I’m doing a course to get qualified as a personal trainer, and that is taking up most of my time. It will be finished around early December.

But I’m trying to make the best of it and use this time to rest and regenerate. I’ve just got over a pretty bad flu, and am sorting out my diet and rest. The plan is to get through this next month, and be 100% ready for training.

I’m doing a course to become a personal trainer… and that has taken up most of my time. My days have been up at 4am for work, then work on studies all afternoon. I haven’t had a chance to do any riding, or even much fitness training. (I can feel my fitness starting to drop off.)

The good thing is that I’ve been one of these bikes below for about 5 hours each day (for work).

I try to practice body positioning, throttle control, staying loose etc. I can’t say whether it is directly helping my riding… but any time on a motorcycle can’t be bad.

I’m starting to make some contacts with a few people who can help me out further. A few local trainers who have experience in training athletes, and some mechanics who might be able to do some performance work for me.

I’ve bought a new bike too. I’ve got a lot to say about it, so I’ll make another post. But I first rode it yesterday and I’m really liking it.

You can get an idea of how well I’ m sticking to my program by how often I post here.

But it wasn’t all my fault! I found a crack in the fram of my bike, so that’s been getting fixed. It only took a week, but I procrastinated and didn’t actually take it into a shop until last week.

I’ve missed 2 races because of it… and it’s the end of the season so no more races until about March.

Here’s some updates:

I’ve made the decision that I need a new bike. This one is 8 years old and starting to cost too much to maintain. I’m planning on a buying KTM 150SX sometime in the next month.

Also, I’ve signed up for two different coaching schools. One is a 2-day bike skills course in November, and the other a 2-day racing skills course in January. I’ve contacted these guys to see if they offer any correspondence coaching by email… or whether they can at least give me some tips on what to work on.

I’ve been sick lately, so haven’t even been training very much. Every time I work out, I just get sick again for a few days. So I’m going to rest up and hope my immune system can build some more.

The state titles are 6 months away. I’d like to attempt to qualify for the race held at my home track. There’s national pros at these races, and you can compare your qualifying times directly with theirs.

If I qualify it will be the achievement of my lifetime, and whether I do or not, it’s what I’m going to work towards.

After work I went straight out riding for about 2 hours. I felt super uncomfortable re-adjusting to my bike (compared to the one I ride for work). But eventually I got things together.

The area I ride at now is hard pack dirt and rocks, and it’s like riding on marbles. I’m basically finding the most slippery area and practicing flat turns. I like this sort of riding where it’s a real struggle. It shows me I have a long way to go. When I get back on to a proper groomed track I’m hoping it will feel like I’m on train tracks.

I’m satisfied too that I actually got out and rode today. I’m pretty busy now so it’s an effort to get out there… and it feels good to be able to push through that to go riding.

I just had a workout session this afternoon. It was my first one since being sick. Things went alright, I felt good except pulled a muscle in my chest. Only minor, but I hope it doesn’t bother me or turn into anything more.

Finally, I wasted 2 hours after work sitting around doing nothing. My life is going to get very busy soon – so if I want to keep riding I need to squeeze every minute out of my days.

I did go out and ride my bike for an hour in the evening. Again, just practicing trials and balancing drills. After that I finished with a quick 15 minute pushup workout.

I plan to start eating a lot more. Combined with some good sleep habits I’ll see if that gives me some more energy to make it through the afternoon.

I’m also going to start doing a quick workout every single day as soon as I get home from work. It seems once I sit on the couch, I’m done for the day. But if I don’t stop, then I can keep going until the night.

Plan to go riding this Thursday and Sunday. They’re the only chances I have, and I want to make sure I actually take them and don’t just get lazy and let them slip.

I’m taking the next few days easy though as I want to build up again after being sick and just starting a new job.

I ate pretty well today, and I’m starting to change my sleep patterns to get more rest which I presume is going to help a lot.