Peaked Too Soon? – The Climb #277

Wednesday 25th October 2017

Today has been the first day in what feels like forever where I’ve felt on top of things. For the last couple of months I’ve felt like I’m drowning in tasks. I’ve not felt particularly in control or organised, but this morning I found myself thinking how most of my backlog had now been cleared. I feel like I can breathe again.
The feeling made me want to tackle a task that’s been looming over me for ages: to sew my badges onto my fencing jacket.
Now this might sound like a simple task except for two things.
The first is my jacket. It’s stab-proof. That doesn’t mean you can’t sew badges onto it, but it does mean it’s really difficult to do so.
And that’s my other problem. Leggeddon screwed up my circulation and as a result, I cannot feel anything in the tips of my fingers. It means I cannot open plastic bags at the supermarket easily (I have to literally watch my fingers as I have dropped the bag before and not realised as I continue to try and open thin air). It also means I cannot feel a sewing needle.
I got very frustrated with this. I’m good at finding ways round my disabilities but this is one that has just constantly plagued me. I’ve tried to get someone to do it professionally but they wanted to machine stitch and didn’t like the idea of doing that on a stab proof jacket.
I was ready to punch a wall I was that frustrated but a friend offered to do it for me. I offered to buy her a couple of bottles of wine in return.
Tonight was the last training session before Saturday’s tournament. There were a lot of people there tonight and we did a lot of fighting. I’m not sure how but I seem to be sweating more in recent weeks. The intensity seems to have gone up tenfold.
I felt I fought well although not brilliantly, and that’s got me a little worried. It’s well known that the week before a tournament, everyone fences badly. As a result, I wasn’t too bothered by Monday’s performance. Tonight though, has me wondering if I’ve peaked too early.
But weirdly… after really stressing the last week or so about getting my fencing better, today I’ve been a lot calmer. I’m at that point where there’s nothing I can fix. All I can do is fence my best and react to what happens.
I can’t control how good a day other fencers have. All I can control is ensuring my fencing is a as good as it can be. And you know what? If I do terribly on Saturday., it’s not the end. If I drop out the top 100, it’s not the end. I need to remind myself that if I can get here once, I can get here again. I’d not won a medal for rapier & dagger before Wessex League Bristol, so expecting to win another one might be wanting things too quickly. I need to remember patience.
Now, I have no doubt that come Friday night, I’ll be a little more panicked but I feel like I’ve got a lot of my stress out. This feels good. What’s left is nervous excitement. How this will play out on Saturday, I don’t know, but I do feel a lot calmer for having let my panic about Saturday run wild.
So I may have indeed peaked too soon, but for today at least, that’s not a worry. This may all change by tomorrow, but by my calculations I should be starting to panic about Swordfish as that’s just over a week away.
2 tournaments within 7 days? Why do I do these things to myself?
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