I try my best to keep my blog a happy place. I try to keep the level of whinging, and whining here to a minimum. This is partially the reason for the lack of organic posts over the past month. I have been very lucky to be able to offer you a couple of giveaways, and sponsored content; however I am very aware that you don’t come here for that.

The past month has been a struggle for me.

My hubby has started a great job, however it does mean that he is frequently away from home, resulting in me playing the continual juggling act of full time work, solo parenting & training.

My IronMum training is progressing reasonably well, I’m now working with Jen at Sparta PT and I love the personalised contact that she gives her clients.

I’m also working with Jo at Jo Grobbelaar Health Coach. Jo is helping me prioritise my goals, balance my health and keep my nutrition on track. She also has many wise words of wisdom about all aspects of life. I have never seen a therapist, but I imagine that my sessions with Jo are similar to what that would be like.

I’ve been working very closely with my Physio Chris – he is helping to keep my body together.

 I have surrounded myself with this fantastic team of people, yet I’m still battling to keep on top of everything. I’m currently feeling overwhelmed and exhausted.

I hurt my foot when I completed the half marathon back in September last year. I hoped that the pain was just in my head, and diligently have completed all the strengthing exercises that my physio has prescribed. However the pain persists. It is a funny kind of pain, in that when I start running it is there, however as I continue on, and blood flows through the tendons the pain goes away. So for this reason up until about a month ago I was running through the pain, thinking I wasn’t doing anything wrong as the pain wasn’t lasting long anyway. An ultrasound found that it wasn’t in my head at all….. I’m not sure of the technical lingo but in short I’ve damaged the connection between the tendon & the bone, so that my body has decided to grow a new bone around the connection. This bone is irritating the tendon causing the pain whilst running.

This is particularly frustrating as I was having a great time with my running at the end of last year & beginning of this year. I had completed a 17km training run, and also a PB for my 5km, so it looked like I was getting some real gains in this discipline. Having to stop cold turkey really got too me. Initially the break was supposed to be for 2 weeks only, but then the ultrasound results came back & the break was extended, the supportive tape around my foot was increased and my spirits started to drop.

I took advantage of the running break to really focus on riding, and the Tour of Sufferlandria was very well timed in this respect. 9 days, 11 hours, 12 stages of indoor cycling. The Sufferfest videos are an intense training method designed to help you get the most out of your indoor wind trainer sessions. The indoor trainer workouts are notoriously boring, and it is hard to push to the max through them day after day. The Sufferfest makes it interesting (not easy – interesting).

When we moved to Rockhampton in August last year I made a deal with myself – I was going to do my best at making friends, and building a support network around myself. Living so far from family, I really miss that network, I miss having someone to give me a break, to let me just be. I don’t know why I miss it – since having Worm I’ve never really had that kind of network, since I was about 20 I have always lived far from home, and although I know my mum is only a phone call away it hurts.

With the above goal in mind I joined the local running club, tagged along with the local social cycling group and generally tried to say ‘yes’ as often as possible to invitations. So when I was approached to work with someone to form a women’s specific cycling group of course I agreed to help. I thought the concept was fabulous, and together we came up with a name and set a date for our first casual event.

This first ride was epic – we were hoping for maybe 10 women to come, we had 42! Thankfully some of the regular riders from the social group were on hand to help us out. The ride was fabulous and the feedback from the group wonderful.

So everything was going smoothly or so I thought. As I penned an email to my team mate this morning with a bunch of ideas I wanted to run past her (I have always tried to defer to her for decision making in regard to the group as it is her original baby) I wasn’t expecting the reply – especially when it came via text message

“I don’t want anything done or organised without taking to me….nothing… in person”

“You will find me really cranky and I will not talk to you again…. I don’t think we get on at all.”

Now anyone who knows me would understand that I don’t cope overly well with conflict, especially when I don’t see it coming.

Maybe I should have seen it coming, it’s not the first time I’ve received text messages from her saying she was “cranky” with me or that she hadn’t “approved” something that I had said or done, but I thought we had worked through that.

I honestly thought we were working reasonably well together, of course we have differences of opinion but that’s what being a team is all about, it would be boring if we were all the same all the time. So now I am in a quandary. Obviously this lady is struggling with me, however I really want this group to succeed and have become quite passionate about the original concept too.

I need to reflect and decide at what point I simply walk away from the concept, just admit that perhaps I’m not meant to be involved with this group, and hope that she finds some one who will take her rudeness (I’m sure she isn’t intentionally rude, I think she is just used to getting things done her way or not done at all).

Nathalie (@easypeasykids) said on Twitter yesterday that

“Parenting isn’t a job, you live it 24/7. If it was a job you’d have time off”

This really stuck a chord with me. Nathalie’s line mightn’t make sense in regard to the story above about my cycling group – but it does link in ….. I just want life to be easy for a few moments

.….. I want time off.

What do you do when you want time off? Please let me know via twitter, Facebook or the comments section