Patience

Picking up training after an enforced break is much harder than when you started for the first time.  When you first set out on the journey the expectations are low, your abilities are limited and you're happy just to set off.  Small steps are acceptable and the pressure you put on yourself is bordering on non-existent.
Resuming training is a different kettle of fish.  You naturally want to pick up where you left off.  The fact that there has been a two month hiatus, you're body has been put through the mill and someone has effectively hit the reset button don't register.  Patience is of a limited supply as apposed to the vast amounts of desperation to be at the level you were before the break.  You want to be able to go for as long as you did before, you want to go as fast as you did before, you want to go as far as you could before.  Hell, after sitting on the shelf for so long there are parts of you that are deluded and want to make up for lost time and instantly go faster, further and for longer.  In general, delusion is a frequent visitor the further you get in to your recovery.  These feelings run parallel to the feelings in every day life.  You want to be hands on with the family, you want to be at work, you want to go out shopping, you want to do the gardening,you want to be out and about.  Like a big piece of elastic attached you your yearning body, you are held back however much you strain and it is the most frustrating thing of all.
During recovery you concentrate on so much in getting better.  You exercise your muscles and keenly become more physically activity with the joy of a toddler learning to crawl then walk.  You manage your diet, building up portions and becoming more adventurous (not that you can become much braver than eating my wife's cooking).  Appointments are attended and you take on board the advice and sometime reassurances on offer.  The one thing you neglect giving a go is applying a little patience.  You know you should but stuff it, you chuck patience out with the nasty surgical stockings, the torturous hospital meals and the feeling of giving a shit about the people who haven't been in touch.
With hindsight patience would have been the gift that kept on giving.  I wouldn't have been beating myself up or sulking in a pit of depression and frustration.  Eventually I improved from my body all but being redundant and every step beyond the front door being a struggle to cycling, wondering around London and playing on the beach as quick as flicking a switch.  The sudden change was most welcome if unexplained.
The trick now is to learn from it and apply patience to training (and work and home life).  What I can't do today I might be able to do next week.  What I can do now be grateful for and it will help in the long run.  Determination, optimism, hard work, exercise, advice, setting targets; they're all useless without patience and yet this is the one it takes the greatest effort to recall.