The long pause before a short burst.

In Japanese symbolism the koi can represent perserverance in adversity and strength of purpose. The strongest koi swims upstream until it reaches the final waterfall, where it vaults into the mists and becomes a water dragon.

It is apropos that the local graffiti guy, Def3, chose to paint a koi on a local, favorite wall  and that I noticed it after my first long ride of the season.

A little background. I chose this year to cut back on my races and focus on my first stand-alone marathon, Breaking 6 hours at the Great White North Half IM and getting a personal best in my third Ironman Canada.
To my surprise, I found that less was actually harder than more. Without an impending race, I meandered out of the current and found myself wading, walking...coasting - when I should have been pushing harder than ever to prep.
By my calculations, I volunteered over 25 hours at local triathlons as everything from Bike and Transition Captain to general gopher and set 'er uper. This kept me in the Tri spirit, but really did keep me away from training.
That being said, I did achieve my first two goals and am feeling a little too confident for my third. But getting the training in is proving very difficult. It is like I am swimming upstream. I can't seem to put together the epic training days and weeks that I had achieved last year and the year before.

It is the same with posting on this blog. I'm just not motivated. Maybe I'm swimming up against something that happens in the third year of endurance athletes...apathy...boredom...complacency?

With less than five weeks to go before Ironman Canada, I really have to get my gills into the training. I know I will and I know I have done the work to get me there, albeit in a meandering kind of way.

This lack of focus, however, points to the need to radically refocus for next season. More on that later. No more distractions, I have to do this training like a fish needs a bicycle - or something like that.