Finding my "mojo" / Small changes.

If you've read my last blog then you know all about the year I've had so far. You'll then understand why on Saturday, as I stood on the edge of Rutland Water in Leicestershire waiting to start the British Middle Distance Champs at "The Vitruvian" - and defend my national title - I was so uncertain about what the next 4 hours held in store. I'd long ago lost the confidence I used to have going into a Half Ironman distance race, of going as hard and as fast as possible and being a contender at the front. There was now far more nervousness surrounding things for me. Would things within my body work properly today....would I finish.... Was I as good as my inner belief kept telling me I was or had I lost my "mojo" for ever?

You can read the race report here, so I won't go into the ins and outs of the race, but surface to say it went well, pretty much according to plan and most importantly reassured me that the failings of 2008 WERE anomalies caused by external factors and that I'm right to keep pressing on with my goals.

Its hard to explain but I'm sure most people out there can relate to feeling like they've lost their zip, confidence, flow...whatever you want to call it. And even for the most confident of people, it can be very hard to handle and stick it out and get through it. You only have to listen...and I mean REALLY LISTEN, to many of the things that our incredible Olympic champions said this summer Thankfully Saturday and the way the race went has not only reassured me that things are back and I'm about 85% back on form, but its also helped me see what could come next year if I get things right.

After my time away last week and the numerous little nuggets of advice and help I received I was able to try and implement some of them leading up to and during the race. To my delight and impacts were not merely indicators of what could be, but actual tangible differences to how things went right now. Changes in training leading into the race meant I was SO fresh come Saturday morning. Then come the start a different approach and tech to my swim... Normally something that would take months to feel like it was making a difference...left me coming out the water not only still in touch with the leaders, but also feeling like I'd barely got out of breath. Such a difference after so short a time blows me away, but has also fuelled the fire inside for next year and the possibilities. I remember the first time I managed to swim 20.16 for 1500m open water and the boost I got from it. Suddenly I truly believed that I could actually swim "OK" and that my goals and ambitions weren't as far away as they'd seamed for so long; and the path to them wasn't so cluttered with barriers any more either. The same thing is true on Saturdays swim. OK the time wasn't stunning and on a World class level, would still have left me off the pace, but it was over 90seconds faster than my time her last year or at Timberman 70.3 only 3 weeks ago. That’s HUGE in comparison to how long I've struggled till now to knock off a few seconds here and there, over the last 3-4 years. And to enhance to confidence boost, it just felt SO easy that I'm excited to see how much there is to come.

The same can be said of my run on Saturday. 3 weeks ago I struggled with cramp and have always found it tough to keep my "technique" for the whole 21km leading to most recently, well below (in my opinion) potential, run performances. One simple change to my run leg (not literally my running legs though of course...changing those for say...Halle Gabri Sellasies would be nice) approach and the first 10.5km flew by with my legs feeling fresh, fast and the clock showing me back on track to the levels I've seen fleetingly in the past but most recently struggled to realize or even believe were possible again for me.

What's different, what's the magic formula I'm now using...? Well its not EPO in case you're wondering ha ha! In a nutshell though, its purely simplification. As a great coach once said, moving away from "paralysis through analysis". Sometimes we (I) can get so caught up, over-complicating things, that we end up restricting things. Freeing myself of multiple technique focal points also frees me from any subconscious pressure I create to perform each one of those "points". This also reduces needless energy expenditure and waste that actually, we all too often don't even realize we doing.

In short though, I'm really excited about the ride I can once again see ahead of me next year. The next 6 months will be a journey in itself, but where I get to at the end, I once again believe will allow me to start on the next journey to even more exciting places.

For now though, I've got to settle in for a few months. Training yes... That journey must begin NOW, but also returning to work and rebalance the finances to allow for the journey to be possible come 2009. The life of a fulltime athlete is far from exotic... And we all have to live within the realities of this world...but using it to fuel the dreams in our heads.

Whats been, what is and what's to come.....

For so many reasons its been a long time since I've updated my blog... Or website for that matter. Many of them are technical (IT related) ones, but having spoken to various people recently, it seams that people DO actually read this so firstly "Hi" (Cathy, Dan & Cathy, Eddie, Ben) and secondly thanks... I'll try to be better with this in the next few months.

Well 2008 has been a pretty rough year all said. My first year full time has coincided with my first ever real injury and some pretty drastic health problems. I'll try to cover most of it in this post so it might be a long one - serves you all right for telling me you read this ha ha. I'll split it up into what's been, what is and what's to come....

What's Been...
Thus far my first year full time has been anything other than "Professional" - certainly in terms of finances & winnings. Starting the year with tendonitis in the hip meant that bike and run wise I was off to a bad start. Happily however Lanson Running (www.lansonrunning.co.uk) have come onboard to support me alongside Saucony Shoes and these problems are now in the past. My swimming was on the up though, but when I came to racing I was struggling...at the time I thought I was just missed fitness from the injury. In hindsight though, the deep exhaustion I was feeling everyday wasn't a result simply of the training. I was finding myself struggling to manage 17 hours of training a week. I simply put it down to the "reality of life as an athlete" and set about training MORE.

Come mid June and my two main focuses of the early season Austria 70.3 and Switzerland 70.3 came and...well went...BADLY. For some reason I was barely able to even FINISH one of these races now, let alone think about doing well or winning them (despite winning numerous shorter races). Training was getting harder too and general energy was on a downward trend. It took me 6 months of the year to see it and look for it, but something was clearly wrong.

I won't go into it here...as I've board most of you with it all in person anyway ha ha. Some blood tests, doctors appointments, injections and other advice all ended up with various changes to my lifestyle and nutrition. Within a few days I could feel the difference and by the end of July I was once again feeling back to normal. Though it can take time (months or even years in some cases) to get over stuff like Gluten intolerances, the general trend was an upward one. I no longer felt shattered all the time, training more than an hour at a time wasn't an uphill battle and more than 20 hours in a week didn't leave me bed ridden for a day! The goal for the year had always been the World Champs in November again and hopefully a top 10. By now all I wanted to do was qualify after the first 7 months so my coach and I picked a race in August and set about trying to get that slot....

What is....
I headed over to New Hampshire USA once more after my last, successful trip there in 2006. Timberman 70.3 is a great race and offered the chance to see some good friends again too. The race itself might have well have been a world champs with the amount of top class Pro's there but I was excited about racing and actually feeling remotely strong again. My good friend Chrissie Wellington (www.chrissiewellington.org) was also going to be there so it would be great to spend some time with her in a year where she is CRUSHING everyone in her wake! (including the men in most races.... More to come on this...)

I had a great few days in the Greystone Inn, Gilford. Seeing Dan and Cathy again was fantastic and bumping into other familiar faces made it a really nice few days. I felt pretty good leading into race day and had managed to avoid any gluten so I was optimistic about the race itself.

Race day dawned hot and sunny. Another disappointing swim (my pool times are still hit and miss as far as "showing up" in a race!) was followed by a solid bike as I anxiously waited to see how I felt coming off the bike...I came into transition less than 5mins off the leader and in 6th...this was more like it, but would my energy problems be there again. Thankfully I knew within about 3k they weren't and I held a nice steady pace over as I moved into 5th during the first hilly 5k, aiming to slowly build it up over the last 10k. Then.... BANG! On the way back at about 9k both my hamstrings went into rigid cramp! :-O I couldn't believe it. I had to stop and stretch. I had enough energy, but couldn't push the legs too hard or it came roaring back. Nursing the cramp for the remaining 12k of the run I came home in 8th. Pleasing in many ways as it was so much better than everything else so far this year, but disappointed as it wouldn't be enough to get the Worlds slot; and humbled as during the cramp attack Chrissie had pounded past me and I'd not been able to catch her back up... For the first time ever I'd been beaten by a girl (OK, so she's World Champ, a generational "freaky" talent and I'm not the first man to be beaten by her this year).

It was both satisfying and disappointing. The Worlds would have to be missed for a year as the remaining races to qualify at are all too far away (for my bank balance anyway ha ha!).

I'd have to console myself with trying to defend my National Title in September and re-focusing on next year being PERFECT - no injury, no sickness and achieving what I believe I'm capable of!

What's to come...
Fueled by the deep disappointment of the year I've looked to see what I can do to ensure next year and the years thereafter are all they can be. The offer to spend some time with Chrissie, her world leading (often wrongly maligned and criticized) coach and some of the members of their "team" TBB, was just what I was after. Some time in the peaceful, idyllic Swiss alps would offer me some space to think things through too. The year so far has left a lot of ...."clutter" in the gray matter that needed sorting.

Brett Sutton has an undisputable track record of training champions. Over the last 30 years he's done so on the track, in the pool, in the ring, on the race course and now in triathlon. Right now there is no one better in my opinion than him to seek for advice. Coupled with the "space" I wanted I was optimistic that my time there would have a HUGE impact on me for next year on onwards. I wasn't disappointed....

Without going into too much detail (maybe another day), I've got a new perspective on me as an athlete, training generally, life in "this sport" and my future in this sport. My self belief is still strong, though he makes no time for "blowing up your backside" for the sake of it i.e. He won't tell you you're great to make you feel good... And he didn't with me either. He simply told me what I'd need to do, that it would be INCREDIBLY hard, require a HUGE amount of work and that really I was starting 5 years too late.... Nothing new there then ;-) oh and one other thing.... That I need to start doing Ironmans....:-O :-D

Aside from Bretts insight, thoughts and advice that I've been fortunate to have and will I believe, go towards making next year an exciting one, I also got some really good time to think about things and coupled with fresh words from the "Doc" (Brett) I've got a really good desire for everything again. My belief had never really gone, but I think I'd lost sight of how to make it a reality. I'm chomping at the bit to get started on building towards next year now... I almost just want to get the Nationals out the way so I can get cracking :-) exciting times....

So there it is. I do want to add a HUGE HUGE thank you to those of you who have help me, especially recently in some generous ways that serve to keep me humble and grateful to you all! I hope to be able to "repay" all the support and help in the near future in more ways than one.

So it’s back to reality now. I'm going to look to do some work again to get the financial side of things ticking over. If possible get something going that will help maintain me next year too. God continues to bless my church (www.eternitychurch.co.uk) too and we're moving to a new BIGGER venue so there’s work to be done there. God willing, everything will fall into place in the right way to allow forward movement in all aspects of life. With my girlfriend moving down to Surbiton, at least I won't spend half my life on the M4 now too! Ha ha

Spring 2008 Update / Making Changes

Well, after a very disappointing race over in California compounded by getting food poisoning the next day just before flying home, I’m back into the swing of things again; And at last this year I feel like I'm properly training. The hip flexor injury I suffered from December last year to mid march has completely gone now; largely due to changing my trainers. Having bought another "make" which should have been very similar to my Asics, but £20 cheaper, it took me till the end of February to realise they were the culprits and had created the problem. My frustration at this is obvious, but putting a positive spin on it all, without the injury I would never have realised the difference in my swimming brought about by the enforced increase in pool time due to the injury.

Having reflected on a lot of things after California I’ve made a few changes to my training plan. You can see exactly what my typical 14 day training cycle looks like in the training section of my website. In short though, I’ve done a lot of thinking about what hasn’t been working recently, and what has. Or rather, I’ve looked back at when things HAVE been working and tried to re-order things to re-introduce that “stuff” that “worked”. Its funny, but over time you slowly begin to drift away from thought processes and sessions or structures that had been getting results. Trying a new thing, tweaking here and there and before you know it, 6 months have passed and suddenly things aren’t what they once were and you’re not where you thought you’d be.

For example, my running has always been my strongest discipline of the 3, but over the last 12months this has dropped off somewhat. There are a number of factors to this such as my old job, letting other commitments get in the way of training sometimes. But I’ve realized that actually my training structure had changed from when things were going well and I was very much improving on my two feet. This is where the beauty of logging things over time comes into play. Being able to go back and look at what I was doing then, the things me and my coach were working on is truly invaluable and has served to jog my memory and redirect me hopefully back on track.

I’ve used the time off (due to the food poisoning) to do this for every part of my training. Asking myself, what’s worked, when, why and what’s changed? When was I at my best in each discipline? Out of this and working through it all with my coach we’ve hopefully hit on a few real nuggets that will see tangible improvements across the board in terms of performance and results.

I’m now really excited about the next 6 weeks leading up to Austria 70.3 and Switzerland 70.3. if I can get my previous PB levels of performance in each discipline, to all come together at the same time I KNOW I can see a breakthrough performance and this excites me!!! Already after only 2 weeks of returning to “the things that worked” I’m feeling stronger, faster and generally fitter.

This is after all my first true year as a “Pro” and so I need to very much think, live and train like one. Hopefully these tweaks will bring me back in line with how this should be for me in order to get the results I believe are possible.