I've not peaked yet

I suppose this week was always going to be a bit if an anti-climax after the taste of the real thing in the rain last weekend. For starters, I was a little stiffer and more tired than I expected to be, so getting motivated again was hard. Then there is the fact that with the team so dispersed, I train mostly alone and it's pretty easy to 'listen to your body', when it is begging for a rest. It's more than that though. I'm not much for thinking too hard, preferring precipitous and often ill-considered impetuosity as a way of guiding me blundering through life, but it strikes me that this motivation thing is quite important.

One thing that has been front of mind over the last few weeks as No 1 son has been playing GCSE catch-up, paying for his lack of diligence early on, is how you motivate a teenager. Threats of physical violence are met with peals of derisive laughter and attempts at earnest career advice with the rolling eye treatment. Incidentally, two politicians have managed to get right up my nose; first Michael Gove, with perfect timing, talks about abolishing our totally devalued exam system, where A*s are doled out like Olympics tickets to Fifa cheats. Now I know Tom is pretty unlikely to read the article in the paper and would probably not get as worked up about it as me, but that's not the point. The point is that his Mum and I have lived through the pain of these wretched exams too and I don't like being told they are worthless. Then there was Cameron, saying how he wants absent fathers to feel like pariahs. Really? We all make mistakes and when we do, is it really the best thing to do to heap further scorn and humiliation on us? If I am scared of jumping off the high board, is it better to ridicule and humiliate me further, or to encourage me to jump in because the water's lovely?  Maybe I was just being a little over-sensitive on Father's day. Both of them may well have a point, but I am not sure I'd look to either for motivation.

Anyway, as I made my way to Box Hill early this Sunday morning I started to wonder about my own motivation; not just how I needed to raise myself from the anti-climax following the highs of last weekend, but the wider question of why am I doing Trailwalker and why generally do I go for these daft endurance events as I subside kicking and screaming into injury-prone middle age.

I kept mulling this over as I did 5 laps of a fuller circuit than I had managed last time I was here, two weeks ago. And I think I have reached a realisation; not some Damascene moment as I hopped across the stepping stones over the much swollen river Mole; more a recognition of something I probably knew anyway but, for me at least, seemed reasonably profound.

Obviously the whole exercise thing is just another manifestation of the 'mid-life crisis', but what does that mean? One of the proudest moments of my life was persuading my wife to let me buy an Audi TT with the line: 'Look, I am 40, what's it going to be...sportscar or mistress?' To her credit, she replied; 'Look, you're 40 - what's it to be, Soprano or Bass?' The sports car, the guitar, the tattoo; that's just displacement activity, another symptom, like doing Trailwalker. I have been trying to understand what lies beneath it. And that was what struck me; it's the need to deny that you have peaked. If you have peaked and everything you have done in life so far has been an exercise in getting gradually better, whether that is at sport, at work, at being a parent, all you have to look forward to is gradually accelerating decline.

What happened today was that I managed to pick myself up from the slightly flat feeling after the high of last weekend and show a marked improvement over the last time I was here. I ran all of the flat and downhill bits on an extended circuit at walked up the longest, steepest bit of the hill, completing a 4km circuit 5 times. And I felt like a machine. We still have a few weeks to go and I am pretty sure there is still some room for improvement too. I am in the zone now where I can pour on the effort and still get up and do it again the next day. Well, I may not dominate CS7 tomorrow, but I'll be there.

What's more, as I wobbled down Box Hill for the second time, I ran into an old cycle-buddy. Splattered in mud from head to toe, he was training for a mountain-biking tour across the Alps. 8 days of clean air, merciless gradient and endless competitive banter with a group of like-minded nutters. What's not to like about that? Maybe that could be next year's challenge. I've not peaked yet damn it! I'll show you.