Going to share something quite personal with you now . As I sit here I am finding it really difficult to put what I want to say into words, so I am going to start with what moved me to write today’s blog.

My day started at my physiotherapist ( Scott Gormley of Shropshire Physiotherapy) small improvements with my knees but not totally pain free which is grinding me down somewhat.  

He is pals with my coach Pom FinishStrong Tutt and I’ve given my permission for them to discuss my progress so far and for the future.  

So Scott is convincing me that I can and should do more on the powermill (Lucifers staircase) and him breaking down has me convinced I can … The door hasn’t even shut behind me and he has shared this information with Pom… I know Pom will be pleased he loves the powermill as a method of torture (and because he knows it’s an effective piece of kit). I do my day at work and trot along to my training session with Pom who is in high spirits.  Half an hour on the Oxtane lateral X machine and Pom heads over to the …. You guessed it powermill…… It can’t be … I was only on the doom machine yesterday… But like a yellow card in a footie match it pointless arguing and up I went.  In my head I am thinking I can do this I can do this and begin, we try a different approach going medium speed for a minute and the slow speed for a minute and with a great deal of effort smash through 14 floor ( whaaaaaaat) I cant breath my calves are burning but I’m a little bit pleased with that …. But then after a recovery few minutes up I go for round two.. As I climb to the top of the machine I beat myself, in my head I am already saying I can’t do this I manage 6 floors then !!!!boom!!! brick wall !!! nothing Pom can say can stop me hitting the stop button and getting back on the floor…..

I’m fighting inside, everything is shutting down my shoulders neck and throat tighten and I feel like I’m going to cry… I can’t let that happen now can I ?

… And here is the share….

I don’t like people to see me cry it makes me feel weak and vulnerable, I don’t even know why I want to cry.  I have spent my life holding in emotions , covering how I’m feeling with laughs and smiles and jokes so nobody can see I’m hurting.  I do cry but this is usually in private, I hide when I want to cry I don’t want to look at anybody or have them look at me.  So here I am stood at the bottom of the powermill Pom doing his sympathy face and trying to get me to ( to use a frozen lyric) “let it go” but all I can do is  “conceal don’t feel don’t let them know”..  This is my issue, I have spent so many years hiding my emotions I have problems showing them, I can’t do excited either I sat and had a think about what excites me… I couldn’t come up with a single thing…. On the plus side it means I’m quite even tempered (I can’t remember the last time I lost it.)  I am sometimes very envious of those feisty folk who can just explode Geordie Shore style. I am emotional I just don’t like to show it in public.  So I flatline… Beep beep beeeeeeeeeeep … I’m calling it.   Can I be resuscitated?..