A friend of mine completed a major feat this past weekend.  She completed an Ironman triathlon.

Unless you've had your head in video games all your life, you have an idea that this is a hard thing to do.  It's not kind of thing you get up and say to yourself, "I think I'll do an Ironman Triathlon today."  Just to outline what qualifies as an Ironman: 3.8km swim, followed by 180.2km bike ride, and to finish, 42.2km; the distance of a full marathon.  (And yes, the 0.2km and 0.8km tacked on each section make a difference!)

Being a runner, I know that as exciting as the race is it's not about the finish.  Oh, the finish feels good.  Especially when you cross that Ironman line and they say your name followed by, "you ARE an Ironman!"  I'm sure that feels pretty damn awesome.  The real work is getting to the start line.  Getting up in the mornings knowing you have get a run in here, squeeze in a ride over lunch, and may be a quick swim before that bedtime.  It's giving up dinner plans or bar nights because you have to be up early.  Time away from family, partners, friends.  That sacrifice on top of the dedication and work to get your body in shape to finish even one of the portions makes it an emotional journey as well as spiritual one.  It's a commitment.  Almost akin to a marriage, albeit a temporary one.

Now that being said, these people are crazy.  The fastest record is 6 hours.  That's an insane rate of speed for doing all this, especially when you consider how hard it is to get out of a wetsuit and remove the sand from your feet before you put your shoes on.  I think the majority of competitors take the day.  Not 24 hours, but all the daylight.  Up at dawn, start in the morning and finish sometime around your normal bedtime.

She might get mad that I picked the sweaty post-race picture.

Eva did it in 14 hours, 23 minutes and 57 seconds.  And no, I absolutely will not round that up to 14:24.  In fact, I will beat you with a bicycle pump if you do.

I could gush about her history a little and get all sentimental.  She's melted herself in half.  From being very overweight (I don't think she'd get mad if I used the word obese) to getting off the couch and walking into the Running Room for her first walking clinic.  She's swum, spun, run and rode.  She quite literally worked her ass off.  That's enough sentimental.  Eva's squishy, but she'd rather I move on.

The funny and amazing thing about her running that race is that so many people were with her.  She had her own little cheering squad that went, but there were others back home that tracked her online and updated each other on her progress as she went.  (Ain't technology fucking awesome?)  Every so often a text or message would pop up on a phone or online to say where she was and how she was doing and once in a while someone would post to ask where she was on the course.  Happy and vicariously running through her, it was so frustrating when I had no one to high five.  (Hubby wouldn't play along.)

Even though I did nothing but watch a black screen of numbers intermittently throughout the day, I was giddy when she finished.

Good job, Eves.  We are all so proud.

(And for the record, she can get out of a wetsuit and clean her feet in 8 minutes and 41 seconds.)

(Somewhat) Unemployed

I was the donkey that didn't realize the size of the pack he was carrying until the horse next to him asked if it was heavy.

When I started my journey to become an educator, teaching what I do and inspiring and mentoring students, I didn't honestly expect I'd end up here.  At least not so fast.  Despite my own personal knowledge that the part-time hours I desired couldn't be offered by current employer, my heart still sank with the confirmation that I had to make a choice:  give up what I've known and loved for a third of my life (and leave my friends at the clinic) to pursue a dream and take on a new role I believe I was born to play.

And so here I am: "between jobs".  Not unemployed since I still have two courses I'm teaching, but I'm currently seeking part-time hours and as a back up plan, getting information on setting myself up as a contract locum (freelance RVT.)

While all this was going on, I was also preparing for taking on twice the course load I had before, training for a very unique race and trying to keep up my end of things on the homefront (mowing, cooking, etc.)  I have been stuck in a cycle that I wasn't sure how to pull out of.  Working, teaching, training, searching.  Lots of "ings" there, but most of all disappointing and draining.

I have an interview this week.  The first one out of half a dozen resumes I've sent out.  (Admittedly also the only one that was actually advertising for a position.)

How does it feel to be semi-employed?  Exciting, frightening, liberating, stressful.  I can't speculate about what's to come.  I can dream about it and enjoy the scenarios I make up in my head, but I have to stay focused and create my path.

For now, I'll settle with creating some dinner.

This Workaholic is off the wagon. :(

I'm in the cycle.  Dammit.  This isn't a good thing.  When I'm at the clinic, I struggle to leave.  When I'm at the college, I struggle to leave.  I surf vet sites and our website when I'm not at the clinic, mark papers, surf the college site when I'm not at school.

I have fallen off the wagon and I don't know how to get back on.  I currently have the following things on my personal "to do" list:

1. Mark papers
2. Plan Easter dinner and clean the house
3. Lesson plan
4. Re-pot umbrella tree
5. Add soil to money tree pot
6. Rake yard (and look into ordering big bag o' dirt for top dressing)
7. Recalculate budget
8. Start training for Staircase Challenge
9. Bookkeeping and file HST, prep books for accountant.
10. Shop for Alyssa's birthday gift.

And that's just between now and Monday (5 days), plus I have to work 12 hrs Thursday and have Run Club Wednesday night.

It feels so good to be busy, but I also feel like the kid that is stuck at the kitchen table doing homework while I see through the window the other kids are playing outside.  How did I break this cycle last time?  What changed?  What did I do?  There has to have been something I just need to find it.  

It's 11:30pm after getting up at 5:30am.  Good lord, I'm tired; that's a long day.  And I'm still surfing the college website for instructions on grading while I type this.  *sigh*  When should I start?  Tomorrow?  Monday?  I'm on holidays from the clinic and already have plans to work my butt off next week.  So Monday.  Monday, I prioritize.  Monday, I step back and really look at what I'm doing to myself.  

Monday, I have a SWOT meeting and three hours of class and hopefully a meeting with the Learning Tech Specialist in between.  So Monday night then.  Yeah.  Monday night.

When is church not in a church?

Do you go to church?  I don't.  Well, not really.  Not formal church as you know it.  Although, in my books I go to "church" twice a week.  It's just not what you think.

Why do people go to church?  There are a lot of reasons.  Community, support, faith, spirituality, connection... all very good reasons.  I don't go to a formal church for separate reasons.  There is structure, dogma, penalties, confession, sin...  all very negative aspects.  And for some people, a sense of superiority or entitlement ends up being the result.  I don't like that and so I don't go.  I get my kicks elsewhere: the Running Room.

Yep - a running store.  Strange to think that almost 4 years ago, I looked at the sign on the side of the road and  thought, "I should run."  So I signed up for a Learn to Run clinic.  What initially started out as a bid to lose weight and get out of work on time ended up being a major change in my life.

Besides exercise and health, I found mental health and support.  Friends that will laugh, cry, slap you on the back and give you a kick in the ass.  We don't know a lot about each other, but we know things that can be much more intimate.  I couldn't tell you a runner's profession or last name, but I can tell you their stresses or triumphs.  The lowest moments or the highest highs.  Watching them struggle through a brutal training run, or hugs and high-fives at a finish line.  There's nothing superficial about that and it makes me want to be a better person.  That's what church should do.

So the Running Room is my church.  Every Wednesday night and Sunday morning, I join in, lace up and hit the road.  It's cathartic and inspirational all at the same time.

So the next time you feel guilty for not making it to church recently, don't beat yourself up.  Look around - have you encouraged another person?  Have you just listened and supported someone?  Vented or just talked to another?  That counts.  Making the world a better place others as well as yourself really is the whole purpose behind religion in the first place, wasn't it?

Busy? Or "Too" Busy?

Slept in until 7:00am (yes, that's sleeping in!) and hit the ground running.  A quick tea while I picked through the flyers and made up the grocery list, then dishes away, dishwasher loaded, litterboxes scrubbed, garbage taken out, showered and changed and out to do some errands as well as actually buying those groceries and getting dinner made.

The end of a busy day.  There is something bittersweet about the end of a busy day.  Satisfying in that there is a lot that has been accomplished.  Knowing that you can rest without guilt because you did something today.  And that really is a good feeling.  There's a pride there.  Knowing that you can carve a certain number of notches in your belt and say, "Look what I did!"

It's a drug.  And addicting, negative-feedback loop.  You plan or do all these things.  They might be several little mundane tasks or a couple of larger projects.  Either way, you end up trying to do more and more.  It's not enough to get the day-to-day done!  Let's start something new!  Baking bread, repotting plants, designing a back deck, sign up for a night school course, join a community club... it can go on forever.

The sad part is that you spent your day running around, writing things up, or just plain getting it done.  Did you stop to enjoy that bit of sunshine?  That tea you drank... was it hot and sweet?  Did that beautiful stir-fry with fluffy basmati disappear within minutes or did you actually savour and enjoy it?

My problem is that I'm addicted to the drug and I've set myself up for the workaholic's equivalent of a cocaine 8-ball.  Full-time hours at the clinic, bookkeeping on the side, and teaching an Animal Nutrition course.  It's very easy to get caught up in my own little world that way.  I forget that I have family to keep in touch with, that there are friends I promised to have over for lunch, or movies I wanted to see.

How to get back to that balance?  Trimming the duties?  I'm not sure where to trim.  When I have some time, I'll have to look at that.  I know what I want.  I know where I want to be.  Now how do I balance that?