Triingtotrain wrote:
My apologies if this has already been discussed. Anyone else out there struggling to find the motivation and desire to train for a big event this year? I was going strong from 2011 to 2019 between marathons, 70.3s and several full Ironmans. Then we moved, then covid hit, races postponed, etc. Discovered I was mostly happy over the summer of 2020 just open water swimming for fun, mountain biking, trail running, even hiking. I was missing having some goals and doing longer bikes or runs on the weekends. But now that I'm back to Ironman training, I am dreading those long bike rides on Saturdays (many will be on the trainer) and the intensity of Ironman training that leaves you so tired you can't really do anything else. I am an all or nothing person so small local races are not really my thing (sorry not to knock small local events). I like the big races if I'm going to train so hard and give up other things.
Yes, true for me. Before COVID I was training for my first full marathon in March 2020, and hoping to get into triathlon in the year. I signed up a Channel swim in 2021 as a fun thing to do in a working holiday when no one else in my country had swum the Channel yet. Also I was training for a 21 km swimming race in August and also orienteering world ranking races as well.
Then, In February 2020, COVID spread in Korea and my race was announced to be cancelled. I lost all my motivation in running and no longer run afterwards. Pools were closed. In the beginning I still kept swimming in the sea, but as COVID spread around the world, I started to lose motivation as well as I started to doubt if the 21 km swimming race would be held on time. Finally when the race was announced to be postponed to August 2021, I also stopped my training and reduced my swimming to just once per week over the summer.
As the whole orienteering racing season was cancelled, I didn't have a chance to race in the real world as well. Initially I was still doing online games, but in the latter half of the year, as I didn't see a chance of any racing coming back locally nor any chance of travelling to international world ranking races, I even stopped doing them.
I was not happy at all during summer 2020 because I couldn't travel to Europe to race. Locally it was too hot to do any swim / bike / run / whatever in the summer. I had nothing interesting to do. In the same season, UK announced an emigration route for BNO citizens (which I am), and my friend swum the Channel successfully (he decided to swim it after he got COVID - this is a real insult to me - if I need to quarantine for 28 days as a result of getting COVID like him, I will give up my Channel swim immediately), becoming the first Hongkonger to do so. Therefore my original motivations to swim the Channel were lost.
I restarted my training for swimming in November as I had signed up for a Channel swim (I paid the deposit in the month before COVID spread all over the world), but one month later everything was closed again under a new wave of infections that I couldn't follow my Channel training plan, and my Channel slot can't be postponed. The problem of not being able to do my training as planned made me anxious and stressed, recently to the extent affecting my mood and sleep every day, that I visited a psychologist. Afterwards I stopped thinking about it. Luckily there was a local race, which I did last year already, held in February so I worked on it. However, after that race, as I still couldn't to get back into a pool, my stress level was even higher than before.
I got back to the pool yesterday although it was no longer cold enough for me to do any training I planned to do. I got 2 minutes faster for 1500 m than pre-COVID. I have decided to give up all my missed training for the Channel and do only acclimation after I get to the UK.
Quote:
I feel part of my identity is tied to being an endurance athlete and it's not an easy thing to loose. But secretly there is a part of me that hopes my races this summer will be canceled again giving me an acceptable reason to give up racing once again. I do have some days where I do want my events to happen and do have good training days, but it's much less nowadays during the pandemic. One person on here said there is nothing worse than training for an Ironman you don't want to do. That stuck with me.
Anyone else?
My identity of being an endurance athlete has only been obtained recently and I'm ready to lose it. I just need an acceptable reason for me to give up. (My other identities are a software developer and an elite orienteer which I don't ever want to lose) As my Channel slot can't be postponed to 2022 under my will, I really hope that there will be a reason to prevent the 2021 season from taking place, and force it to 2022. There are two reasons for me to keep going: 1. I have already arranged my work and travel in the whole year of 2021 around my Channel swim, and if I want to do in a later year instead, I will need to restart my training from 0 swim fitness and it will be much more costly for me to arrange half a year off work and a move to a location suitable for training. 2. Compared to the situation in the UK, my situation is not bad enough to justify giving up my Channel swim at this point.
Though, there is nothing worse than not being able to train for something which I want to do as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I have to do it without enough training.