Virus? Tired? Stressed? Old? Or all of the preceding words!!

It was April when I recall being ok when training - feeling ok with the train sleep repeat cycle. I know my body and since suffering with a calf pull and a bout of man-flu 2 months ago I have just not felt right. The legs have been so heavy and I've not been able to recover well from what I see as medium intensity training. Whilst I accept that I will be getting slower due to age, this slowing should be gradual; not a cliff edge demise! Last week I switched to a training regime of 2 days training/1 day recovery (no training). Today was the first time in 2 months that I have sensed the old feelings that I can still move at a reasonable pace. Maybe I need the new training regime? Today I completed a 90 min sweet spot road ride over undulating terrain, followed by 6 x 700m run efforts. Last time I completed these run efforts I struggled through, maintaining 3:50 - 3:55 per kilo pace feeling crappy. Today I had increased the cycle effort and maintained 3:35 - 3:40 per kilo pace feeling more like my old self. When I have such a long period of feeling ill or unable to produce the expected feelings I seem to tell myself that all is lost and I can't do it any more. This is a mental thing and is quite negative. I have to acknowledge the stresses of the last few years and the contribution these stresses have towards reduced performance. Hopefully, life will be less stressful in the future and my performance can decline gracefully with age! Next year I move into the golden oldie 55 - 59 age group. So time to see what can be achieved in a new age group. It's a new start mentally, which should help😎 I'm off back to Saudi soon to start a new career venture. So let's see how the training is factored into that. My previous venture in the land of sand didn't do too badly for tri stuff. Onwards and upwards. More details to follow!