Epic France starts this coming weekend and for the first time I’m heading there without Jo. Till now I’ve had it easy – I’ve always known my room mate and in many cases being the only couple we’ve got the best accommodation. This time I may have to put up with snorers and whatever other foibles.

I’ve not made it easy for myself either as I’m entering this camp the least prepared I’ve ever been. I’m not going in fit at all and am relying on the camp to get me fit enough to avoid embarrassment at Ironman Wales. I know I won’t be able to resist trying to win the yellow jersey but I’ll be very surprised if I’ll have what it takes this time.

To give you an idea, in the last 6 weeks I’ve managed the following

• 44 hours training (just over 7 a week average)
• 14k swimming (just over 2k a week average)
• 808 miles bike (just over 134m a week average)
• 93 miles run (just over 15m a week average)

There’s no escaping it. That is very little indeed in my books.

There’s been a variety of reasons for it.

Firstly I had recovery from Ironman Austria during which I got ill. I then started getting back in to training before heading on my Level 2 Swim Coaching Course – this was 9 long days. Great fun but tiring.

As I touched on in my previous post I’ve spent much of this year thinking, reading and researching various topics around growth (population, economies etc..) which lead to Peak Oil, other fossil fuels and global warming. I don’t think it would be overstating it to say that it’s completely changed my world view. I can tell you it’s knocked me for six and I’ve been feeling quite depressed. I’ve found my motivation for training has evaporated. This is double whammy as I get unfit which always worsens my mood. I’ve been marking “2”’s in my diary for motivation which I don’t think I’ve ever done before. I’ve feel like just calling my season a day right now. Today I forced myself out on the bike and in the first hour I’d had two stops. Only by taking a different route back and intentionally getting slightly off track did I extend it to 3 hours. Never before have I continued feeling completely demotivated once out on the bike.

Sorry this has been a bit of a therapy. My hope is that Epic Camp will bring back my motivation and get me fit again. It will be interesting to see how my fitness comes back. After that it’s all about enjoying my remaining two races and trying to get my motivation back.