I’m going for excellence for sure! But what is ‘excellence’ for me may be a borderline ‘pass’ or even a ‘fail’ for someone else. I’ll be doing my first ironman in about 7 weeks (in Taupo, NZ) and I’m going to classify a sub 15:00 as ‘my excellence’ and a finish within the official 17:00 cutoff as my ‘pass.’ I’ll be super happy no matter what my finish time is… so long as I finish and give it my best. You get out of something what you put into it.

I’ve started keeping a diary of what went right in each of my training sessions, recording the data from my HR monitor and emailing it to my coach to let him know how I’m travelling. I’m recording what I eat and occassionally inputting it into calorieking to see if I’m eating enough cals for the training volume I’m doing and getting enough macronutrients. I keep a sleep diary too – of when I go to sleep and when I wake (I’m ‘failing’ in this area as I barely get 5 hrs a night. I’m too excited about IM NZ to sleep at night – that’s my grand theory anyway!).

I also couldn’t see why my fellow course mates at uni were so happy with a ‘pass’ for an assignment or exam when they could be putting in so much more time and effort and getting high credits or distinctions. Clearly, they don’t care. The attitude isn’t there.

Love your work, Alan. I particuarly struggle with my confidence and believing I am worthy of excellence doesn’t come natural to me. I like what you said about celebrating the small achievements. For me, that could simply be completing my training session each day exactly as per my training program as well as eating well, and stretching properly after my session.