ironman summer

so this how the summer's begun.
i still have no idea how i'm going to fit ironman training into this life. in-between kids at home, and work, just basic life stuff, trying to fit biking, running and swimming into that life seems almost impossible.
the best that i can hope for during these last 2 month until the canadian ironman tri in pentiction is to stuff my weekends with all the training i can. the basics of swimming friday nites, swimming biking and running on saturdays and then runnining on sundays, will have to be my key workouts, because they may become my only workouts. i'll have 2 put everything i have into them, and i'll hopefully be able to throw in some time on the bike trainer and a few runs into the week, but that'll be tuff.
the good thing i guess is, and this may seem odd, but all this training, everytime i go out to do this stuff, it's all fun. yeah, some of it is really hard, but i'm having a blast. every swim, every run, every ride has rocked. like last week's 5 hour ride. the stops at the 2 lakes, and just the ride itself was a blast and a challenge. yeah i was pissed at some of the ruff stuff that we rode over, and i could have done without the final 2 hills, but in retrospect, i loved every minute.
this week so far has been a week of mtn biking with my youngest, my autistic daughter sasha, and that has been a revelation. it's good to see her getting into it. like our quick spin on trails around fort edmonton on wednesday morning was great., and she enjoyed it which is so cool. she needs to get stronger for climbing hills, but she seems to look forward to the rides, which is good. now if i could just get her to shift her diet, now that would be a great thing. i guess besides ironman, getting sasha to become healthier and fit over the summer has become my goal....this should be fun? it's kind of a shame, because the same thing happened last summer. she was pretty active from the day she got out of school until the day she went back in september. she/we swm, hiked, walked, rode and just kept active and kept outside. her diet didn't change much, but she lost weight, and when we did stuff, she seemed calmer. so hopefully, this year will be the same, and maybe one goal should be to keep it going into september when she returns to school.
my other autistic kid, my jim, is out of school for the summer now to, so that will add to the challenges, and hopefully he'll get a bit more active too. i think for jim though, getting him to become more independent will be important too. get him out of the house on his own, get him riding his bike out on his own, having him go over to spend time with his friends on his own as well. and to get him to become more social able.
in a couple of weeks we head out on the family vacation/adventure to penticton, and i can hardly wait. sounds like we've got a great hotel to stay in, we've planned stops in valemount on the way out, and in canmore on the way back which will be interesting, and i'll be packing my tri gear so hopefully i'll get to train while i'm there. i'm not expecting miricles, but i really want to do the rides up to yellow lake and through the pass, and i want to swim in okanagan lake a few times as well......i don't think i'll be allowed to head out on any major 6 hour rides at all, but maybe over the course of 5 days i can get the numbers that i need, and then fill them out when we get back to edmonton.
next weekend is a test of sorts. the great wite north triathlon, a half ironman. i have no goals other then to finish well, and to run most if not all the of the run part, the 21K. that's always where i've fallen apart in the past, but it's only 21k, so i'll see how that goes. my swim and bike has always been okay, and i'm supposed to look at this race as just another training day...so as such, which i always seem to forget, you train when you train, and you race when you race....but still, there's that pride thingie, and a desire to do well.....so i guess i'll make that a goal......and hey, like i learned last year, the thing that calmed me down the most, was to just realize that i was just doing what i loved to do, and just to also realize how much fun swimming with a thousand of your closest friends can be..that sound of 1000 people all swimming at once is amazing...and that's why i do this stuff...because it's a blast to do!