Fortunately, I’ve never been afraid of change so the whole Covid 19 debacle hasn’t really phased me.
There have been moments where I’ve despaired of people, but I’ve learnt over the past few weeks to just ignore the “covidiots” as they seem to have been termed in the media.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve blogged, partly due to a broken finger, which as a touch typist is highly annoying, but also because I was waiting to see how the land was lying.
So change it is! My big year to Ironman Canada at the end of August is finally, officially, OFF!
Here in Australia international travel isn’t going to happen anytime soon and I’m OK with that, it just makes sense, therefore the decision to finally say IM Canada 2020 is a gonna was taken out of my hands.
So, where does that leave me?
I’ve been lucky to maintain pretty good motivation with regards to training. I’ve loved the fact that I’m less stressed due to the downturn in my swim coaching work but still have the TRT News work coming in which is enough to keep me feeling ‘needed’ in a work sense.
I’ve kept Jan writing a training schedule for me every week but we’ve taken a more relaxed approach to it all, after all, what’s the rush?
However, from a coach’s perspective, it must be tough for her to have no real end goal in sight for an athlete and I think Jan would agree that this has given her an opportunity to reassess the why’s of being a coach.
The last time I blogged I was pretty negative, or rather found other peoples’ behaviour just downright irritating which in turn lead to some negativity in how I felt the future might look like. I now realise that ‘no-one’ knows what the new normal will be and so in my old age appear to have found patience and a sense of peace with a whole host of things.
Blessings by the truck load
As I head towards 60 and with the increase in time to reflect, blimey, I’ve had a good life.!
I’ve achieved amazing things in my work life, and I’m still fortunate enough to be in the mix both in the media and in a teaching role.
I’ve been involved in the sport of triathlon for nearly 20 years now and still get a thrill from pushing myself, along with the work I do as a technical official, Women for Tri Associate and Park Run Social Media Ambassador. Who would have thought the girl banned from using the trampoline at school because she kept falling, would achieve so much?
I’ve been married for nearly 33 years and haven’t murdered or been murdered by Allan, but then we’re a team. We’ve moved countries twice, once without having a home to go to or work. We fought to have a family and tackled the adoption system in the UK. We’ve weathered a few accidents and illnesses along the way but we have been lucky to be fit and healthy for most of that time.
So a hiccup in plans to travel and a race really is just that, a hiccup.
To date, Cairns 70.3 is still on the cards at the end of September and the UTA 22km in the Blue Mountains at the end of October. If they happen, fantastic! If they don’t, just another hiccup.
So, that’s where I am at the moment. Twooldgirls will keep trucking along because what else can we do but keep moving forwards.
There is hope for the future even if we can’t see clearly at the moment what that future will look like. As for being older, well, it’s my blessing, because whilst the past is longer than my future, it’s a past that’s filled with struggles, laughter, success, failures, friends, fears and a huge sense of contentment, but definitely not, in any way, a desire to give up living life to the full.
I’m definitely not going to take up more than my fair share of life and will continue to live very much on the edge until I finally drop off.