If you've wondered why I've not entered any significant races this season...

Hold on to your hats...

The simple answer is that this summer I am heading off on an adventure that I am not entirely sure of the start date of.  It is July now and to be honest I had expected my gear to have all been shipped, but it hasn't so I guess I could have entered some races after all, if only my head (and my funds) had been in order...

Yet I am distracting from the point.  The point of which, maybe has not fully sunk in.  it may be a case of being careful what you wish for, as with a little hard work and some luck, your wishes can come true...

As you know, I am a teacher living, working, training and tweeting from the UK but I am proud to announce that from August this will not continue, I am going to be moving with my family to work on the other side of the world on the northern tip of Borneo in a small country called Brunei! 

My wife finishes her job tomorrow and our house is up for rent, this is really going to happen!  I hope that the move, while being a fantastic opportunity for my career will give me more time with my immediate family, an opportunity to travel, and some more time to get even fitter - I mean training in 30 degrees in 85% humidity has got to make you fitter right?!

So I want to thank everyone who has supported us, and if you are reading this from a link on twitter, you are also a great group of people who are inspirational in your own right - I hope I return such inspiration!  So my tweets might hit your time lines a little off on the time stakes, but don't forget me, I hope we can still compare training and if you're on strava look me up and join my team to stay in touch!

As I move forward on to the next chapter of our adventure, I will leave you with an Old Proverb,
'There is a choice you have to make, in everything that you do. You must always keep in mind that the choices you make... make you.'

Blue.

Illness, workload, training and feeling under the weather

For the last couple of weeks, I've not felt great.  This in part I think is to do with the weather, my body telling me to rest and a greater sense of workload at work.  As much as I like to consider myself an athlete, it is not my sport that pays the bills, so there are times when work needs to come first.  Don't get me wrong, I most definitely work to live not live to work but sometimes needs must.

I've carried around some sort of virus for the last couple of weeks resulting in headache that to be blunt has been a distraction.  I've been determined to not miss time from work, it is also when my work load appears to have gained pace.  So has my work load increased or have I become less efficient and productive because of not feeling on top form?  Well I think it is a little bit of both.

January was an awesome month for me in terms of training, kicking off a good 8lbs in weight and getting some consistent hours of training per week in, one week I even smashed in 10 hours.  With this lull in February, I'm wondering whether I did too much in January?  The ice and freezing weather are also factors that have detered me from outdoor training; with a lack of cold winter gear combined with feeling below par, my training has suffered.

I've now got a weeks holiday from work.  The plan was to smash as much training in as possible, the demon in me whispers, 'man up, get your ass moving,' whereas the guy in white is telling me to kick back and take stock, to get myself right.  If I'm going to be back to my more efficient self, I need to find a balance and build more slowly.  We live and learn, after all things are difficult before they are easy.
Interested to hear your views and how you approach workload and illness with regard to consistent training.
Any question I have is how many hours per week do you spend training and how did you build up to this figure?