Swimming fail

‘So how did you get on in your 400m time trial?’, I can hear you asking. Sadly, the answer is that I failed. I could try to put a different spin on this, but it didn’t happen. I did some of the necessary planning (made my lunch and prepared breakfast last night) and got as far as finding a clean dry swimming costume, but I hadn’t packed all of my bags and laid out my clothes. If I haven’t achieved this level of organisation then my day is unlikely to be successful.

There was a further layer of trouble. I’m not sure whether the alarm went off this morning. Stuart and I were both tired, so I didn’t realise what the time was until 6:53am. At that stage, I could have salvaged the swim, but it would have required not eating breakfast (or packing it up to bring it to work). I saw it as a sign that my body was giving me a rest day. However, now the guilt is kicking in.

If I had really wanted to do the swim, it would have happened, but I didn’t make it happen. Maybe I’m not committed enough at the moment? I could have brought my swimming kit with me and swum in my lunch hour, or after work, but I decided not to even try that. I thought about adding in an extra swim session tomorrow, but I’m concerned about being overtired before Eastleigh 10k.

Are my goals realistic?

I’ve given myself a sharp reminder that it’s not possible to do everything and do it all well. Have I so many goals that I’m lacking focus? My immediate plans are to:

• Achieve a PB at Eastleigh 10k  on Sunday
• Complete Southampton parkrun on Saturday (because I want to have done 100 by the end of the month)
• Achieve a PB at Paris marathon on 7^th April
• Complete an Ironman by the time I’m 40

Maybe I need to take an agile project management approach to this – what are the musts, should, could and woulds? In other words, maybe I have to accept that I can’t have/do everything and I need to prioritise what I’m going to do.

Have you ever failed to achieve your goals? How did you get back on track?