Hm.  Well, I wouldn’t take three weeks off in a row again in a hurry, but I think a little break helped.  I wasn’t amazing on Tuesday night, by any stretch of the imagination, but mentally I was fuckingrockingit.  Cheerful without being manic, able to take feedback that was less than glowing (yeah, I know, I was annoying myself too), and constantly working, pushing, going harder.  I did much better, physically, than I’d feared — looks like long walks along the seafront every night aren’t bad conditioning — and I’m looking forward to next week, when hopefully I’ll be back up to spec enough to start working out every day again.

And I was sohappy.  I couldn’t wait to get there, to see my girls, to stretch out and be on skates again.  I’d been sailing for a few of my days off, and it’s really only when I’m on a boat that I am perfectly myself, happy and a deep kind of peaceful.  Skating isn’t quite the same for me, but I’d missed it, and usually I don’t miss much when I’m at sea.  The massive smile as I walked up the road to catch the bus to training was pretty awesome, too.  The mental fight with derby will always be huge, almost as big as the physical aspect, and I feel, a bit, as though I’ve levelled up in my thinking.

Which actually leads me neatly to why I adore Oscar Pistorius.  I’ve been following him on Twitter for ages now, and he regularly posts super-encouraging updates.  And not one has made me cringe, and usually I am like a serious-sport-psychology cringing machine.  Every one comes across as genuine, and actually, truly makes me want to work harder.  It’s rare, and I couldn’t tell you why I believe him and not anyone else, but it’s there, and I love it.  I did not expect that someday I would love encouragement to run and skate and work my body as hard as it will stand, but there you are.