Swimming Wears Me Out

Having been a less-than-athletically inclined person most of my life, I find that my recent jump into triathlon is testing my limits in more ways than I'd anticipated.

(My athletic experience prior to the last few years was limited to a few years on a little girls' soccer team -- I played fullback, not because I was great at the position, but probably because it was where I could do the least harm to the team's chances -- and a few years of figure skating in college. There was no hope of my being the next Olympic medalist, but I loved it and had a good coach. Oh, and there was that brief dip into the world of aerobics in the early 80s, from which the only lasting result was that visions of women in leg warmers doing leg lifts pop into my head whenever I hear Prince's "1999".)

I'm not good with nebulous goals. When Vic and I chatted one night, during our first year of marriage, about wanting to get in better shape, I knew I'd need a specific goal to work toward. The "getting in better shape" would have to be an unavoidable side benefit to pursuing the main goal. So doing a short triathlon seemed like a good idea. At the time, of course, we had no children and I was working four days a week. Plenty of time and energy for training.

Fast forward to today. I'm training for a half Ironman. My beyond-full-time job is raising two preschoolers, managing a home, and being a godly wife to my wonderful husband. Very little time or energy for training. It's true that if I'm mentally tired from wrangling the kids all day going for a run or heading to the garage to bike can actually be refreshing. What I wasn't expecting is that being physically tired from exercise can cause my brain to cease functioning. This morning I took the kids to preschool and went to the gym to swim. A mile and an hour later, I hopped back in the van, picked up the kids, and took them home for lunch. By the time lunch was over and their nap/quiet time had begun, I could barely think straight. This post has taken a ridiculously long time to compose because my mind simply won't string thoughts together.

No big conclusions here, I guess -- just an observation. I probably shouldn't do a hard workout before needing to appear a relatively competent and coherent adult.