It’s winter. The mornings are dark and the days are short. The pull of the pool has eased off a little, and your off-season is ticking along nicely. You are feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and ready to start thinking about What Comes Next.

But before you pull out the latest race calendar and sign yourself up for a marathon, Ironman, 24-hour mountain biking event or the Rotto swim, how about you take a minute, step back, and assess yourself!

You’ve trained hard, you’ve seen improvements, and you’ve probably also made quite a few mistakes.

It’s the EOFY (End of the Fitness Year, ha – see what I did there?) so why not perform a little self-audit on your performance, and see how your numbers add up?

This exercise works across the board for everyone with a fitness goal.

If your goal was to complete a 5km Park Run, how did you go?

If you set yourself the goal of attending yoga three times a week, how did that turn out?

Step back and try to assess your performance objectively and recognise areas that need attention, so you can plan to address them in your next training block.

If you are a triathlete and have seen consistent improvements across your bike and run times, but are still swimming the same 100m splits, why not consider implementing a swim stimulus program? The same applies for riding and running. Short bursts of intense focus in one area (think, four weeks at a time) while still training in the other disciplines, can result in improvements across all three.

(After any audit it’s nice to reward yourself, and while we may not be able to hand you a sizeable tax return, we have some great accessories you can purchase as a sweet treat for doing the hard yards.)

Stepping back and assessing your season can help you do better next year.

Happy training!

Belinda x