Ask Carroll

[Trev]

hey Nick, did you sleep well the night before the M2O ..?

Yes I did

This year's race and its outcome (a bit drained and sunburned the day after but bounced back with ease) really reinforced a few things around the importance of smart prep in the week before endurance events. One effect of smart preparation is that it allows you to sleep well, and if you sleep well, you recover well.

The night after the race was another story, I just kept replaying parts of the race in my head and was a bit physically over-tired, plus it was hot as fcuk so I tossed and tuned for hours.

yeah, i always struggle more after an event (likea football game) to sleep, replaying little bits I could have, should have done better or differently. although, i'll be honest. the night before a m2o, i envision it'd keep me awake to some level. the anticipation and anxiety of it all.


went for a paddle y'day with a mate who did it. He got some gnarly virus, lost his voice, had phlegm and was totally lethargic in the days leading up to the molokai. he wanted to give up 5kms in to it. was vomiting horrendously all channel long, but his girlfriend wouldn't let him back onto the support boat.

he went into it liking his chances of winning it, and in the end was just stoked to finish.

was funny paddling with him y'day. his body kept seizing up and at times looked like he was on the brink of convulsions. i still couldn't beat him back to fcuken shore though.

Sounds like trying to sleep after a night driving a rally car through the forest. Keep jumping awake as the car slides towards the trees on full opposite lock. Your shoulders, arms, hands, legs and feet have a mind of their own. Take a day or two to stop reliving every corner and crest.

[Wyre]

yeah, i always struggle more after an event (likea football game) to sleep, replaying little bits I could have, should have done better or differently.

I first saw this sentence as an 'Ikea football game'. Yeah, that would be hard to come down from..

[ajohnsen]

yeah, i always struggle more after an event (likea football game) to sleep, replaying little bits I could have, should have done better or differently.

I first saw this sentence as an 'Ikea football game'. Yeah, that would be hard to come down from..

Be hard to get it togther in the first place.

[crabmeat thompson]

yep, it left me in pieces.

[ajohnsen]

What position did Alan Key play? 16mm?

[crabmeat thompson]

we found he had many uses. but when we really needed to come together, it was he who we turned to.

[ajohnsen]

With him, you were greater than the sum of your pieces. Of that, I have no doubt.

[crabmeat thompson]

He was glue-like the way he kept us all together.

[Nick Carroll]

You guys would really have been lost without him

[spork]

Yeah, shut up, you're screwing this thread

[ajohnsen]

I want acknowledgement for my 16mm gag.

[Beerfan]

Really? People struggle with assembling ikea stuff? It's pretty user friendly.

[The Mighty Sunbird]

were there players left over you had no idea where to put?

[Beanpole]

i think you kinda have to be in a fairly desperate place born from trauma or abuse or mental illness to take on something like ice or heroin in the first place. don't you? or am i completely naive because i was only ever a bit of a casual stoner for the last couple of my teen years?

Nah, I reckon all you need is the belief that you can use ice or heroin on a casual, recreational basis.

Yeah, knew plenty of people who fell by the wayside on heroin and shit..

No abuse behind th scenes as far as I know... Just a penchant for drugs and taking it too far.

Personally I would definitely agree. The desire to use these drugs......ice wasn't around thank god......was just a small step up from everything else....I actually dabbled a bit earlier than quite a few of my peers and copped a lot less of the consequences. There were some people with issues....and some who suddenly had issues from doing it....basically everyone has issues....it's just if they engulf your life.

[jimmy]

Ice is just high quality speed. If anyone has taken a half of a gram of speed back in the day then you have had the ice equivalent. The difference is that it isn't cut with whatever so you take a lot less and get fcuked up. It isn't a highly addictive drug unless you have something to run away from.

[Beerfan]

hey Nick, did you sleep well the night before the M2O ..?

Just on that other note (the drug abuse one), I don't feel that it's always or even often a chicken and egg thing -- one feature of drug addiction is the way in which early life issues tend to "attach" to the addiction, pushing people to act out and go into spirals of harmful thought about things that may otherwise never have troubled them much.
Another feature is addiction's essentially corrupting nature, indeed you might even say that a defining feature of addiction as opposed to casual use is that it causes you to lie about it to people close to you; do enough of that (and enough behaviours associated with that) and you've created a well of toxic shame all by itself. That shame then feeds off other events in your life and becomes a powerful menace to run from, straight into the arms of the drug use that caused it to exist in the first place.

Thanks Insightful stuff - pretty much sums up my son ATM - fcuking heartbreaking

Sorry to hear mate, hope it turns out well.

[Beanpole]

Gee, Jimmy, I thought ice was a lot more addictive from what I'd read and seen. I mean the inner city was full of speed back in the day and a lot of people used it regularly.......and have the rotten teeth and grey hair that goes with it....but there didn't seem to be the very noticeable public display of people off their dial doing shite there is now.....heaps of junkies on the nodd back then. That was the public face of addiction. I rarely go through town without seeing a few spaced out people...often couples arguing over nothing in broad daylight...looking like crap.

[The Mighty Sunbird]

I think jimmy has over reached.