Tired and Unispired
Alternate Title: Blah
Preface: When I started blogging, it was just for me. A personal diary of my training, workout details, ramblings, and aspirations. After getting over the astonishment of realizing other people were reading - I promised myself to write happy (filtered) thoughts. The entry I write now, is for me to reflect on later. It is not likely to be coherent or make sense to other readers. I'm not trying to be a whiner.
I think I've hit a slump. I'm tired - not sure if it's considered exhaustion, but I'm tired. I'm mentally keen, but physically not into it. Maybe it's a new syndrome, "Post Race depression". Likely, it's just burn-out.
Today's pool workout was wanker. I started in the fast lane - couldn't keep up and demoted myself to the medium-fast lane. I had intended to do a fast 1500. I did 500 fast-ish, then 500 of off-the-cuff-nothing-spectacular, and called it quits with 1000.
Today's commute was wanker. I got passed and dropped by Mary Poppins.
Guylaine and I had a long 68K bike ride on Sunday. It was the longest ride I'd done. I wasn't tired. But it was slow - I didn't push - I was dragging behind the whole time. We averaged 24km/hr. 30 is my mental acceptable low-average.
Last Saturday's race was a great experience. I enjoyed myself. I pretty much met my expectations as far as finishing time - but the results sheet shows me as middle: 31/62 men, 5/10 in my age group. Sure that's better than 50% of the field, but somehow, I feel let down that all the training I've done is only good enough for average. Perhaps, that distance isn't right for me. Perhaps I want too much too soon. Perhaps I am just average - Perhaps I should accept that.
I went into this season - only my second season of training - with a good attitude, and some goals. I've met almost all of the goals, but still something's lacking. To that end, I've logged 120,000 meters of swimming, 3400 KM of biking and 515 KM of running. Great - I'm truly proud of myself, but somehow, I'm in a slump.
I think it's because I didn't take a breather from last year - and went straight into this year all gang-busters with no plans. No tactics. Just an all-out smash-and-grab training approach.
Next year will be different - I will seek out a coach, and put together a plan.
My next race is in 2 weeks. Olympic distance Triathlon. I think I'm going to call it quits on the triathlon season after that. I'll resume boxing for a couple of months, and start up again with Swimming in March. I love triathlon, that I know. The break will be for the better.
