An Enemy I Can’t Outrun

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!
 

This pic sums up how I have been feeling lately

The most fun I have had with my bikes lately!