Life After IM


First, a huge shout out to all my friends, family (and new friends I've acquired through my blog ;-) for all the prayers, love, texts, messages, emails, posts, phone calls and good ju ju you sent me before, during and after IM. WOW. I've never felt so connected to such a wonderful group of people in my life. You were great therapy and made the whole IM experience so fun. THANK YOU.

Now, about those "Now What?" questions. Wulp, good question. I was truly expecting about 2 weeks of being tired, burned out, overtrained, hungry and sore, simply wanting to lay on the couch and get up only when the words "momma" came a callin'. Well, I got the momma words, but none of the other stuff ever showed up...haven't been sore, I'm always hungry and most importantly, never felt burned out. I did get about 48 hours of grogginess at the end of last week, but being back home in the every day shuffle was EXHAUSTING! (ok, and I do admit, teaching class last Monday morning sent my legs into an OFF THE CHARTS soreness threshold - nothing compared to IM!)

However, the fact that I was pretty immediately craving triathlon again did give me a reality check that I think I really do love this sport as a lifestyle. I truly crave the discipline that it provides in my life; I like knowing what I need to do, when I need to do it, why I need to do it...so I do it! It's pretty simple - until you try to get it all into the calendar in the doses needed, then bottled into a life that contains an amazing husband and two active boys (who are begging to be on the lake daily now!) Its the size of the container and the doses you choose that make the lifestyle different for all of us. As a wife, mom, friend and athlete, I refuse to let the doses leak into other parts of my life. Summertime is the roots of my relationship with Steve; countless hours on the lake behind the boat (right now he'd need to row really fast in the kayak because we're "boatless" - gotta love being married to a boat dealer ;)~ surfing, rowing, wakeskating, camping at the coast - that all epitomizes summer in our family - which shrinks the container that the triathlon doses fit into. So be it. There are too many other good things in life to compromise it all.

Life is good - and life rolls on. Another IM? Definitely. When? TBD. Maybe fall; maybe next year. Right now high doses aren't necessary, as I have other activities (and three boys) callin' my name. But you never know when that bug that's crawling around inside of me will start rising to the surface and make me hit "send" again. :-) Stay tuned!

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