During the first few weeks since getting back from Denmark I struggled a bit with motivation. I felt distracted by other things in my life and training wasn’t quite giving me the same sense of positive structure to my weeks. I was still putting in the hours, still completing the sessions, but it was all a bit flat and I didn’t feel that I was making any forward progress. I was still getting up and heading off to the pool, but I was lacking my usual zip first thing each day. There was definitely a period of going through the motions and even though I knew that this was simply a short temporary low phase I did need to give myself a good talking to on a couple of occasions to ensure that I stayed with the programme. I do believe that it is these difficult moments that define us. How will we react when things get tough? Will we remain focused on our long term goals when they start to seem so distant?

It felt like I was in a tunnel that was so long that I couldn’t see the light at its end and the darkness was disorientating me. Would I be able to find my way out, what would I find at the other end and importantly would I like whatever was awaiting me?

Good news. I have found my way out and I have found that I’m reinvigorated by my long term goals and they even look slightly more achievable than they did before I disappeared into that tunnel of self doubt and demotivation.

My next 70.3 race in Dublin is now around the corner. Its only just over 2 weeks away. This weekend I’ve got a warm up race at Grafham Water near Cambridge and I’m getting really excited again.

Training has been going well since returning from Italian Dolomites where I took a group of cyclists to ride the iconic climbs of this stunning area of natural beauty.

That week of pure cycling disrupted my routines in a really positive way, built new levels of leg strength and helped to remind me about the simple joy of riding for pleasure. At times I find my pursuit of huge goals to be overwhelming and so to get back to a really simple recipe of exercising for pleasure was pretty invigorating. Add the fact that during that week I was there to serve others, to ensure that a group of 8 cyclists had the perfect holiday. It wasn’t about me, my goals, my training during that week. It was about them and that was really healthy for me. Dolomites really helped me to find my way out of the tunnel.

The net outcome is that I’m buzzing again and looking forward to Dublin. I’ve even got hold of a new cycle helmet that I’m hopeful will make a difference to controlling my body temperature so I can run better off the bike. I opted for the Scott Cadence Plus that was used by Sebastian Kienle when he won Ironman World champs in Kona last year. If its good enough for him, then surely it must be helpful to me. I can’t wait to try it out this weekend and see how it compares with my Kask Bambino that I’ve been using for a number of years.

As I’m right in the middle of a block of training for Dublin, the race at Grafham Water will be treated more like a big training session, with no taper into it. I’m curious to see how I’ll perform after some pretty tough sessions this week.

I’ll let you know how it goes.