we are trying to train for are a whole other matter.

We will try to train for this uncertainty but I suspect the success or failure of the mind games on the ice will be won or lost from somewhere deep within.