5 1/2 weeks until Vineman.....

Since becoming a parent one thing I've search high and low for, and always come up empty handed, are other mothers that work full time outside of the home, have small children, and train for races of increasing distances. Sure I find stories from men that discuss balancing work, family and training. That's all fine and dandy, but in most of these stories one thing is clear: the wife is the glue of the family. In many, many families this is true of the role of the mother. Don't get me wrong, I'm so fortunate to have a partner that is an excellent father and supportive of my racing that he is understanding and without hesitation allows me the freedom to train and race in destination locations. Yet, I find stories about people training at 4 or 5am in the morning, which I cannot do. I have to take my daughter to school. I can't go for a swim or do a workout outside the house early in the morning. I can't train until 11pm at night after work. I still have a family after all and the reality is that it's unfair to just disappear from their lives for my own selfish reasons.

Instead, I found an amazing job in which at lunch I can swim (and getting in 4000 to 5000m at lunchtime is insanely difficult, but you bust your hump to make it happen). After work I go back to the gym to do bike intervals followed by speedwork on a treadmill. I have one day a week I take the bike out for Time Trial Intervals followed by run intervals for 45 minutes for a brick workout. I also have just run workouts but I make sure I am home in time to put my daughter to bed. The weekends are for long workouts, which I do by myself and manage to complete by 10am or 11am so I can spend the rest of my day with my family which is so important for me, but also for them.

Training for any long distance race is a selfish process. You train and time with the family is what is sacrificed. At the same time, you have a family and they make sacrifices for you as an athlete so you can succeed. You cross a finish line, but to be honest, while you feel accomplished, the real finishers are the families of athletes. I think they give up so much more than the athlete does. So, while you see athletes so upset with their performance, or not getting enough training in a given week, or whatever else in their training and racing career that didn't go right and internalizing their frustration, you will find me always happy with every single last race, even if I can't finish, because just being able to show up at the starting line was a gift that was given to me by my family. I always have a smile on my face at a race, and usually right after the race I go home and give my medal to my daughter. I may have raced, but she earned that medal. Basically, the one thing I keep are my race numbers that I pin on my wall at work. Those aren't there for just me either. Those numbers are to show students that you can do anything, and remind me through how many races so many people sacrificed so that I could do what I love.

Now I have 5 1/2 weeks until my first full Ironman. This is where my family starts to give up the most through the process. I have to put more time into this journey focusing on the mental and the physical. This is the point in training where it all becomes very real, and trust me, I definitely need to focus on the mental. So, I can't really find someone who have gone through the same journey that I have, therefore I need to rely on myself to know how I structure family and training is right for us and just ignore the outside nose.