Triathletic Toddler

Run at race pace, repeat, then cycle, vary the intensity, some hill climbs, some flat grinds and then into the pool and pump the water, hard. Check the bike, get the transitions right, race tactics sorted, gear, nutrition, hydration, stay well, don't overtrain, don't under-train...

While training for an actual triathlon is intense in its own right, coordinating work, family life & the actual training is the behind the scenes triathlon; only considerably more intense. Just like a triathlon you have to work at each element to make it fit in with the others or they all fall into chaos. And so goes my life of living at the edge of my capacity. It's been a lot of fun, though in the past few days I've found what it's like just over that edge, my body has spoken and it said 'too much' so I've been forced into relative rest for a few days (you see you can never really truly rest if you're serious about triathlon). While you can rest from training it's a lot more tricky to rest from work and family especially as the growing toddler (above) doesn't know what stop means (a bit like her daddy). Now confidently walking (and swimming of course) she is taking her own directions, sometimes on her tricycle making her technically the triathletic toddler.

And now my race is just 5 days away. It's been a long road and I've done the best I can for the time and limitations I have, I think. But it's not over yet, there is still more work to be done and a race to be won, or at least to be pushed to the edge. And then I will really rest, and the rest will be sweet, fleeting, but sweet.

Sunday March 30

The Red Eye from Perth last Tuesday was just fine thank you very much - Business class on a 747 is pretty nice (even though it's not international business class - more premium economy I guess) it was the crash landing into the new week that was hellish. Arrived to more work than I could possibly deal with, and then a rapidly developing laryngitis which took me right out of the work equation for a day or more, and then so far behind it was like picking up after a war. I still have a husky voice that makes men and women beg for more (and the more I give the less voice I have to give) deep deep down... Darth Vader eat your heart out.

Of course I then went racing today in the ocean blue - the race of all races - the one I've been training for all year right here at my home beach!!... and I'm sick, I'M BLOODY SICK, like I've not had much of an appetite for a few days, nose is digusting - we won't go there, but the muscle aches and pains are gone (or is that the aspirin I took for the headache this morning?) I still have my fitness, but there ain't no extra left for the surge to the beach. Mentally I'm not helped by the coughing along the course - not frequent - but a reminder that I'm not at my peak - even though I do try and ignore the reminder and push on - which I do - to finish a respectable 16th out of 'almost 300'. Can you complain? But I wanted top 10! I wanted to beat everyone in my age group! That run up the beach today felt like I hadn't been running at all, all year! Bloody hell, I deserved a medal just to get to the finishing line!

A cute guy from Tamarama surf club greeted me over a banana at the end - seriously - so I was pleasantly distracted from my aches and pains for a while. Then The Frenchman arrived, much later in the pack than he'd normally like - but he was sick too - so I was relieved that he actually finished (I think he wanted a cute lifesaver to bring him home). His family there to greet him - all the way from France - I don't think anything would stop him competing either.

It was the perfect day today too, warm and sunny with just a light breeze - we had a gathering for lunch at ours' and had the most chilled out day - with spectacular light a great group of people and a great birthday celebration for The Frenchman's dad. A sojourn to the beach here in the afternoon for some playing in the sand with the kids and swimming in the surf, the perfect end to the weekend.

Here we have The Frenchman's mum serving home made birthday cake with Champagne.

See, the light really was awesome!

Friday

I wake up at the hospital and the day is overcast but warm. I have slept 5 hours but feel exhausted and as I plunge into the pool for my morning laps I feel as energetic as a cat fallen off a skyscraper balcony for the 10th time... But I manage to swim up and back a few times and feel more awake by the time I sit down at diggies for breakfast by the beach with my good friend Janet.

While there's not a lot of direct sunlight there is a hell of a lot of sparkle coming from the ring glued to her finger. The cluster of pink and white diamonds announcing She's Engaged!! (Note, I never really take notice of these things and she probably waved it around for hours and had to actually point it out before I noticed it - the classic gay best friend it would seem I am not...). Despite my slow uptake I'm quite thrilled. She's a real catch and why it's taken this long for the straight men in this world to notice I simply don't understand. Finally I've also moved to second place in her mum's books which a whole lot healthier place for me to be. While I'm there not noticing the ring, I am noticing the incredibly hunky guy wandering around dressed just in a towel and surfboard, he has a chest and back to die for and the rest ain't so bad either, so in those few minutes I think we must have been discussing wedding plans - because I don't recall any.

Then I head to work for the day where the most remarkable experience is standing in a hospital room for a palliative care consultation while an entire family piles into the room, surrounding me. There must have been a dozen people entering the small room. Why some of them didn't pass out I'm not sure, but I felt like it myself at one point as I didn't really feel for euthanasia talks right there and then, but such is life, and death. And everyone seemed happy in the end. If you really can in such circumstances.

So after work I head back to the pool and gym. I'm still feeling like that cat in the pool from this morning, so get out early and take my weary body to the gym. I remember to take the ipod which has become my gym buddy and it energises me with a random selection it chooses perfectly. I lose count of how many abdominal exercises I do and feel happy moving about the gym as if in another world, oblivious to everyone around me. Somehow this makes me feel mysterious and interesting, even though right now I'm neither mysterious nor interesting. I'm introduced to a cute guy called 'Hussein' and all I can think of is how I really shouldn't say anything related to his name as it would be inappropriate, but he has the cutest smile and still I have Saddam and Iraq and 'The War on Terror' going through my head and say nothing much because I can't think of anything else right now and I'm so fatigued and it really doesn't matter - this is the gym and I'm being mysterious anyway.

And so on my way home I realise I've left my work shoes at the pool, my head somewhere in the clouds, and tomorrow morning (yes Saturday) I have to work again...

Writing in the Air

I'm now in possession of a dictaphone, so that my new secretary can type up my letters when I see my palliative care patients. I have been writing my own for the past 9 years or so, and the whole idea of writing a letter in my head is quite foreign. I'm visualising my previous letters as a template in my head, and speaking them out with the new details as appropriate, but my written communication is much more concise than my spoken word it would seem by the letters I've been proofing today... new paragraph

It will free up time to see more patients P - A - T - I - E - N - T - S though comma which is really the most rewarding part of the job stop It's just kinda odd comma but I'll get used to it stop end of post