Hump Day Blues

A little bit flat today. Maybe it is just the mid-week hump day blues. I woke up tired and really only got to the pool by constantly reminding myself that I have an Ironman in two and a half weeks. It probably wasn't the best mindset to take into a tough swim session. As you can imagine it didn't go that well.

Not sure why I am tired, lack of sleep is definitely part of it though, and therefore self inflicted to a certain extent. There is so much to try and fit into a day that sleep is often the thing that ends up suffering. Some weeks I am pretty good, but other weeks I just don't seem to be able to get into bed soon enough. So far this week has been one of those. I think it caught up with me today.

It is annoying, because I know how important sleep is. Obviously it is critical for recovery, but it plays just as big a part in ensuring my training is a decent quality. Without sleep I have days like today when I wake up feeling physically flat, but also, and possibly more importantly, mentally flat. The mental tiredness leads to a lack of motivation, negative thoughts and generally poor quality training. I had one of my best races less than two weeks ago, but this morning the nagging doubts were back in my mind, 'how well I am going really, this is too slow, not good enough'. I can almost guarantee that tiredness is the source of most of that.

On reflection the swim this morning went alright. It was a pretty demanding set that went okay for about two thirds of the session. The last third of the session I fell in a bit of a hole once the fatigue started to catch up with me. However, since the bad bit was the last bit of swimming I did, that is the bit that is freshest in my mind. So I came out of the swim feeling pretty down on myself.

At swimming I am currently one of the slowest in a fast bunch. So a lot of my swim sessions consist of just trying to hold on. Inevitably you stop being able to hold on. It is challenging and pushing myself outside my comfort zone is certainly the way to improve. But it can be a real test to your motivation when each session you feel like you are failing a little bit. It is very tempting to step down and swim with next group down in term of speed. But plodding along well within my capabilities doesn't seem like a good way to get quicker. That is the thought that gets me going back and smacking my head against that particular wall each week. Somebody said to me the other day that their definition of high performance was making the choice to not take the easy way. I guess you could say that this is me choosing to not take the easy way.

I just had a coffee, so hopefully the world starts to look a little rosier very soon.

Early night tonight.