That said, in my adult life if there was ever a man who had my attention it was Lance.

I know I’m not alone with that – the guy was an inspiration.

I remember reading “Its not about the bike” – I was about 24 years old.

I was so hungry to do well athletically and I could resonate so much with what Lance wrote in that book.

Luckily for me, nothing to do with the big C.

All to do with fighting for my purpose which was completely to do with being someone and that meant training hard – really hard!

I just wanted to flog myself and ultimately the pain I suffered seemed like nothing compared to what Lance had to go through.

My performance had never been so good and 14 years down the line it has never been as good again, not physiologically at least.

The problem was that I couldn’t sustain that intensity.

As much as I wanted to be, I wasn’t a pro athlete.

I didn’t have the support of a team.

I didn’t have someone to tell me to slow down, that I would blow up.

I also didn’t have EPO.

All I really had was my inspiration from L Dog!

It wasn’t enough.

He had set me up nicely but there was nothing else after that.

I read his other books – I read other peoples stuff on him.

I bought a Livestrong wrist band.

I wanted to feel as inspired as I had done.

And I did a bit but the effect wasn’t as much.

I realised inspiration wasn’t enough.

I kept trying, kept training, kept dieting but the progress I was seeing wasn’t enough to keep me motivated.

So I set about my journey of education – learning about physiology, learning about nutrition, changing my whole career path, learning about success and failiure.

About 6 years later I got back to be nearly as good as I was at 24, not quite but nearly.

If I had the inspiration and the youth with that knowledge I think I could’ve been a lot better at 24 but alas my journey was about struggle and self sufficiency.

Some of you will know exactly what I am talking about here – you’ll have been there, you think you can do it all alone.

Not many can.

Some of you will have more sense and have coaches of some description – you are wise people!

The coach, if they’re any good will not just inspire, not just get you to train more, not just get you to push harder – they will educate you so that one day you don’t need them anymore or not as much at least.  Thats a brave coach. a confident coach.

My point is don’t rely on enthusiasm or inspiration alone, it won’t be enough – not if you’re in this for the long haul.

This isn’t a pitch for my coaching services I am full and cant take on any more one to one clients.

Thats why I wrote the Triathlete Nutrition Code – http://www.nutri-tri.com/e-books/

To reach more people who need some nutritional help, people like Chris who wrote:

There is some inspiration but it’s more than that.

It’s everything I’ve learned up to now on how to help people sort out their nutrition and its aimed at athletes like you, athletes like me.

Have a great Tuesday – Remember its the most productive day of the week.

Jamie “It’s a BIT about the bike” Leighton