Family first: triathlon second

My coach and I have a mantra: family first: triathlon second.  We are all recreational triathletes; not professional and we have to remind ourselves of that from time to time when we are in training.  Like last night.  

Around mid-day the hubs called me informing me he felt a kidney stone on the move (he's had tons and we know the drill).  At the time I asked, "do you need me to come home now?"  "No." "Okay, I am still planning to go do my swim workout tonight then."

Hours later, approaching my exit for the aquatic center, I called to check in.   The situation escalated.  He told me to swim, but there was no way.  I could not focus knowing how he sounded.  I neded to be there, if only to just be there.  So no swim workout.  I live to swim another day, but I deposited a lot of $$ into the triathlon marriage bank.  

Family first.  Triathlon second.  Period.

(Btw...stone passed, he's fine and I will make up the swim today)

The week in review

Hi everyone!

How has the week been?  

After the DNS on Sunday, I buckled down and refocused.  Not going to lie it was a hard week.  I had 5 consecutive nights of broken sleep for one reason or another.  Sleep is such an important role in our recovery process and it's horrible when I have so many messed up nights.

Thankfully, it didn't impact my workouts except for one.  By Thursday night, I was beat and just could not bring myself to do a strength workout after work.  I need to fix that this week.

All in all I had solid performances in my workouts.  A few break throughs, still some work in progress stuff, but all good.  I found out my 10k pace!!  Tuesday I had some longer repeats at what was to be my 10 k pace.  Since I had no idea what it was I went on feel.  It looks like it's around 10:30...I'll take that.

Had a spectacular bike today.  I really pushed to hit my numbers and as a result hit some average paces that were PRs for me.  👊👊👊💪💪💪

All smiles after my ride...

So I plan to keep a running total of the hours, miles, yards and number of workouts just for kicks and giggles.  Here we go:

Total planned hours: 8:15.  Actual 7:42 😁

Actual swim hours: 1:27; total yardage 4789 😄

Actual bike hours: 3:00; total miles 45.7 😄

Actual run hours: 3:13; total miles 15.4 😄

Strength hours: 0 😳😁

Ok...promise more interesting content this week...it's a build week!

The things I'm supposed to be telling you about

So today I should be telling you about scrubbing the race numbers off my arms and my legs, how I PR'd my swim, how the Rickenbacker Causeway is NOT that intimidating and how I finally made it hurt when I run, but I'm not.

Today was my very first DNS: did not start.

Supposedly everyone has one eventually and everyone's reasons are different.  

...all ready to go...

This wasn't a race we were training for.  It was put on my calendar to help keep my motivation through the brutally hot and humid South Florida summer.  Eight weeks ago (I think) I told my coach I didn't even want to do it, but about a month ago I decided what the heck.

Yesterday was standard pre race rituals...short workouts, lots of water, healthy lunch and dinner.  I had everything ready to go.  The first sign of a problem was when I went to bed.  It was 9:40 and I had a 4 am wake up.  Nine-forty pm is late for me.  And I was WIDE AWAKE.  I pretty much layed in bed until 2:30 awake most of the time.  That's when I "called it".  

Why??  It wasn't necessarily the risk of a poor performance, but in the whole life balance thing, this would set the tone for my week.  If I start the week exhausted, it's that much easier to blow off workouts, eat junk food and just be a sloth.  These are the things that go through my mind on sleepless nights.  

Am I upset that I missed the race?  Yes and no.  I really wanted to see where my swim and run were since we have been working on it, but I would get I'd have a poor performance and I really don't need that in my head right now.

I texted coach after I woke up and told her I wasn't racing and she was super awesome about it.  We agreed get on the bike (or run) for an hour and do something.  So I did.  I cycled for 20 miles (the race distance) and enjoyed my ride.

...happy me...

16 weeks to the next 70.3...onward!

Nice to meet you!

Hello world!  Welcome to my blog.  This is my 3rd attempt at blogging, so maybe the third time is the charm?  

Im hoping you all come along for, the ride as I chronicle my efforts to maintain my life balance as an age group triathlete, a wife, the breadwinner and the pug mom.  During the ride, I will probably entertain you with stories of my training, my pugs (I have 3) and random other silly things.  I'm hoping it's not all triathlon, all the time.  

What's on tap?  Well, a few short and middle distance triathlons and then the "A" race, Challenge Florida 70.3 in November.   It will be my 2nd 70.3 and I've got some ambitious goals.  I'll be doing all this will commuting 2 hours a day, working and trying to be a good wife.  Cake walk right???

And please bear with me as I am still building the blog content up.

So drop a note and say "Hi!"...it's nice to meet you!

 Epic finish line leap...Gulf Coast 70.3 triathlon