Monday 22 October 2012

The 30 Day Challenge - Day 18. Keep on moving.

Over half way in to the 30 day challenge and I'm realising how much it takes to write good content on a daily basis! So far I've enjoyed almost every post I've written. I've tried to vary from interview, to guests to insight and I've enjoyed what I've come up with so far. Last week was a particular highlight with 3 great guests. Talking with Adharanand Finn on Running with Kenyans was really insightful and it was challenging to distil what we'd discussed into something with a sport psychology angle. As with my interview with Gilles Peterson on Thursday (which was so much fun to record, edit and write up), I had so much to include in the write up, keeping focused and concise as possible without losing any crucial detail was difficult. Hence why I had to split it across two posts!

Simon Whyatt's post on nutrition for endurance and reviewing the views of Professor Tim Noakes I loved and what buzzed me the most was that even with a lot of knowledge on the topic, I learnt loads from Simon's advice. I hope it was as useful for you.

Overall, last week was the most successful week on the blog - over 500 readers a day and counting.

This week I have to apply the same dedication from the work I've done so far on the blog to my revision for the 'psychology of performance'. I have an exam in a fortnight at the British Psychological Society to complete so I'm going to have to cut back on the amount of copy I can write. Luckily, what I have to learn is both really interesting and relevant to this blog. Fortunately, to help, I've got a couple of guest blogs due to come through this week again. I'm hoping my guests will get their copy to me on time (hint! ;-) about Mental Toughness (something that I started to cover with Carlos Taboas two years ago), and on triathlon. Before the 30 days is out I want to also cover some endurance cycling as that is an area that I'm really interested in.

Unfortunately the subject has taken a lot of a kicking that last couple of weeks due to the Lance Armstrong affair, but I'm hoping with Carlos' help I can re-dress some of the balance of the performance side of the sport by getting some insight from Carlos (an ex pro in Spain) into the psychological skills required for readers.

On my side I'm going to try and do some end of day highlights of the topics I've been revising each day. I'll be putting in some serious hours in the saddle (as it were), but I'll try and help my revision by explaining to readers how their performance anxiety, confidence and motivation can be improved according to the latest scientific evidence I'm reading up on.

Think this is a relevant track to keep me focused this week...



Here's hoping to a good week to all of you.

S

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