So. Friday 28th Sept, instead of resting, I did a whole bunch of silly quests which included dancing, lifting, and pushing little D in the pram for 5 miles with a 10lb rucksack on. This was all duel-related but I did get her to nap and it gave me some space to listen to a book I was studying. I felt fine and optimistic I might win both.
Saturday morning, I got up for work and felt a bit tired and tickly in the throat. Losing my voice is about the worst thing that can happen in my job, so I downed some honey & lemon and went off to class. It was a struggle; I didn't get an opportunity to warm up and I'd forgotten a drink. By the time I was home again my voice had gone completely.
Disaster. And just to rub it in my dear husband spent the weekend athletically fixing the kitchen roof, earning himself a ton of points for "Yard Work", so that was that for duels.
Sunday it didn't come back. Nor Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Thursday I had to ask my lovely teacher (by email!) to step in and take my classes the following Saturday as not only had my voice gone on strike but I was exhausted just doing the school run (it's 10mins walk - admittedly uphill, but still, hardly challenging). It wasn't until the following Wednesday that it started to come back properly and I spent much of the week swinging between sounding like a teenage boy and a honking goose. I did have a swim that Tuesday, only 1km but it knocked me out for another few days.
Finally it came back enough for me to teach last Saturday but it was touch and go. High notes (and I am an alto so my definition of "high" is "average" for most women!) were right out, but I survived and although I'm tiring easily still it does seem to be passing. The GP said it was vocal strain on top of a virus, so nothing serious, but it has scared the hell out of me, I must admit. I'd got used to feeling fit and as though I could handle anything. I've been climbing the walls - metaphorically - in physical boredom, although it has given me plenty of time to get on with my Coursera work. I even picked up a crochet project, something I haven't done in almost a year.
Anyway. Tonight I swam a mile, in about 43mins, which is fairly standard form. I nearly quit at 52 laps but by 60 I was thinking "oooh! I'm me again!". I'd really hoped to have taken some time off that by now, but if wishes were horses we'd be knee-deep in horseshit, wouldn't we. I've booked some lessons with Dave, a Uswim coach, in November, which I'm very excited about because finally I'll be able to get someone to look at what I'm doing and tell me what I should concentrate on fixing. And there's the "polar" session coming up at Salford on 3rd Nov, too. Hopefully I'll be able to get back out on the road later this week, though I've a lot of assignments on so we'll just have to see how it goes. It is very hard to work out whether I should be taking it easy to recover, or whether I'm trying to duck out of it for fear of failure...so "act without expectation" needs to be my watchword for the next few weeks.
