Another day, another dollar, another training session, another emotion.

Anyone else noticed that, in the space of only a few days, you can go from an amazing high, to a frustrating low, to an amazing high again?  Of course you have.  All the time, such is running.  It happened to me last week.  Not for the first time I might add, but for the first time in a little while.

I went from having a great session on the Wednesday and feeling like the world was my oyster, to feeling inexplicably out of sorts on the Saturday and having to abort my tempo run early. Just before I started being overtaken by pedestrians.  Not knowing what happened, not being able to explain it and worried that it was the last longer tempo before my next race. I felt truly shocking and I worried about it all weekend.  But then, Tuesday saw an absolutely great track session (Chris reckoned my best ever - beating the legendary 1200m reps session I did back in January and which was formerly the gold standard in 'best ever shape' conversations).  I felt so content and happy that evening, walking around like nothing else mattered, a proper goof!  

I suppose one bad session doesn't make you a bad athlete, you don't lose fitness in a few days, you can't suddenly not be in the shape you thought you were.  It's just a bad session, it happens, it's unrealistic to think it will never happen again and I just have to remember that.  Shame I never seem listen to my own advice when it actually happens, my instinctive reaction is still to worry that my season is going down the toilet and I'm just getting slower.  After one session - haha!

It reminds me of that phrase, 'You're only as good as your last race!'.  Another silly saying in my opinion, one that I think needs stubbing out of  everyone's  vocabulary forever.

As a persistent offender in the inconsistency stakes, of course I would say that.  But if there is one thing I believe it is that no matter how you perform, how your races pan out, if you have put in the hard work then it all goes somewhere - perhaps in a training bank account - stored away safely - which no-one can take away from you.  You sometimes can't make use of it straight away, but if you keep putting in, at some point you will be able to use it to good effect.

Last winter was a bit of a shocker to be honest in terms of races, but I actually did a lot of good training (that 1200m session for starters!). I just for one reason or another, didn't do anything good with that training.  It all went in the bank though and I feel that the training I am doing now has been greatly helped by that training last winter, I am better conditioned, fitter and able to handle this winter's training better.  It goes some way towards making up for those bad races - makes it seem a much more worthwhile training period in my life.

Of course there is no point in punishing yourself in training if you are never going to perform in races, and of course you can't say 'well look I only ran x in this race but I ran x in training so it's all peachy' but in terms of one bad race or one bad session I just need to chill out!