Prioritising...

A hectic weekend has pushed the blog to being written today! Apologies for that but sometimes there just isn't enough hours, minutes, seconds and priorities have to be made.

Priorities have to be made every day, all day, everything from the food we eat to the amount of time we sleep, see friends, see family, train, rest, write blogs, take photographs...everything has a priority. What we don't always realise is that the brevity of that priority can often get distorted. Take training for Ironman or any other race for instance. If you're serious about it you give it your all, sometimes to the detriment of others. You have to be selfish in some shape or form otherwise you wouldn't always be able to give your all so that's certainly not a negative or bad thing. Paula Radcliffe, Lance Armstrong, Chris McCormack...they couldn't excel in their sports without that selfishness. But this week has been a mixed one for both Tom and I. As you know we give our all in training, we still try to keep our priorities in some kind of order but basically our lives revolve around our training. It dictates when we eat, when we sleep and if we can make dinner with friends or not.

Tom's pa, Brian was coming over for the weekend and so we pushed our training to take up the whole of the week so we could have an entire weekend off to spend time with him. Brian lives in Geneva so he & Tom don't get to see as much of each other as they'd like, although they are always on the phone to each other, but that's never quite the same. The reason I'm telling you this is that our good friend Andy (who is also training for Ironman Switzerland) lost his 19yr old son last Saturday in what was a tragic accident. It's been a terrible week for him and his family, as you can imagine, but he has a great support network around him, an amazing wife and good friends. It opened my eyes to the real world again, having been in the Ironman training bubble for a good few months. The outcome doesn't matter, it really doesn't. I've always said I just want to enjoy things, do my best and be happy with how I perform. That hasn't changed, but seeing how lucky Tom and I are that we can concentrate on something that actually really doesn't matter makes my Ironman priority look a little different now. Tom took Andy out for a long, long ride last week, and his other friends are all there for him to get him out of the door. Ironman Switzerland is still a priority for Andy but now it sits in a very different place. It's there to get him out of bed when he doesn't feel like it, tire him out so he can sleep when he doesn't feel like it, make him eat when he doesn't feel like it and spend time on his own, a very hard thing to do right now.

The loss of Joel made this weekend more poignant. Tom and I got to spend quality time walking in the Dales with Brian, and just generally spending relaxed time with him. Tom is certainly a chip off the old block. They could talk for hours about how something works, or doesn't work for that matter, their boyish inquisitive minds tick tocking over what I see (as a girl) as the oddest things. My dad buggered off when I was 3, I saw him until I was 7 and since then haven't seen or heard from him, so I lost my father figure in life. My ma thankfully found herself a wonderful man in Bob who I've grown up with since I was 13 or 14yrs old and it's great to spend time with him, he & my brother are the father figures I never had, but mostly he makes my ma very happy, that's more than I could wish for. I loved seeing the bond between Brian & Tom, it's a truly special one and so full of love and respect and I hope it's something we can replicate with our own kids one day. We spent Father's day in Reading with a whole load of the Williams clan who had descended from many corners of the world to celebrate Brian's Uncle Johnny's 80th birthday. Time with family is certainly special.

I have to avoid blogging about this week (seeing as it's Wednesday already) but I do want to wish my brother Happy Birthday for yesterday, it was great seeing you Kid, as always. But more about that adventure on Sunday!!

Before I go, I must say a HUGE well done to Ray (Tom's Step-Dad) who is currently cycling his way around France and doing incredibly well, can't wait to hear all about it Ray :)
And Alison, we'll be following your debut Ironman progress on Sunday, we can't wait, GOOD LUCK.

Oh.. and training's gone well this week :) And of course here's this week in pix, Week Twenty already!

H. x