Waking up is hard to do

I think I've experienced my first psychological barrier to effective training.

Usually when I wake up my mind starts whirring, mostly with thoughts of a lady I have on my mind, or how business is going, or how futile the dog upstairs' attempts at scratching through the floor are.

This morning (and last night actually, as I lay trying to sleep) all I could think about was failure. I've been suffering from a cold and a cough has been keeping me from sleeping, but even a mothering piece of advice from Jo  couldn't keep me out of the gym. This month is about training on consecutive days, and the plan was to play football one night, then do 3 days of 20-mile bike rides at the gym. 10 miles into the 2nd session and I realised Jo was right; I felt terrible and was probably making things worse.

This is the first time since embarking on this task that I haven't done what I had planned, and it actually feels awful. If I have a cold in April I'm not going to call off the ride, and 100 miles through Scotland is certainly going to be tougher than 20 miles in the gym. Maybe it's because I've decided to make my progress public, or maybe it's because I'm doing it for my Mum and Nan; skiving off a jog is easy to justify to yourself when you're the only one missing out on the benefits. I know this is a training failure as opposed to the big trip, but I've never experienced this level of guilt associated with sport before, how do athletes keep such high levels of motivation without letting the negative thoughts affect their performance?

This Saturday = Training again. And harder.