Oh what a mess...

In a bid to de-clutter our lives for our impending journey towards next years Ironman we're spending every possible hour working on the house. So, this weeks blog is a joint one as we throw ourselves and Tom's mum and Ray into a race against the clock to re-decorate our whole house... more of this in a mo.

Firstly, our fragility in life was brought home this week after a friend of ours - Mark Redwood was out cycling with his mate Pete when both were hit by a car and are consequently laid up in hospital with serious injuries. Only two weeks ago Mark was running Dublin marathon with Tom and Tony B and now after someone's impatience and utter thoughtlessness running will be the farthest thing from Mark's mind as he swaps his Austria Ironman triathlon training program for the things that are going to get him on the road to recovery as soon as possible. Both Tom and I are hoping to get to see him next week. I think we can all get a bit blinkered (I'm particularly guilty of it) when we have a set goal and nothing will get in our way as we strive towards it. Ironman training steals your life but it doesn't replace it with a bad alternative it just sends you down a very narrow and focused tunnel and I know that my measley two month non running patch have sometimes made me feel like my whole world has imploded. What's a splodge of tendonitis between friends though when there are things out there like Mark's accident that make you reassess and change your goals, and we hope that Mark is doing that. We just kept repeating the fact that we were just so relieved that both he and his mate were alive, that's the most important thing. So Mark and Pete, if you have access to t'internet and you're reading this, heal strong and we hope to visit you soon.

For this week training has been sporadic for me and non-existent for Tom after he ripped his feet apart in last weeks Cross Country race. We're desperately trying to get everything sorted in our lives so that when we get on that narrow Ironman road our minds and space are clean and clutter free. Tom's mum and Ray are our light at the end of a very long DIY tunnel. They're fantastic and full of enthusiasm even at midnight when Tom reckons we 'can get another coat of paint on before bed!' so we thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their continuous help. We've set ourselves the difficult task of decorating every room in our house in 5 days. We've got 2 days left and are doing well but this blog is going to stay short and sweet so that we can get back on it. It's 22.15pm, the picture at the top is basically the floor in our bedroom and we can't get into the room to sleep until another room is painted and sorted so we shall sign off for now and prepare for our last week of un-scheduled training.

sleep well,

T & H x