The Autumn Rut

Are you struggling with motivation, drive, focus and getting into a good training routine?

You are not alone. It seems that this time of the year is quite tough for a lot of athletes with many people getting stuck in the 'Autumn rut'.

With the big summer races ticked off and most people's future goals a long way off getting a clear mental focus can be hard. Combine this with decreasing temperatures and daylight hours it all starts to add up make training feel like hard work (or more hard work than usual).

So what can you do if you are struggling through this time?

Get very clear on your goals

Often people want to get back into the swing of their training but they do not have clear goals they are working towards. So sit down and get very clear on your goals and the steps you need to take towards them.

Set some short/ mid term goals

Having some short/ mid term events to work towards will help 'lite a fire' under you to get your motivation burning. It can be good for these events to be single discipline if you are a multisporter or triathlete. This way you can work on improving that specific discipline while dialing back your other training for a while. This will help with training time during the shorter days and if you target you weak discipline it will help bring that up to speed.

Take some time out

This is a the time of the year I urge athletes to take some time away from training and have a bit of an off season or regeneration phase. This in itself can lead to a bit of a mental challenge for those who are not use to taking a break or dialing things back. Taking this time out is really important for long term health and performance. So if you have not done so already kick back relax, sleep in and pay back all the hard work you have made your body do over summer.

Do something different

If you have already taken some time out from your training then now is a great time to start working on our technique, correcting muscle imbalances, building your base aerobic fitness through some different training modes and address the things that get pushed to the sidelines when training cranks up later in the year.

So break out of that rut and get back on track over this strange time of the year.