Its been a little while since I wrote a blog and I think I needed the break from reflecting!
I firstly wanted to say a thank you to Matt Bottrill http://www.mattbottrillperformancecoaching.com my coach who has been fantastic for me for almost a year now!
Also my sponsors Pulsin http://www.pulsin.co.uk/, Velotec http://www.velotec.co.uk/ (who have now launched a new amazing website) and PWR http://www.pwrsport.co.uk/ for the constant support.
I had a strange year in 2015 with more than the usual ups and downs, so searching for the formula to allow myself to train, race, improve and be happy is something of a priority now. I have been working at this for a few months now and have in listed the help of different professionals to help with different areas within body and mind.
Training and racing is something that I love, in-fact it is probably the most loved thing in my life. I love the feeling of getting up early, training hard and feeling like you have cheated the day. I love every kind training, the hard sessions the easy sessions, group rides, solo runs, whatever it may be. But last season I lost this feeling and was always searching for something, what that was I don't really know. But what I did realise towards the end of last year was that I wanted the good feeling back, but I had taken my body into places I did want to be and it wasn't going to be a quick fix.
Fantastic sponsor and looking forward to working closer with them in 2016!
I realised that I had been in calorie deficit lmost every day for around 12 months and this had been putting a huge stain on my body, not allowing me to recover or train most days as I have wanted. This had to change and food need to be normalised.....so I am working hard at that and have inlisted the help of a nutritionist.
Looking forward to racing for Echelon-Rotor.
I also started to realise that I had terrible bouts of chronic over training syndrome and this was partly due to the lack of nutrients in my body. This resulted in poor health, poor gut health and poor mental health (no I didnt go mental, but certainly felt like it sometimes). So I am now using different ways to test that my body is responding correctly to stresses of training with Heart Rate Variability monitor.
(HRV)
All this has been imputed to bring a balance into my life, I must understand just how much I need to feed my mind and soul and be happy with everything that I do and happy with my life, yes this can be very hard work, but very important if you want to succeed. Knowing when to back off and to go for it is something that I have never ever got right and certainly wont be getting spot on quite yet, but I will give it one hell of a go this year.....
Now onward to 2016 season!
This book is fantastic, what a read.