So this is how it's gonna be? Life priorities need to be clear!

From October to March, I had a great winter training season. I was well on my way to meeting all my goals. In fact, in late March and early April, I did meet two specific running and biking goals when I biked twenty four miles in one hour at a specific resistance on the trainer and then a sub-18 minute three mile.  I knew things would change when Noah was born, and they have indeed changed. As I write this, I'm supposed to be at the pool for a swim this morning, but little Noah didn't want to go back to sleep after his Mommy fed him. So I got to stay up (get up out of bed early, really) with him.

In all reality, training is going much better than I thought it would, and I'm getting more workouts than I did when Paul was really small. So, things aren't all that bad. I'm getting in almost the equivalent volume of last year's workouts. I'm just not getting what I want to get this year. I have to learn to live with it. 

This is why I put in my annual training plan that family will always have priority. Tera was so nice and AWESOME this morning when she was trying to figure out how she was going to get back to sleep while I went for my swim and Noah continued to stay awake and cry. She didn't want to ask me to not workout. Of course, the reality was that I needed to cut my swim and take care of the baby, and it was a no-brainer that I should have been telling her that I would do that so she could get some sleep.  In my not-quite-awake stupor, I got frustrated with her for not just asking straight-out to take care of the kid, when I should have been happy that she was trying to figure out how to balance the kids and my workouts.

This year was going to be tough no matter what because we have a newborn in the house. Throw in a 2 1/2 year old and some other competing priorities, and all of sudden there is angst and stress.  Honestly, though, that stress starts to go away when I watch Noah sleeping and making all of his sleep-noises as I drink some coffee and watch the sun come up...God's miracle of life!

I really wonder how the people who train for full distance Ironman events find the time. When I first started this triathlon stuff, I wanted to do an Ironman. Now I don't have any desire because I know I simply don't have time with two kids in the house. I'm having trouble finding time to be competitive at the Olympic distance, and that really only needs 12-14 hours per week to be competitive.  

I can get the first eight hours pretty easily on a couple of mornings and one hour at lunch each day, and I will do ok on that kind of volume. But it's the last four to six that I want so I can be competitive.  On the good days, I get up early and do a bike and maybe a short swim before the kids get up at 7:00am. Then I run at lunch. It's not always easy to get up in the morning, and if I set my goals too high, I tend to blow off the entire workout if I'm tired, when I should simply adapt my goals and do something shorter and/or easier. All of that then combines with the days that I want to workout but can't because I have to take care of the kids in some way. 

For me, I know that Tera and the boys take precedence over these daily workouts, and I have written it into my overall triathlon philosophy and annual training plan. It's an easy choice for me, if you can even call it a "choice;" I just have to remind myself sometimes. And then I need to make sure I get out of bed and workout on those days that the kids are cooperating.