Squeezing It All In

2900 meter swim, 3 mile run
Today was one of those days where I just never seem to get a break. The whole day feels like I'm rushing from one thing to another and barely have a chance to catch my breath. This was one of the hardest things for me about training for an Ironman - how to fit it all into a day. I feel like I'm starting to fall back into the pit of time mis-management.

This is what my day looked like:

5:45a: wake up very unwillingly
6:00a: head out for an easy (fortunately) 3 mile run
6:30a: take the dogs out for a quick bathroom stop (Wednesday's are daycare days, so I can skip the walk)
6:40 - 6:55a: pack lunch and other stuff needed for the day (bags were mostly packed the night before)
6:55a: drive the dogs over to day care
7:15a: get to the gym for master's swim
7:15 - 8:15a: get my butt kicked by Wolfgang swimming ~2900 meters
8:40a: get to work (work, work, work, meetings, meetings, meetings)
10:45 - 11:45a: doctor's appointment
12:00p: get back to work (more work, work, work, meetings, meetings, meetings)
5:00 - 6:00p: acupuncture session to help with the hamstring
6:20p: pick the dogs up from daycare, drive them home, take them out
6:40p: leave for dinner with my sister
9:00p: get home and try to convince myself that I can get up at 5 tomorrow morning to go ride.

It's days like this that makes the training seem like it's the easy part. It's days like these that cause things like doing laundry, washing dishes, paying bills, etc. to be so easily ignored or forgotten. Generally speaking, I am a pretty organized person, sometimes anally so (the last time I moved, not only did I have every box labeled, but I had color coded the labels and put the location of where the box should go when it was unloaded - kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, downstairs, etc.). However, last year, while training for the Ironman, I became frightfully disorganized. In January, I discovered a reimbursement check from my insurance company buried deep beneath a stack of papers on my desk. It was a few weeks beyond the 90 day expiration date. Here I was essentially throwing away money. I decided to ignore the expiration date and deposited it anyway and fortunately no one said anything so I got the money. But where did things go wrong? How did things get so far astray? I felt like I needed a personal assistant to manage the rest of my life that was outside the scope of work, training, sleep, or dogs.

The good thing is that I know I'm not alone. I know that other people deal with the same issues. They understand how you can totally lose your mind. They understand what you have temporarily given up. What I learned last year is that I need to be supportive of friends when they go through this. I also need to ask for help sometimes. And most importantly, be thankful. Remind your friends and family, especially ones that do not do triathlons, often that you appreciate their support and that you miss them (because you do spend a lot less time with them). I am also very thankful and extremely excited that Matt has decided to give triathlons a try this year. His reasoning is that he's going to be at the races anyhow so he might as well race them. But he put up with a lot last year and it means a lot to me that he's willing to give it a shot.