Exhausted - it finally caught up with me

I have always had the water balloon mentatility meaning that people are like water balloons and that we under estimate our ability to expand based upon the contents. What I mean is, people make excuses for not stretching themselves and taking on more and more. Well, my water balloon popped over the weekend!

Coach Jennifer Meyer really is a huge proponent of not taking on too much. Everyhting taxes the body and you have to be careful not to take on too much. Everything has a load and it is all cumulative. She measures training load however, I think there needs to be a "life load" measurement also. Recently my training load has been average but my life load has been through the roof and it all caught up with me this weekend.

Plesae keep in mind, I am not complaining. Being busy and productive is great however, I have had a lot going on. I have several new initiatives at work, a new office, possibly purchasing a new business, home construction, knee injusry, training load, work travel, new work schedule, Church demands and my new role there, plus growing kids and personal commitments. Long story short is that Saturday I reached saturation and literally could have taken a 3 hour nap (I have never really been able to nap BTW). Rene and I had a joint swim lesson with Hap Gentry (an absolutely fantastic swim coach) that I didn't want to miss (I could write and entire entry on that alone). We got home in time for our Saturday Night. Rene and I had commitments and didn't get home until late and I bonked. As I crawled in bed my throat was killing me, I had a headache and was physically and mentally exhausted. I couldn't sleep and felt so bad in the night I got up, tooks some meds and went back to bed on two different occasions. BTW... if you have never used Zycam for a cold I highly recommend it. Within a few hours of basically snorting the stuff my sore throat went away. I ended up sleeping most of Sunday only getting up to take in some food. I finally roused around 4:00pm and knew I had a brick to get finished and thought the sweating and getting my heart pumping would do me some good. I am traveling again this week and know I am not going to be able to get all of my workouts in. My first tri is Memphis in May and it is in 83 days so I know these bricks are important. Plus I need to keep intelligently testing my knee (which is showing signs of getting better).

I was able to get my brick done and it ended up feeling pretty good. I was run down but it wasn't a tempo but a nice aerobic brick so it wasn't super taxing. I took 30 minutes in the middle to eat dinner with the family. Took a shower and helped put clothes away (a Sunday night ritual).

Yesterday it really hit me how big of an impact this is on my family. The kids miss me not being around and Rene's load has picked up considerably. I don't know how or if I can make this up to my family. My ony hope is that one day my children will understand how big of a deal this is for me and how important it is to set goals and focus on them. I have gained some time by sleeping less but even that has a price. The toll of less sleep is far from free and I am only now figuring out how much it actually costs. I hope this is like most and eventually "my balloon" and my families balloon will stretch accordingly. Damn this goal is such a selfish one. I know there has to be a payoff for my family. I know and understand my payoff but the families payoff is only hope at this point. I truly hope this isn't an empty goal that I am the only benefactor! Only time will tell!

Coach Jennifer Meyer (www.trismartusa.com) has given me a repeat week with light running to make sure my knee fully recovers which is great. I will be in Florida this week so I will be able to run outside (hopefully).

Well it is a new week. I have several important meetings today plus a meeting at church at 3pm, Swim at 4(ish), haircut and Kathryn has dance class coupled with Rene's meeting tonight. It is another roller derby night but again, we are all balloons right? Better to stretch periodically than never know what our capacity really is.

Tracy Butler