We are still on vacation. For the past two weeks I have been with Joe and the boys around the Northeast. My Coach’s instructions were to have fun but “stay active,” and I did. I would use the local YMCA for spinning and swimming and we went canoeing, white water rafting, and such. It wasn’t training, and miraculously I wasn’t concerned. I say miraculously because I had been concerned about my sprained ankle and not following my training plan until recently.

I guess I got used to being off plan, and now I was having a great time with my family, and making memories, what families on vacations should do. I refused to freak out.

I have a Wolfpack teammate who really is super mom. This woman is an incredible athlete – as in she not only qualifies for Boston every year but she does a sub-12 Ironman too. She has three young boys, and like me, her dedication to them is complete. So, in order to be an amazing athlete and a present mom, she is known for doing her long rides at night, on her trainer, and I don’t mean a couple of hours either. She has done up to 120 miles at home, in the middle of the night. All this so that she can spend the day with her kids. Once, after one of these hundred mile trainer rides at night, she then posted a picture of her with her kids riding those bikes at the zoo, as if the hundred miles weren’t enough.

I was in awe. Because there is no way I am that dedicated. If I rode through the night I would be tired, cranky and feeling somewhat entitled. “Of course I can yell, I am tired, I rode through the night so I could be with you right now and you are throwing a tantrum.” I would be very capable of saying things like that.

Then I met some of the women on a facebook group and again, these ladies are known to be up at 4:30am to fit in their workouts before the kids get up.

These women inspire and intimidate me in the same breath. Yet I’ve made progress. I can now recognize how amazing they are without feeling like a bum for not having the same discipline.

We are all different with individual needs and goals. I cannot, or better yet, I am not willing, to do that sort of thing because I know me, and I know that I would be one miserable person by 3:00pm. Vacations are a time to rest, relax and create memories. I need rest to function, or at least to function with a shot at being graceful; if I get too hungry or tired … get out of the way. I don’t want to put my family through that.

So these vacations, I relaxed. I know I can still build endurance, and the speed may or may not come. There is still a lot of time for the race and I can adjust my expectations as I get closer. But these days we just had together? They are definitely not going to happen again … Well, actually, I just booked our tickets for Arizona and we are all going. The boys will miss a whole week of school after the race as we travel around the state. But for that trip, I won’t have to worry about any sort of training!

I COULD have technically gone to the YMCA at 5:00am and cycled indoors for three hours to get my long ride in. But I didn’t. Because instead I stayed up past mid night almost every night with my in-laws and my kids playing (and often losing) in Gin Rummy; I was not about to get up at the crack of dawn. Instead this is how it went:

Sunday: Is canoeing considered cross training?

Monday: BIKE: Spin class at the YMCA. To get to the Y, I had to walk mostly downhill for 1.5 miles and then back up.

Tuesday: White Water Rafting – could that be considered cross training?

Wednesday: Overslept. Oops.

Thursday: BIKE – 1 hour at the YMCA. I ran a little bit on the way back.

Friday: RUN! I ran for the first time in three weeks: 5 miles. The ankle held up fine, my lungs … not so much.

Saturday: RUN/BIKE We travelled in the afternoon so I ran the 1.5 miles to the YMCA and rode the stationary bike for 45 mins.

Sunday: BIKE. Finally an honest bike ride with the Specialized Mac Cycle women’s ride. 64 miles. I was a bit out of shape but hung in there.

Next week is time to buckle down … until the weekend when we most likely leave again on a road trip!

How about your week? Did it go as planned?