Triathlon of life

This morning was a doozy. Doozie? Doozey? Doooooozey? DuZ? I don't know. Spellcheck doesn't like any of them. It was a bear. A circus. A mess. Second Friday of school. Kids are exhausted. The first lock down drill of the year is today. Sleep is short. Anxiety is high. I was a basket case trying to get us out the door and on with our day. I somehow managed to miss brushing my own teeth in the flurry of lunches, snacks, homework folders, breakfast, kid teeth, kid hair (oh the kid hair....), kid shoes, reading logs... you get the point.

I flew through the car line, kissed them goodbye, and hustled to the gym for my morning swim. You want to talk about race day conditions? Try this out:

• Every lane is full, so I'm sharing a lane with my buddy Julie.
• The sun is just coming up over the building so I can only breathe on one side. 
• The landscaping dudes are there, so the air tastes and smells of gasoline. 
• The sprayers are on, so there's a constant stream of splashing water in my face and in my mouth. 
• I have exactly 40 minutes to finish my swim (you know, like a cutoff time).
• I have all of my stuff laid out in "transition" so that I can bounce from the pool to the conference call.

I finish up my swim and hop out of the pool (with 5 minutes to spare - beat that cutoff, baby!!). A guy waiting for a free lane asks if I'm finished. "Yup," I say. "I gotta get out of here and on to my conference call. I guess we can pretend this is transition!" We both laugh. I say, " I guess I have my own kind of triathlon today - kids, swim, work." He laughs again and says, "The triathlon of life." 

Boom. That was so spot on. Life is SO much like triathlon. You do your best to get through each discipline with a smooth transition from one task to another. If you're lucky, you cross the finish line standing on your own two feet and you manage to nail your nutrition for the day. Sometimes you DNF. Maybe you forget a meeting. You miss a practice. You somehow manage to miss getting to the grocery and you wind up packing your kid a hodgepodge of weirdness for lunch. Hell, Some days you DNS. You just can't seem to find your mojo and you spend the day in PJs in front of the TV, just trying to make it until bedtime so you can get up tomorrow and try again. And some days? Dang. You just crush it. Some days the to-do list seems too short and you PR your laundry and you kiss your kids goodnight with a smile on your face and you just LOVE the heck out of life. And days like today? Well. I guess that's yet to be seen. I had a rocky start with stinky teeth and a flustered T1, but I think I found my bearings on the swim and I'm starting to find my stride with the meetings.

Here's to the triathlon of life - here's to hoping for a smooth transition and a strong finish! Happy Friday, y'all.