The Kid Factor

Yesterday morning while dragging our butts to the gym for our morning 45 min bike workout we realized that it was not even 12 hours since we were at the gym last biking. Yep, and in those 12 hours we jammed eating dinner, getting grocery shopping done, doing the dishes, and 8 hours of sleep. That is probably one of the hardest things that we have found since starting our training program is the lack of time at night. We are up between 4:45 and 5 am to get to the gym right when it opens, therefore we are asleep between 8:30 and 9pm each night. We work until 5pm, are at the gym again and not home until 6:30ish and have to make, eat, and clean up dinner. That precious hour in the evening between 7 and 8 isn't even enough time to do the laundry which I discovered last week when I went to bed and left the washing machine going.

Last night, as we were going to bed at 8, talking about how exhausted we were, we got talking about how hard it would be to try and do this with kids! I just want to take a moment and give props to any mother or father out there who are training for something! It would be so difficult! YOu would defintely have to consider the kid factor when signing up for ironman and committing yourself to all those hours of training. Ben and I have the luxery of a full nights rest and being able to go to bed at 8pm. We don't have to worry about who will watch the kids as we go train in the mornings and in the evenings. If we are tired and grumpy and all we feel like doing is sitting in a corner and staring at the wall in the dark, we can do that! You could probably do that with kids too, but I think they would get very concerned about mommy. But most of all, if I am tired and grumpy and I bark at Ben over something stupid he knows that it is just because I'm tired and hungry and in a few minutes I will realize how stupid it was and apologize. We have that luxery to be grumpy without hurting anyones feelings, since there is complete understanding because the other person feels just as tired. Perhaps that is why most people that do ironman are males 30-50 and females 40+. The males don't have to worry about their kids because their wives will take care of them while they're training while the older females may have kids but perhaps they are older and understand that mom is training for the ironman.

Other than training, last week was a little hectic with people visiting. Infact a friend of ours was in town from Calgary and we didn't even get a chance to see her! Which is really too bad. Ben was getting adjusted to being back at work after a few months off. Ben's mom and her partner brought dinner and stayed the night on thursday. In fact, we walked into the house after training and Ben's mom was there cooking a delicious dinner, we were pretty spoiled. Then Friday night my best friend from high school and her boyfriend came down for some skiing. They didn't get here until around 11pm at night, and let me tell you it was a struggle staying up for them. I was pretty jealous of ben when he headed to bed around 9. On saterday we skiied allll day. It was awesome! It was a great day, there was lots of snow that week so the hill still had some sweet powder stashes left. We were supposed to bike for an hour and a half that day but we figured skiing all day more than counted for that. Then saterday night it started snowing, no more than snowing but completely blizzarding! Infact there was a snow warning here which never happens because they always get lots of snow! Well ben was like a little kid on christmas morning when he woke up on sunday. He was up at 5am going for coffee and checking the snow report and was ready to head to the hill!(and yes the hill does not open until 8:30 and we are only a 10 minute drive from the hill). My friends decided to be responsible and hit the road before itclosed, and ben and I headed to the hill for 745am (that was the earliest I was getting up there).

That day I skied the deepest snow of my life! like seroiusly. It was up to your waist! And that hill is amazing, we did not wait in a single line for more than 5 minutes all day! Infact, our first run we had an entire run top to bottom of untouched snow. Seroiusly, not a single person had skied it yet. Amazing. By the time we got home the power was out, so even if we had the energy to do the hour run and half hour bike we couldn't since there was no power! Instead we had a nap on the couch, went for a walk, and waited for the power to come back on so we could cook dinner. It's amazing how much you can't do when the power is out! That is the seccond time it has happened here. You cannot cook anything, there is no heat, it's even hard to shower by candle/flashlight! But it eventually came on by 5pm, and we were asleep by 8:30 getting ready for anther week of training.

One week down..... only 35 more to go.

One week down, and only 35 weeks left... and no unlike most of the other people with a 9 month count down I am not counting down a pregnency. Rather, we have made it through one week of training! Last monday was our first official day of ironman training! Last monday we were in calgary for me to get some tests done and I was not allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight. So Ben hit the pool at 6 am (5am our time) while I slept cozily for an extra hour, mmm... However, joke would be on me when i had to swim after not eating/drinking all morning and a 5 hour drive home. I was very tempted to just skip it, I mean it was only a half hour swim. But I wanted to start this training program right, so I got to the pool and made it through the first workout. The next morning we were up at 5:30 am and hit the gym for a bike, then again at 5:30 pm for a run. Wednesday we were at the pool for when it opened at 6:30 and then were at the gym again at 5:30 for a bike. I can safely say that wednesday at work I was a zombie. I had to be extra careful to make sure that I was not inverting numbers and charging someone $934 instead of $349 for fuel. Thursday we had another pool morning and then an afternoon run. Although all week we were asleep by 9pm, by the time thursday afternoon hit I'm pretty sure I was asleep by 7:30. On Friday we had an optional day off or the choice to swim... we opted for the day off. Ben had not started his new job yet so he got to hit up opening day at Revelstoke Ski resort (lucky guy) and I worked. It was so nice to just enjoy sleeping until 7 and not having to worry about working out. Saterday we went out to ski for the morning but the conditions weren't great (especially since Ben had skied all the fresh snow the day before) and we had over an hour of biking to get done, so we left at noon and headed to the gym. That night was my company christmas party, which was a blast but we did not get home until 1 am (incredibly late for us, like seroiusly, even when we're not training we have a hard time staying up past 11). Luckily we didnt have too much to do on Sunday, except for a 30 min bike and 55 min run. We went out to look at an old truck west of town, hit the gym, got our shopping done and pretty much passed out. And that was the end of the first week, with only 35 more to go..

This week Ben started a new job working on 2 new schools that are being built in town. They are supposed to have steady work for the next 2 years so it looks like we'll be able to stay here (in paradise) at least until then... hopefully forever.. But training yesterday was rough on him and has shifted out entire training routine that we got going last week. Ben now starts work at 7am, so we're not able to swim in the mornings at all anymore since the pool only opens at 6:30. And we now have to make sure we're at the gym when it opens at 5:30. Then ben eats a quick breakfast and heads out while I get to enjoy the morning for a bit and then walk to work. I have actually quite enjoyed the past 2 days of walking to work. I just pop in my earphones, and enjoy the beaufitul scenery of revelstoke. I still have my moments of awe when I look up and see the mountain towering over me. I have found this second week much easier so far (although it is only tuesday). But Ben has been pretty burnt out. He went pretty hard last week and he is now working 7-4:30 days outside in the cold. So I think it will definitely take some time for him to adjust to working again and training. Especially since his job involves lots of lifting and what not.

That's all for now!