I have been married to an endurance athlete for almost 15 years now. This man is no weekend warrior. The first 100 miles is the warm-up. I get it now. The idea of having your heart rate at 145 bpm from sun up to sunset is the equivalent to a party animal finishing a Budweiser suitcase over a long day. But today, I was reminded of the hardest endurance event out there. This endurance event makes an Ironman look like a leisurely Sunday stroll. It makes the Paleozoic era seem kinda short. This knuckle dragging, knee buckling, sleepy eyed endurance event is called parenthood. While at my in-laws home today, I watched Chris’s sister bounce, sway and satisfy all of the needs of her 6 month old while trying to keep in step with her two year old. I like to remember myself being adept at this challenge but it’s been a blurry 10 years since I have been in this situation. It may have been this type of dire situation that led me to do an Ironman myself . I remember when Peter was two, Chris would somehow manage to disappear on his bike for hours on end so he could train for his endurance event while I was brought to my knees in my own never ending story. I came to think that there was no better way to get a day off from child rearing than racing for 13 hours myself. I now know I was delusional. What they don’t tell you in the Ironman training manual for mom’s is that no one really watches your kids for you while you train. You swim after bedtime and before they wake you up in the middle of the night. Your kids get pushed everywhere in the jogger…to the grocery store, the library to preschool. Your kid has a baba (with chocolate milk) shoved in his mouth for much longer than the pediatrician would recommend. Mom’s in SUV’s give you dirty looks and a head shake of disdain for your unorthodox child rearing habits. They would think, “Why can’t she just be normal like me”. Truthfully, we were all experiencing the endurance event of child rearing; I just was killing two birds with one stone. Practicing the bike to run transition for a triathlon was similar to a mom changing the baby’s diaper while making dinner at the same time. Speed and determination made for the best transitions. When someone with kids tells you that doing an endurance event is impossible, remind them that they are living one. No endurance event is as hard as raising a kid well. It doesn't take a miracle to get the job done, just hard work. So now that my kids are around the decade mark, it’s like I have just finished the warm-up. There may be a long way to go, but at least I am enjoying the ride.
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