This Summer, I set myself a bit of a vague goal:  Approach training with a ‘healthier balance’. I set this goal to avoid over-consuming myself in training and to make sure I don’t compromise too much from other important aspects of life.

But what exactly is a ‘healthier balance’? Was I not healthy before?

For 10 years, I have consumed myself in specific functional goals in preparation for “Race Day”. It is something I’m really proud of, but sometimes I struggle to find enough meaning behind it all… a reason to dedicate so much time to it.

So this is what I was trying to accomplish by training with a ‘healthier balance’… less compromise to train and more time with friends and family.

It almost backfired! … I started questioning things way more than before.

But with a few exciting milestones this year, I am totally happy with how I sought out to find this vague thing called ‘balance’… I spent a few weekends traveling with my sisters, danced at a colour festival, went home and enjoyed quality time with family and I celebrated one of my best friends weddings. It has been an AMAZING Summer.

As for training and racing… my swimming has gotten stronger, training has gotten more social and fun, and I achieved two milestones in triathlon: first podium and first DNF!

It’s all about making active living work for you and this Summer I definitely feel like I found that balance. Less #FOMO and more #Fundays. Fewer long bike rides though, and funnily enough I actually do miss them…. maybe in the Winter we’ll see a different swing of ‘balance’.

What I want to improve on now, is sharing all aspects of my life (not just the active bits). It’s not healthy being productive ALL of the time and crushing goals ALL of the time and living with that pressure or expectation ALL of the time. This is what many healthy living instagram pages show… mine including. So, new goal (yes, I see the irony in setting a goal here): promote social life and downtime in alignment with the more traditional aspects of healthy living and alongside my goals in triathlon.

You’ll see more Instagrams with the hashtag #lifeinbetweengoals from me going forward and I definitely need to sort out using Snapchat again/ properly! Add me — my SnapChat username is LiveLoosley 🙂

Race searching and recipe experiments up next! Finding balance? … an ongoing quest.