yes I know there’s still just under two weeks left in 2017, but I’m feeling in a bit of a reflective mood. 2017 was an interesting year, I started out with 75km (out of 100km) for the Australia Day Ultra, I got a bit of pace back doing a triathlon novice course with Perth Tri Club, and subsequently doing two short distance triathlon events, and I completed the Gold Coast marathon for a second time, barely scraping inside the cut off time due to illness striking in the latter stages of training (I was still not fully recovered when I ran the event).
Subsequent to this, the second half of the year went a bit wonky. I was aiming to take part in (and complete) my first 70.3 “half ironman” at Busselton, but it was always on the very edges of possibility, and a significant period of illness put paid to any hopes of being capable of getting it done within cut-off.
Instead of doing the 70.3 at Busso, I ran the “magical mushroom forest trail” 30km event, an event that I enjoyed, but also where I finally accepted what the scales were already telling me; I was back to “obese” status, the weight had piled back on, and my fitness and training were suffering massively. I started to doubt my ability to complete the 6 inch trail ultra, and this weekend just gone, that doubt was confirmed as being fully justified. I reached aid station 1 just about at the cut-off, and reached aid station 2 about an hour after cut-off. My six inch tally now looks like this; one finish, one half distance finish, 2 full distance DNFs… not good enough!
It’s not all bad news though – fact is that even though I am less than 10kg away from where I started in 2011, my fitness and endurance are worlds apart from that time. I can still run 30km, 40km or more (given the time), I have started to regain the ability to swim properly, and I can also ride decent distances too. I know how things have gone backwards, and I also know why, and most importantly I know the steps I need to take to reverse things!
I also know what I am capable of when I get things back on track… but for now the important thing is that the wake up call has been received, and it’s time to get back to basics. I finally accept that things have slid back further than realised, that I can’t just tweak a few things and train to the levels I had reached before. It’s time to get right back to basics, with food, with training, with habits…
Of course, I still have goals well beyond the basics – I still fully intend to do the 70.3 at Busselton in May, I still fully intend to run Gold Coast Marathon in July (and aim for a marathon pb), and I still fully intend to go back to 6 inch in December, and increase my official finish count by 1….
I also intend to run the 4 remaining perth trail series events (long course option) and the other 2 forest trail series events… so yeah, not really back to basics in the full sense of things, but alongside all those goals and those events, I need to focus on basic habits, hydration, nutrition, being active in between training, and consistency. I think, actually, I lost a bit of mojo for a while, not sure how or why exactly, and I guess it’s just one of those things, part of the natural cycle of things…
The rest of 2017 will be spent taking things fairly easy, making a start on those habits mentioned above, and planning for next year.
2018 will be the most awesome year yet…. watch this space 🙂