Setting your "high bar"

When I was a kid we'd play football in a field, kicking the ball up and down but eventually it got boring as we had no aim.  Then we'd put down a couple of jerseys and all of a sudden the game got interesting. We had something to aim for and we knew when the ball went between the jerseys we'd scored a goal.  Bit of a coincidence, not, that goals are what we aim for and training is what gets us there.
This week I have been persevering with my night splint which I am wearing for an hour a day.  It's unpleasant but I know it will help me achieve my goals by going through this discomfort. On Tuesdays swim session I got out 2/3rds of the way through the main set as I felt tired and my stroke was getting worse with every length. However on Friday I slowed down and concentrated on technique and felt a lot better. A good reminder that winter training allows you to build your strength and improve your technique.
For over a month I have been getting low HRV scores and my fitness, or lack of it, has been backing them up. But this week my HRV scores improved and my 10 mile trail run on Saturday felt good. Today it was a bit slower but I would have been tired from the day before as I also fitted in a 30 minute session on a Watt Bike riding beside the legend Mark Beaumont who was cycling for 24 hours raining money for charity.  The watt bike analyses the smoothness of your pedalling action and it turns out mine isn't! That gives me the opportunity of working on that over the winter. But speaking to Mark was inspiring and talk about setting the bar high, he's off any scale you care to mention. Such a nice guy. I asked him what was the hardest part of cycling round the world. He replied a 3,300 mile stretch in Australia where for 32 days he cycled into a head wind!
We can all stretch our goals, push the barrier, get out of our comfort zone but first you need to put the jerseys down to measure your progress. The winter is the time to put in the hard work and I am slowly beginning to feel the benefit of mine although I need to make a massive improvement if I am to reach my goals in 2015. Thank you Mark Beaumont for reminding me just how far we can all go.