The Elephant in the room.

Oh yes, you’ve noticed it too?!

Why is this athlete not doing athlety things? 🤔

It’s day four of *What the hell am I doing at the South Pole?*—and there’s not a gym, pool, walking track or piece of exercise equipment in sight.

Let me explain.

Put simply, it’s the hit I take when I do “normal” things. You know—travel, spend time with family, catch up with friends on the other side of the country.

In the fewest possible words: it’s too fucking hard to do the athlete stuff and all the other stuff at the same time.

That’s the price of doing it all. For me, doing it all doesn’t mean doing it all at once. It means getting it all done in manageable stages.

And then there’s my perfect catchphrase: “I’ll do better next time.”

Because there’s always a next time. And while I maintain this incredible level of fitness, I get to do it again and again.

So, the upshot—or the endgame, if you will—is this: I’ll be home in 10 days. I’ll hit it hard and get completely back in the zone.

Until then, I’m focusing on grabbing every bit of warmth that comes my way.

Coffee Before Conclusions

Great plans are always made when I’m full of energy and promise.

It’s usually around the second round of I can’t sleep, but, "I’ve gotta pee again" , or Oh FUCK, it’s still fucking freezing here that I start to doubt myself.

Again. And again.

Then I follow my rule: make no decisions until you’re up, you’re moving, coffee has entered your body and 20 minutes have passed.

I call it the 20-minute rule.

It serves me well.

The Spell We Cast

It’s been a rough—and bitterly cold—three days. Then I found myself watching my 86-year-old mother, who, for all intents and purposes, seems to have given up on life.

Everything is too hard. I keep hearing, “I can’t do that anymore.”

Life is a word game, and once you say those words, the spell is cast.

I look at Mum and wonder: where was the tipping point? When did she begin to believe she could no longer do the things she once did?

I realise that, for some of us, once that decision has been made, that’s it. And I can’t help imagining that if she had been an athlete—if she had spent a lifetime believing in the strength and possibility of her body—perhaps she would still feel capable of everything from lifting something heavy to going for a run.

As for me, I’ve stopped saying those words.

I’m excited about my future. It’s not over yet.

Not by a long shot.

That’s No Way to Treat an Athlete.

As a creature of habit, I find myself railing against reality whenever I’m away from my natural habitat.  You know,  I feel like a bearded dragan thats lost her heat lamp.

I live in Far North Queensland, and at this time of year I always contemplate travelling even farther north—to the very top of Australia, where it is temptingly warmer and, crucially, never, ever cold.

But I digress. The purpose of these journal entries is insight, not a diatribe about the weather. Suffice it to say, we are all different. This is especially true when it comes to living with a chronic condition: the literature does not tell the whole story—or, at least, it does not tell everyone’s story.

For me, the cold is more limiting than alcohol, poor sleep, bad food, stress or the ongoing decline.

And my point?

It’s fucking cold.

That’s no way to treat an athlete—especially not this athlete.

The 4th circle of Hell seems cozy.

And then there are people for whom the impacts can be crippling—(PUN)ishment intended.

Let me paint you a picture. I’m a heat-seeker, and although the literature says otherwise, heat is my friend. I’m more flexible, less weighed down, and better able to function when I’m warm.

Naturally, I’ve landed in a part of Australia where the temperature drops below zero overnight and barely improves from there.

Everyone has heating, but most people don’t believe they can afford to turn it on. Meanwhile, I’ve arrived with cash—and a lot of it—to throw at anyone willing to turn their bloody heater on or, for the love of God, close their fucking doors and windows.

After a night spent mostly shivering, I can’t even think straight. On the upside, I’ve read that shivering can count as a form of cardio, so at least it may lead to weight loss.

Mind the gap.

It's day two, and I've realised that walking through a moving train isn't easy for anyone.

So I did the sensible thing and found the accessible carriage.

Plenty of room for wheelchairs.

Not a handrail in sight.

Or a handbasket to go to hell in. 🤣

So, once again, I remind myself:

You're an athlete.

You can do this.

There's only one leg of the journey left—the car ride into a tiny country town in the middle of nowhere.

Well... that's not entirely true.

There's still the long walk to baggage collection.

The negotiation across the railway tracks.

The little conversations I have with myself before every set of stairs.

And then...

I arrive.

It's usually about then that I remember I'll have to retrace every single step to get home again.

But that's tomorrow's negotiation.

Today, I made it.

Tomorrow I'll head back.

And then I'll be exactly where I belong—

Training.

No. You move.

They move.

But before that comes the negotiation.

Taxis. Turnstiles. Stairs.

The most important thing is making sure the people you're travelling with either pretend not to notice how hard it is... or, even better, just roll with it.

And people ask me, "Why don't you like travelling?"

Because every step is a negotiation. Mostly with myself.

By day two of dragging myself across the country, I don't burst into tears quite so much anymore. I'm usually up to laughter—the kind that says, "She's not okay... but at least now she knows it."

So I repeat the same mantra I've used a hundred times before:

"Let's just get through this."

Followed closely by:

"You've done it before, and you'll do it again."

And underneath all of it, there's only one thing I really want.

I just want to go training.

Just fucking sleep.

Although I now identify as a morning person, I'm always surprised that no matter what time I went to bed, those first few hours feel like dragging a heavy suitcase through quicksand.

And I've worked out the logistics. The secret to being a morning person is actually pretty simple: just get the fuck out of bed... and make sure you're back in it early enough to get enough fucking sleep to do it all again tomorrow.

Logical.

Easy to follow.

Except it isn't.

Without constant vigilance, it can all unravel. One late night becomes two. One sleep-in becomes a week. Before I know it, the routine has disappeared and I'm right back where I started.

So I start again.

Again.

Rebuild the habit.

Because habits are fragile little bastards.

Above all else, athletes are morning people.

In a Blaze of 23 Seconds

It was Cameron McEvoy who reignited something in me.

He famously prepared for the 50-metre freestyle in a way many people considered controversial. Instead of spending endless hours in the pool, he limited his swimming and focused intensely on speed—training the fast-twitch muscle fibres responsible for explosive movement.

Could that really work?

Regardless of what people thought, he persisted. He combined short, highly focused swimming sessions with hours of strength training, heavy weights and even rock climbing.

They said it wouldn’t work.

Then, in a blaze of 23-second glory, he proved them wrong.

I was hooked.

Maybe this could help me.

I didn’t need another vague goal or another promise that I would begin someday. I needed focus. I needed drive. Most importantly, I needed something I could put into action.

And so it began.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing, but I started following Cam’s approach—although perhaps not quite as rigorously.

Not yet, anyway.

I’ve studied the science at university. Now it’s time to stop treating it as theory and put it into motion.

The Fight With Gravity

…Or Playing With Possibility.

I’m on the plane, tired again.

Or am I still tired from yesterday? Or the day before that? Or the day before that?

There’s a pattern to this tiredness. Unless I interrupt it with some form of exercise, everything begins to blur into one endless thought:

I need to lie down.

And if I’m not careful, I can lose entire days inside that loop.

Swimming is best.

There’s the water, and there’s the exercise—but more than that, when I’m in the water, I’m not disabled. For all intents and purposes, it’s an even playing field.

Well, almost.

While I’m swimming, I look just like everyone else. It’s only when I climb out that gravity takes hold and brings me back to earth—literally.

Then the fight resumes.

I make my way towards the next physical challenge, and then the next, as though piling them one on top of another might eventually make all of this easier.

Train harder. Get stronger. Keep moving.

But I also have to watch for diminishing returns, as though my body were an investment portfolio—except I’m not playing with money.

I’m playing with possibility.

The possibility of becoming stronger. The possibility of holding on to what I have. Perhaps even the possibility of a cure.

The experts tell me that isn’t going to happen.

Or is that simply something I told myself a long time ago?

The Fuckin’ Airport

Travelling is especially emotional.

Every time I travel, I regret not having trained enough that week. But the anxiety of the trip just hijacks my sleep.

That, along with the soul-destroying fear of “what if someone notices I’ve gotten worse” and the nagging voice that asks, “Who am I kidding?”

It happens every time. And after the trip I’m more determined than ever to avoid that slippery slope.

The airport is what reminds me of what I’m trying to avoid. Staff scramble to get a wheelchair and every time I tell myself that no one can see the tears I can’t stop.

I whisper to myself, “It’s okay, this will be over soon and then I’ll be safe.”

And when it’s done, I regroup, refocus. I tell myself, “No one saw me fall off the stool.”

And if they did?

Well, I hope they got a laugh.