The Sacred Distraction: Why I Train These Days

Just had a shower after a hard spin bike session. Sweat still forming on my skin. Heart still ticking down. sitting in front of my laptop furiously brain dumping.

I’m getting ready for a mountain bike trip with my closest friends in Tasmania....wild, beautiful terrain that’ll demand everything from me. Skill I have. Fitness? Not so much. So I’m working on it. Grinding away at the pedals, lungs dragging, legs burning, mind drifting.

It’s got me thinking about training. Why I train. When I train. And who I am when I don’t.

For most of my life, I trained with something to prove.
In my twenties and thirties, I carried a traditional kind of strength....the Sixpack, the Speed, the Swagger. I was usually the fittest bloke on the rugby field, the one who took pride in being the fastest to the breakdown, the last to give in.

It wasn’t vanity....well, maybe a bit....but mostly it was about proving I was worthy of the jersey. Of the role. Of the respect.
I trained because I had something to win.

Now, in my fifties, I train to hold onto something.....not youth, but the man I want to keep being.

I’ve always trained in some form. Sometimes intensely for long stretches, other times just enough to keep the wheels from falling off. I’ve flirted with consistency, then slipped back into the chaos of work, kids, marriage, life.

What I’ve come to realise is this: vanity has never been a sustainable motivator for me.
I like looking sharp, sure....but it doesn’t hold me. It doesn’t get me out of bed before sunrise or onto the bike after a twelve-hour shift.

What does?

Purpose.

When I had big goals....rugby, surf trips, hikes, races...I trained with focus. I had a destination, something that demanded a better version of me. But now, with so much of my life wrapped around other people’s needs...my wife, my kids, my job...I rarely make myself the project.

Training is no longer about being the best.
It’s about being present.

It’s not about aesthetics. It’s not about proving I still have it.
It’s about quieting the mental noise, even for an hour.
It’s about finding a space that’s mine alone.
A sacred distraction.

What struck me most this afternoon, post-ride, was how detached I sometimes feel from my own body.
I don’t think of it as me. I think of it as a tool...a machine that needs maintenance. Something I keep oiled so I can do the work of living. The work of being a father. A partner. A builder of things.

And that’s a strange thought, isn’t it? That my body isn’t part of my identity, but a vessel for it.
I realised today that I often see myself as consciousness...a mind, a soul, something intangible....riding inside this vehicle I’ve been given.
Is that normal? Is that human? I don’t know. But it’s true for me.

And yet, training connects the two.
It brings me back into the body.
Not to chase perfection, but to feel real.
To remember that this body is me...not just the tool I use to serve others.

This isn’t shade toward those who obsess over performance or physique. I admire that kind of focus.
But for me, these days, that drive isn’t there...and I’m okay with that.
I train now not to push myself to the brink, but to keep myself from fading.

It’s not about chasing youth. It’s about preserving vitality.

This Tasmania trip has given me something rare....a personal goal. A spark. A reason to lean back into discipline.
And that’s what’s been missing all along. Not motivation. Direction.

The body doesn’t crave punishment....it craves purpose.

And that’s the paradox: I train now not to escape aging, but to embrace it.
To move through it with grace, strength, and a little bit of mischief left in the tank.
I want to ride those trails, feel the wind in my lungs, the earth under my tyres, and know.....really know....that I’m here.

Because when I’m training, I’m not thinking about spreadsheets or mortgages or homeschooling or the house build or the hundred other things I carry.
I’m in my body. In the moment.
Not a father, a husband, a provider.....just a man, moving.

So no, I don’t train like I used to.
I don’t need to.

I train because it reminds me I’m alive.
And that is enough.....for now.