Desperately Seeking Mojo, Baby!

One of my pet hates (and I know this is going to sound ridiculous) is when people end their sentences at a higher pitch. You know what I mean – making a statement but making it sound like a question. Read this sentence out loud:

“I’m going to the shops?”

Or, how about:

“I’m feeling very happy today?”

Annoying, isn’t it? No? Well I think it is.

I have heard that we have our Australian cousins, in particular their daily soaps (Neighbours, Home and Away, etc.) to thank for this particular type of talking. It is predominantly spoken by teenagers and 20-somethings, but more recently I have even heard it spoken by people in their 30's and 40's. Arghhh! They should be bound and gagged, simple as.

There has been a definite proliferation of peculiarities like this filtering into society over recent years. Another is ‘text language’. Now, I think texting is a great way of communicating if you have something you need to say quickly and be done with it – something like ‘on my way home, put the kettle on’ or ‘go upstairs and wait for me there’ :-). What annoys the hell out of me, though, is the terrible abbreviations in 'text speak’ which make the whole thing incomprehensible, i.e. "gtg, spk l8r", translated as “got to go, speak later”. Texts are great, but, please, please don’t let the grammar and spelling slip. There’s no need for that.

A particular word which has sneaked into the English language recently, and one which I am hearing on a daily basis, is ‘mojo’. This is a definition of the term ‘mojo’ from Wikipedia:-

'Mojo (pronounced /ˈmoʊdʒoʊ/) is a term commonly encountered in the African-American folk belief called hoodoo. A mojo is a type of magic charm, often of red flannel cloth and tied with a drawstring, containing botanical, zoological, and/or mineral curios, petition papers, and the like. It is typically worn under clothing.'

In popular British culture, the term 'mojo' is used to express one’s level of happiness, and I think it has become popular since being used by Austin Powers. How it has gone from being a magic charm to an indicator of happiness I’ll never know, but that’s not important in the context of this week's blog.

The point of all this is to say that I have lost my mojo (which I think you could have guessed by the 'angry' tone of the opening paragraphs!). Well and truly. It does happen occasionally, usually when I am overworked, under-exercised, under-fed and under-slept, but strangely I think that it is now because I am actually over-raced and feeling a little burnt out from the constant weekly racing. You see, weekends, in the context of triathlon, should be spent training, with the odd race interspersed here and there, but instead I am racing every weekend and hardly training at all. My sleep is being affected, as is my nutrition strategy. My work is very busy at the moment too which I think is also contributing to my current loss of mojo.

So, here I am, not training and with little enthusiasm, frankly, to do anything. Look at this paltry display of training over the past week:-

Monday – no training

Tuesday – no training

Wednesday – no training

Thursday – bike - 10 mile time-trial, time 25:59 - three seconds quicker than last time (four weeks ago)

Friday – no training

Saturday – monster brick session - bike - hard interval session, 1 hour 40 minutes - run – easy at 177 strides per minute, incorporating hops, strides and sprints, 45 minutes

Sunday – no training

I think I just need to give myself a good kick up the backside and get back to work, both socially and professionally. I plan to take the brakes off after the Bedford Sprint on 5th October for a month in order to recuperate, but until then I need to find my mojo again. I know it's there, ready and waiting - its just finding it which is the issue.

Big-up this week to Jim from the tri club for a fantastic performance at the challenging New Forest Middle Distance, placing 27th out of 326 finishers!

Cheers and next week I will be more cheerful. That's a promise, Baby!

Colin