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Gary prepares for

Gary prepares for "Adulting"


Primal Blog: February

 I’ve had some time now think what I’m going to be blogging about this year. To be honest my day to day life at the minute is repetitive and currently contains nothing out of the ordinary. I could talk about what I ate today, or how many hours I spent training; or how many I actually spent training………

But I’ve opted to choose some sort of topic/review for each month, I’ll try keep them cycling related, so 11 topics in total. Just to confirm I know there’s 12 months in a year but it’s now February.

Topic Number 1: Weather

Yeah that’s a joke, I’m not actually going to start talking about the weather, I probably will though once my creative writing flair runs out. This month’s topic is winter training and work balance.

Until a few months ago I never really understood what it was like to go to bed and “not be able to sleep”, or have any issues squeezing my training in. Being a student I had loads of time to procrastinate for half the day, leisurely getting up and training when I felt like it. Now like many people I’m working a full time job, this means going to bed when I need to and trying to sleep when my body doesn’t really want too but has too in order to function the next day. (I now know the meaning off not being able to sleep).

 So anyway, my years’ work experience has been a massive insight for where I see myself in the future and I’m beginning to understand adulting, note the word “beginning”, I’ve had a fairly big stunt in my maturity growth ha.

Right, back on track again as we start to dissect the factors I’ve found that may affect your ability to balance work and training. Remember, this is a blog and might make no sense at all. (Likely)  

Commuting to work by bicycle: the way of the future. city living this is a great way to travel to work. You save time and money by mixing your training with your work commute. If your riding to and from work you are getting 2 sessions, so if your stretch your commute out you're getting good quantity. Honestly though commuting isn’t for me, I’ve tried it, it works for sure but I don’t struggle that much with time and find it just as handy to train after work. But if you find yourself under time pressure and have good work facilities this is something to consider.

Organisation: Organising your day to day life is probably one of the most positive things you can do in life regardless if you’re an athlete or not. An hour before I go to my bed I’ll be running around the house sticking things on chargers, putting on washing or trying to prepare my breakfast/lunch. Morning time literally smacks you in the face, I can never start off right so I do it the night before!

Ireland Training

Socialising: Too much socialising; or not enough? Whichever side of it you fall into socialising is to do with confidence and your most confident in your comfort zones right? Ok so here’s my opinion as an amateur cyclist. I live with two other lads, going out for a coffee or hanging out is always on the cards, I’m all for that and feel it’s important to include socialising. So keep it in your “comfort zone”. What I mean by this is when you go too far in the opposite direction and do nothing but eat, sleep, train and repeat your mind-set slips into a comfort zone where the only thing you feel comfortable doing is eating, sleeping and training. We see this with high level athletes, who at the end of the day also have families and friends too. So it’s important to find the balance, and there’s no reason why you can’t. It may seem it, but training isn't the most important thing.

Living conditions/ Relationships: relationships are an area I have absolutely no experience in, but living conditions I can relate too, ideally you want to be coming home to people you want to see, whether that’s your lover, your mum and dad or like me two absolute gems for friends (AWWWW), most days when I get home we all bounce about the kitchen telling eachother what me got up to and exchange stories over a coffee, talking about or hard days graft. Pfft bluffers. Surround yourself with good people.

Structured Training: A lot of people have coaches now. If you’re like me and you don’t, it’s still a good idea to follow a structured training plan. Your day to day life is more organised, you can access your training prior to the workout so you know you’re getting a good workout and not wasting time. Quality over quantity and all that crack.

Consistency/Routine: Your better being consistent with your training rather than squeezing random big weeks in, then other weeks having nothing relevant or constructive training wise. I found when training is consistent you can gage progress better and you’re not wasting time on junk miles or losing fitness, longest session I do mid week is 1.5hrs.

Motivation: Everything’s easier done when you’re motivated. I’ll not lie, I’m the kind of person who only trains when their motivated to do so. Luckily I am normally motivated and often enjoy the training I do. When I’m lacking motivation procrastination kicks in which leads to prolonged training session, delayed dinner and delayed sleep.  So before asking yourself why am I eating so late, why am I going to bed at this time ask are you motivated to do your tasks on hand.

So there is a few points to take on board, you can definitely elaborate on them but I’ve tried to keep it light reading, this also because I’m a light writer so I’m quickly approaching my 1000 word limit. Hope this was in some way relevant to all my fans.

Sure I’ll drop my Instagram in for good measure: gazodonz