Ben Offereins: RT Journal: Getting The Balance Right

Finding a balance between work and pleasure can be somewhat difficult at times.

But where do you draw that line?

For me, that is something that I'm still trying to figure out.

In the past I have floated between the two sides and struggled to find a happy medium. I’ve been regimented with my training, making sure that I did everything right. However in order to do that there were things that I had to sacrifice along the way. This created times where I wasn't enjoying what I was doing, and in-turn my running suffered.

In the past I have also visited the other end of the scale and made sure no matter what I was doing, I was enjoying it. Again, this made my running suffer because I was no longer doing the “little” things.

I spent the weekend just gone with some friends down south in Dunsborough, about 3 hours out of Perth. It gave me time to get away from everything and relax for a few days. However, being on a weekend, I still had to get a session in.

This is where I’ve found it hard to draw the line in the past.

I would either have not trained, or not gone away (so that I could complete the session with my squad).

I wanted to make things different this time round....and I did.

I left my house at 5.30am so I could be in Bunbury by 7am. My manager Sam Maxwell had organised a 7am start time for my Saturday morning session at the brand new Bunbury Athletics Track. (Thanks to the guys at Bunbury Athletics for allowing me to use their facilities, it’s a great new track and hopefully I can get down there and race at some point soon.)

By 8.30am I had cooled down and was back on the road, heading further south.

Training early meant that I was able to complete the session and make my way down without wasting too much of the day. It put me in good stead knowing that I had finished the session, but also that I had the rest of the weekend away without having to think about training. It was a welcomed rest.

As I look forward to my first 400m of the year on Friday in Brisbane, I’m confident that my new outlook on the work/pleasure balance will start to show in my results.

I guess only time will tell ...

More photos of Offereins’ trip can be found on his website at www.benoffereins.com