road 2 irongirl: mental training

Come prepared, he said. Bring all you need, he said. We start at 11am, and we train till 3pm. It is called mental training. It got us all curious. What in the world is mental training? Well, the scorching hot sun certainly forms an element of the mental training. Could it be just running in the sun? Could it be that simple?

The few of us gathered, eager yet nervous at the same time. He just asked us to go for a slow jog, 3 laps for a quick warm up. Then, he told us to each take a lane. Coach said, ‘only one lap’. But, we don’t run, we roll. You should have seen my eyes widen, and my jaw drop. I was like, what in the world do you mean roll. He just said, start rolling, start rolling, START ROLLING!

And so, I dropped down and started rolling. I could feel my world spinning. I could feel my wantanmee breakfast going on a rollercoaster ride. The track itself was burning and I could feel my arms and thighs burning with every roll upon contact with the track. But I knew the longer it took me to roll, the worst it will be for me. The burning sensation would only get worse the longer I am in the sun and rolling on the track. I figured that everytime I stopped, I just felt like coughing up my breakfast. So I just kept rolling. I concentrated on counting my rolls. And that really is what got me through. I was done in 20 minutes.

My running buddies, weren’t so lucky. They had major troubles enduring the dizziness. Their breakfast was all over the track. I kid you not. It was literally, sweat, blood and tears, oh and puke. I looked over and it was really like a scene out of a torture movie. I just saw them groaning and moaning in pain as they continued rolling. They were trying to supress puking, but it kept coming up. And they just lay there in the hot sun, on the hot tracks.