Frustration

I have continued to be up and down with training due to a linger cold which has seen me have to make cuts in training to afford myself some rest. Everytime I seem to get back up to speed with things I start feeling run down again and have to take another days rest. Whilst it is only just December and I have many months to train for the Double, I am becomingly increasingly frustrated by my inconsistent training.

The lack of training doesn't bother me so much as what a change in routine does to my mental state and motivation. If I am in a set routine I flourish and find I have no problems making my training sessions. Yes, I get tired and have 'can't be bothered' days but I always manage to find a way to drive me through - I hate haveing a blank in my schedule where a session should have been.

However, as soon as the routine gets moved around and I start missing sessions through either other commitments or through illness it is hard for me to get motivated again even on the days I feel better. It is two fold for me. If I have had to have three days off through illness, it is very hard to get back to training twice a day and until I get back into that routine I struggle to remain motivated. I am also not good at just doing a little to keep ticking over. If I have a 2hr run planned but can't manage that as I am ill, I don't see the point of just doing 20-30mins to keep me ticking over - I feel it is hardly worth it even though it definitely would be, if only to make me feel my fitness isn't disappearing at a rate of knots!

It is definitely a common theme for athletes to be massively concerned that their fitness will disappear immediately that they stop training whereas actually you may lose a bit of top speed but generally endurance remains reasonably well. After having Sat-Tues off due to illness I did manage to train Wed-Fri but I felt rubbish again yesterday so have had the weekend off. I have plugged in a double run session tomorrow though followed by a long cycle and tempo session for Tuesday. Off on Wednesday as we have a wedding and then weights on Thursday followed by Intervals on Friday. Saturday I am really going to try and get out and about on the bike because I feel I need to - fingers crossed please for a warmer and sunnier weekend next weekend please!

I'll post my christmas training plan next time but suffice to say I am really going to try and keep going at it even though, with having the whole family down at our house there will be lots of temptation to do very little!