Dealing With Post Race Come Down

So that's it, my "A" race of the year done. I've had a week of rest (necessary since my hip flexors decided to cease up for a while) but am now super keen for the next adventure. I've got swimathon on the Saturday and Glow in the Park with my mum next weekend but no other serious events until June when I tackle Endure24 as part of a team.

After having had such a full and demanding training schedule for the last few months I'm feeling a little lost and have excess excitement and energy flying around with no outlet. This is normal but I continue to struggle with it. I'm used to having more events booked up than I have this year, to use as motivation. Where will I find it now?

I love taking part in events and the volume I've participated in in the past has been more a means of maintaining a level of fitness than anything else. There's certainly a place for those and they are important to remind me why I enjoy running and racing but without targeted training I won't improve.

But then again improvement isn't the be all and end all for me even if there have been occasions when I've had to give myself a stern talking to about my frustrations when I've failed to PB at a race I didn't train for. I'm still getting used to the idea of training with more purpose, to picking events I want to do well at and doing less races "because they look fun" or "have a shiny medal". There are so many events I would like to try just because they look fun, it's clear that this will always have to be part of my life but I need to make peace with what my priorities are. Do I want that new 10k PB, to achieve that ultra marathon, or am I going to be happy just "getting round" as many events as I can? Despite the investment of time that training for longer events requires, I still have a strong inclination towards those.

On asking "what next?" I've had various suggestions that include swimming, adventure races and maybe just a rest. The last one isn't going to happen. And I can't seem to shake the idea of MdS from my head.

What are your priorities when it comes to events? Do you like to improve or do you just like to take part? Can you happily have a mix of both?