Life/work/training balance...

It's just amazing how much more I can get done now that I'm not putting in 20+ hrs of training. I'm still swimming 18km a week and after tomorrow's run will have done a solid 55miles of running this week, the bike... well I haven't had time to fit one of those in. But I've had a good week at work and still got to bed at 9pm every night this week and had a leg rest day!!

At run club on Tuesday night I was chatting with my friend Alison who is living her Ironman dream right now and loving it. I told her that I actually felt relieved not to be IM training anymore. I'm hoping this is a sign that I'm happy to move onto pastures shorter, faster and newer (if that's a word).

Tom's signed himself up for Lanza and the new UK Ironman distance event The Outlaw and I've signed up for The Brass Monkey Half Marathon and the London Marathon. I'm liking the change...and the fact that I don't have to get out in the cold, wet, Winter rain to HTFU for hours on end. Somehow I feel like it's easier to do the whole work/training thing too. I often used to get booked for work and try and wangle it so it fitted in with my training. Now I know I can always do a run more-or-less anywhere I am and at more-or-less any time of day, but also if I don't get to run, it doesn't matter and so training is no longer a burdon on my work commitment and vice versa... everyone's a winner. Work has just gone from strength to strength now that I'm concentrating on it a lot more and I've got some exciting shoots lined up in the next few weeks.

One think that can slip by without noticing though is the life/life balance. One thing we have to make sure we schedule into our life is quality time. It's just so easy to let training, eating, sleeping, working all become part of every day life. We train together, we eat our meals together, we go to races together but everything doesn't revolve around triathlon or running and so time aside from training is something that we've worked really hard to achieve. Sometimes I think people think we're maybe a bit too focused or serious about our training but actually we aren't. Of course we want to do well and yes we train hard, but we'd both give it up at the drop of a hat if either one of us wasn't happy or if it was detrimental to our lives together. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to share this kind of selfish lifestyle with Tom, not many people have that.

So, tomorrow I'm doing the Guy Fawkes 10, a hilly (very hilly I hear) run race in Ripley, North Yorkshire. I've saved up this week's HTFU for the weather which is due to be awful for it!! Hope my legs serve me well, they've worked hard already this week.

Today we marshalled at Leeds parkrun and then helped with our mates Red Welly Relay Challenge which saw the girls team thrash the boys!! Well done girls :)

And a happy IM training all you hardcore lot out there, braving the elements to turn those bike Winter miles into IM Summer smiles :) I'll be holding the coats...

H x

Daily pix still here and here...