Balance

Life, according to all the women's magazines that I read in the checkout line at the grocery store, is all about balance. Balancing work and social life, balancing friends with family, balancing your diet, balancing yourself upside down (yoga magazine- Whole Foods check out lane). Triathlon is about balance to a great degree as well: balancing the three sports, balancing nutrition, etc. The problem is: Ironman leaves little time for balance. There is something, I guess, that is not very balanced about spending most of your weekend working out. In some ways, I've come to grips with it. I understand that I've made a choice to do Ironman, which is going to take a lot of my social life away from me. I'm fine with that.
The problem lies with balancing Ironman with the rest of life. I've somehow been managing to work out AND do my job (anyone who thinks that teachers work a six hour day can try doubling that). It is the rest of life that is turning out to be tricky. It is not until one is extremely pressed for time that one realizes how much maintenance life requires: it is not until one wakes up one morning and realizes that one has nothing to wear that is clean, that there is no food in the house, that there is a stack of unread papers on the floor by the door (when was the last time that that floor was mopped? or the carpet vacuumed? or anything dusted?), and while running to the car (in an outfit from three years ago, gnawing on an apple that one found [?!] in the crisper) realizes that all the gas in the car was used up on that trip to Wisconsin but never replaced. The hardest thing about Ironman might not actually be the training (although I'm not going to lie, it hasn't been easy and doesn't appear to be getting any easier), but keeping a hold on continuing to be a functioning adult capable of feeding, cleaning, and maintaining oneself while training for Ironman.
Thank goodness for summer vacation.