I've not been enjoying triathlon at all this year. Not that I've actually raced any yet, having bashed my knee the day before Mallorca 70.3. But I'm just not enjoying the training. It has felt like a dirty secret for a while, but now I've made a choice, it's out now and I feel so much better for it.
Getting to the pool has been getting mentally harder and harder over the last 12 months; partly to do with the current and previous job being nowhere near a pool at all, not even a 17m one (I trained successfully for the bonkers year of Ironman in 2012 in a 17m pool), so I couldn't swim at lunch time. Part of it is that I've got way out of the habit of swimming (see point 1). I've also been feeling more and more down about a training plan that I'm not only shuffling around during the week (which is mostly fine to do and I've been doing that for a few years), but I'm missing or short-changing most of the sessions and then feeling bad about that. And then realising the lack of work put in means that it'd be either very miserable to grind through a hilly 70.3 or perhaps full distance Ironman, or just plain out of the question to complete it.
So I've decided to stop doing triathlons for now. There's no point in dragging yourself through weekly cycles of rage and blues for something you're supposed to be doing for fun. I'll see how I feel up until the morning of the UK 70.3 in 2 weeks time; I'll race at Blenheim (it's "only" a sprint and a flat one at that) this weekend, and just train how I feel after that for a while. But Ironman Wales is off the cards (and I can only get, at most, 25% of the cost of that back now *sigh*)
Commuting by bike and on foot to work is much more accessible now we have lockers and showers at work, so I can get a lot of useful exercise in during the week and really clock up some run miles if I so choose. And then there's parkrun, the common and the Surrey hills at the weekends where I can just go out and have some fun and even socialise! I feel a lot better about things now I've made this (fairly temporary) choice and it really opens things up to getting a whole bunch of things more fluidly in the calendar - off-road running races rarely fill up months in advance :o)
It's hard to say anything without it sounding condescending or "rah rah" cheering squad, but I applaud your decision. I decided to stop running entirely post-Paris Marathon to concentrate on my rowing. It's hard, makes me feel pretty angry/sad when I see/hear about other people out and about on foot, but I know it's the best thing for me if I'm going to do my best in getting to Henley this year. Different reasons to your decision, but just so you know there are others out there who've taken a break from something with the intention of going back.
ReplyDeleteI know (hope!) I can go back to it in a little while, but for now I'm not a runner. I've entered a half marathon in November to remind me that I will be again (-:
You sound relieved. Admitting you're not enjoying something any more for no other reason than you're just not enjoying it any more is an important decision, particularly when it's been something that's defined you for a few years. Hope you get your mojo back in one way or another x
ReplyDelete