What goes into getting a good performance

The next step is to look at all these attributes seperately and see what I can improve:

Rest

This is definetly something I could improve on, I have got better at it, but I then feel like I am just being lazy. I understand that to make progress you have to rest. But then I can see so much that needs doing in the house or think I'll just go out for a quick ride. I need to learn to build more rest into my day.

Genetics

Not much I can do about this now!

Equipment

Well considering at the moment my full suss bike isn't really working this is something that can definetly be improved. Finances are obviously the problem with improving this to the best possible. But I have just ordered new brakes and have organised new forks which is a step in the right direction.

Skills

This is something I can definitely work on, my riding has come on a lot this year, having increased my mileage that is not a suprise. But I should sometimes go out on rides and practice skills, there are still a lot of skills that I haven't got nailed and my technical riding could definetly be improved.

Mental Attitude

This is probably one of the most important aspects of being an endurance rider. I've been told by numerous people that endurance events come down to 50% training 50% mental attitude. Now if you had asked me this last summer I would have said this was a real strength of mine. i completed some hard events last year for my level of experience and biking and it was definetly my inability to give up that got me through. Now though I don't think I am as strong as I was, being ill hasn't helped with that, I'm getting there and have rode some hard rides. But I find myself lacking motivation to get out and ride at times and I'm not sure how I'll manage day after day.

Nutrition

This is where I am trying to make improvements at the moment, although I know I'll never be perfect. I'm aiming for a well balanced diet, not leaving out things like chocolate cake as I don't think I could cope. But I find I have a good couple of days and then a day when I eat too much chocolate. At the moment to improve my diet I am trying to add vegetables to every meal and eat more fruit. Due to meds I take, I seem to be constantly dehydrated at the moment so I'm looking into ways of improving my hydration levels. Nutrition on the bike seems to be sorted now, maybe I eat too much chocolate but I've not had a problem with running out of fuel recently.

Training

Up till now I've just got out and gone riding, I suppose this would be called the base phase of training. Recently I've added a little more structure, in that I've been out and done hill repeats. But still not much. I am going to read a bit more about training and add some specific sessions in. I think what I need to look at is some high intensity sessions, I seem to be fine at long and steady. This is definetly something I am going to read more about.

Sleep

This is something that I wish was better, I don't seem to get enough sleep and I wake up a lot in the night. It has improved a lot but is still not great. I am going to try and work on this as this will help with my rest and recovery. The one thing I am going to do from now is try to go to bed earlier, I often end up still up after 10pm, so I'm going to aim to be in bed at 10pm every night, maybe even slightly earlier.