Hi Everyone!
My apologies about the slight delay since my last post, as my assault across all mediums continue I am struggling to feel the creative juices all the time. In fact, in general I just haven’t been feeling like myself much at all lately. I have been back into training for a few weeks and if anything I am feeling worse now than I was during the break from training that I took. Basically I just don’t really feel much like myself. I joined a swim squad a few weeks ago and am so frustrated by how shit my swimming is going. Times that I would usually crush are currently impossible to me and I don’t know what to do about it. The same goes for my bike riding. My watts and speeds are down every time that I ride and I hate it. It isn’t just my training though. Lately I just haven’t felt much like myself at all.
How do you fix a problem when you don’t know what the problem is? I always pride myself on my dedication and determination to everything that I attack. Not recently though. I am struggling to pay attention at university, I have started and not finished several books and this is genuinely the 3rd attempt at writing a post I have had in the last few weeks (I promised myself I would finish this one.) But the problem I am having is that I don’t know the reason for all of this. I know last year when I restarted my training there were some interesting side effects as my body readjusted to the load but nothing like this. I was even relieved when one of my courses decided to give us a take home exam at the end of the semester the same weekend as Cairns 70.3. It gave me an excuse not to race so I transferred my entry to Sunny Coast in September.
I suppose this is a good opportunity to show that I am not superhuman or luckier than other people. While I am a highly motivated and determined person with big goals, I also struggle sometimes as well. It is how I choose to deal with it that will determine how long it goes on. I have mentioned that my training is not great at the moment and is causing my quite a lot of frustration. I am however, still getting it done. I know deep down that this is a phase and the sooner I can get back to normal routines the sooner I will get back to being my usual shit-talking self. I also know that if I chose to feel sorry for myself and do nothing I would take longer to feel like me again and when I did get back to business I would be disappointed with myself for not getting my training done.
So what is the point of this post? I can even feel myself losing interest as I am typing right now. <I paused and drank a coffee>. I guess what I am trying to do is actually more for myself today than it is for you, the reader. Maybe I am hoping that by typing this stuff down and forcing myself to reflect the answer will become clearer. I think part of my problem is that I am not great with change and there are going to be some great changes in the next 12 months. I also think I am questioning my ability to ever reach my goal time of 4:05. I think a combination of these factors is making me feel like a bit of a screw up too. I know my wife gets angry with me when I say that I feel like a screw up who is wasting his time. But hey, as I love to say, this is my bloody blog so I get to say what I want.
I have been down before so I know this is really just a phase. But knowing something doesn’t always make it easier to deal with. Lucky for me, this is not the first time I have felt like this either. I think past incidents of feeling useless, fat and slow have given me some good tips to help myself get back to normal. I am going to focus on the things that I am in control of. Step 1, I need to get my diet back in check. With weddings and trips there has been a lack of self-control and a little too much self-indulgence. Step 2, I need to find an event. Not a big triathlon or anything but I want to find a smallish, local running race, preferably a half marathon. I am hoping that this will get me out of my funk a bit and give me some incentive to train a bit harder. Step 3, acknowledge that this is just a phase but not take it for granted. I am obviously feeling like this for a reason. So I need to work out why that is and try and fix it.
As I said, I am a huge believer that it is ok to not be ok all the time and while I am far from being too bad, I am uncharacteristically flat. I am quite happy to talk about not being at my best and I hope that other people who have it much worse than I do are able to as well!
I also hope some of you guys have had the chance to listen to some podcast episodes. I really feel like me and Robo are starting to find our groove and the episodes are getting better and better. It wont matter how many podcasts I record though, I will keep writing these blog posts, more for myself than anything else.
Find the episodes here: https://goo.gl/wYVasJ
Don’t be afraid to admit you aren’t doing great and remember to TRI!
My apologies about the slight delay since my last post, as my assault across all mediums continue I am struggling to feel the creative juices all the time. In fact, in general I just haven’t been feeling like myself much at all lately. I have been back into training for a few weeks and if anything I am feeling worse now than I was during the break from training that I took. Basically I just don’t really feel much like myself. I joined a swim squad a few weeks ago and am so frustrated by how shit my swimming is going. Times that I would usually crush are currently impossible to me and I don’t know what to do about it. The same goes for my bike riding. My watts and speeds are down every time that I ride and I hate it. It isn’t just my training though. Lately I just haven’t felt much like myself at all.
How do you fix a problem when you don’t know what the problem is? I always pride myself on my dedication and determination to everything that I attack. Not recently though. I am struggling to pay attention at university, I have started and not finished several books and this is genuinely the 3rd attempt at writing a post I have had in the last few weeks (I promised myself I would finish this one.) But the problem I am having is that I don’t know the reason for all of this. I know last year when I restarted my training there were some interesting side effects as my body readjusted to the load but nothing like this. I was even relieved when one of my courses decided to give us a take home exam at the end of the semester the same weekend as Cairns 70.3. It gave me an excuse not to race so I transferred my entry to Sunny Coast in September.
I suppose this is a good opportunity to show that I am not superhuman or luckier than other people. While I am a highly motivated and determined person with big goals, I also struggle sometimes as well. It is how I choose to deal with it that will determine how long it goes on. I have mentioned that my training is not great at the moment and is causing my quite a lot of frustration. I am however, still getting it done. I know deep down that this is a phase and the sooner I can get back to normal routines the sooner I will get back to being my usual shit-talking self. I also know that if I chose to feel sorry for myself and do nothing I would take longer to feel like me again and when I did get back to business I would be disappointed with myself for not getting my training done.
So what is the point of this post? I can even feel myself losing interest as I am typing right now. <I paused and drank a coffee>. I guess what I am trying to do is actually more for myself today than it is for you, the reader. Maybe I am hoping that by typing this stuff down and forcing myself to reflect the answer will become clearer. I think part of my problem is that I am not great with change and there are going to be some great changes in the next 12 months. I also think I am questioning my ability to ever reach my goal time of 4:05. I think a combination of these factors is making me feel like a bit of a screw up too. I know my wife gets angry with me when I say that I feel like a screw up who is wasting his time. But hey, as I love to say, this is my bloody blog so I get to say what I want.
I have been down before so I know this is really just a phase. But knowing something doesn’t always make it easier to deal with. Lucky for me, this is not the first time I have felt like this either. I think past incidents of feeling useless, fat and slow have given me some good tips to help myself get back to normal. I am going to focus on the things that I am in control of. Step 1, I need to get my diet back in check. With weddings and trips there has been a lack of self-control and a little too much self-indulgence. Step 2, I need to find an event. Not a big triathlon or anything but I want to find a smallish, local running race, preferably a half marathon. I am hoping that this will get me out of my funk a bit and give me some incentive to train a bit harder. Step 3, acknowledge that this is just a phase but not take it for granted. I am obviously feeling like this for a reason. So I need to work out why that is and try and fix it.
As I said, I am a huge believer that it is ok to not be ok all the time and while I am far from being too bad, I am uncharacteristically flat. I am quite happy to talk about not being at my best and I hope that other people who have it much worse than I do are able to as well!
I also hope some of you guys have had the chance to listen to some podcast episodes. I really feel like me and Robo are starting to find our groove and the episodes are getting better and better. It wont matter how many podcasts I record though, I will keep writing these blog posts, more for myself than anything else.
Find the episodes here: https://goo.gl/wYVasJ
Don’t be afraid to admit you aren’t doing great and remember to TRI!
This pic sums up how I have been feeling lately
The most fun I have had with my bikes lately!
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