
Sometimes life gives you rest days.

Yup, that is a duck in the small blue kennel. Yes we took a duck to the vet yesterday; pretty crazy day. Nothing quite like having just stepped out of the shower to have a tender-hearted 10 year old come running in with tears streaming to say. "Star is missing and Bungee is hurt or something" From the picture you can see how the rest of my day went. What is not pictured is the trip to the farm store to buy "reinforcements" for the duck mansion that the critters were ripped from sometime in the night, and the ensuing 4-5 hours out in the rain trying my best to see that I do not spend another day or another dollar at the vets office.

Many of you are aware that I am training for a race in Hawaii that has special significance to me. That race is now less than 130 days away. Days like yesterday do not really help in the preparation for a race that I have put so much pressure on myself to perform well in. Or does it?

Coach Matt Dixon had a saying when I was listening to him speak in Boise that went something like "Sometimes life gives you rest days." My thought yesterday was "Life is sure giving me a lot of rest days."

When I initially started my journey back to racing fitness I set for myself a pretty lofty goal of getting on the age group podium at Hawaii 70.3. Since setting that goal a funny thing has happened along the way, called life. Last night was tough for me from the standpoint of feeling my goal slip away from me. I felt that I was almost at a crossroads, knowing full well that 128 days is not enough time to get to my lofty goal. So I feel like I have a choice; I can choose to hold onto a goal that may not be realistic anymore and go through the next four months frustrated. Or, I can take each day as it comes to me and stop making excuses on days when I "just don't feel it," knowing full well that life will bring me real rest days (like when I end up hauling a wounded duck and my son with his tear stained face to the veterinarians office).

I choose to take each day as it comes, get more organized, and execute my training the best I can within the context of real life. Real life includes vet visits, sick kids, aging parents, 4H shows, horse riding lessons, a business to run and grow, mending fences to keep out the predators, and whatever else life throws at us.

Here is how I see today unfolding. Once I get done hand feeding and getting this duck to take its medicine I am headed out to run in the pouring rain, a run that has some real promise, because these legs got an extra rest day!

Bring on Hawaii 70.3!!!!! It's going to be awesome!

P.S. Bungee, the duck, is hanging in there for now, but it will likely be a long recovery.