The harsh reality of training for an Ironman when you have children....

The last few weeks with school holidays have been, to put it mildly, NOT a holiday!  The training itself has not been challenging or grueling or taxing, just the normal day to day stuff.  My coach has even listened to my rants and started giving me rest days!   BUT... Where my children used to be in care between 9-2.30ish and I would have trained or worked, they have been home.  I only ever wanted to work as little as possible while my kids were young so that I could spend lots of quality time with them in these formative years.  I'm not sure of the quality of this time over the last few weeks though.  To sum it up - I've been a tired and grumpy mummy.

While running this morning, I tried to break down why I feel I have completely fallen apart in the last 2 weeks.  I came to this conclusion.. I don't think so much that I am physically tired, but I think the holidays have made me mentally exhausted.

• Exhausted from having to work out/juggle what to do with the kids while I'm training/working.  During the term time, this does all fall into place as I have the time while they are at kindy or school to fit everything in.  Yes, it takes a bit of juggling, but it works.
• Exhausted from feeling guilty for leaving them in care while I work or train.  I have always wanted to spend as much time with the kids as possible outside of school hours and especially in the holidays as this is their down-time too... 
• Guilty from wishing the time away so that they are back to school or kindy.  I used to love the holidays for the fact that we could relax and have lots of fun together. I know that we can still do this, maybe if I could work out how to make this time more manageable.
• Tired from not having any 'down-time' straight after a long session.  This time is extremely important to get my head out of training zone and back into parenting zone.  My kids are pretty full on (understatement) so there is no downtime when you are with them.  It is full on from wake time to sleep time!
• Guilty from using Georja too much as a built in babysitter. I am forever trying to not use Georja too much to look after the boys.  She doesn't mind helping out for the few times a week that we have 'booked' her in. 

So these holidays have been a huge wake up call for the next 10 months.  My goal to finish Ironman remains the same.  But how I am going to manage this, is going to take a bit of tweaking. I know it is 100% achievable as thousands of people have done it before me!  So I just need to find a way to make it work for all of us and continue to smile, breathe, mother, wife, work and train! Easy!

My children - Georja 15, Max (on bike) 4yrs and Lockie 5yrs.