Thursday, September 10, 2015

Looking back a year and a half

I Was just looking over my failed 2014 photo a day series, and it made me realise what a crazy year last year was! It seems like so long ago, and I'm not sure why, but it was probably one of the bleakest years of my life. For some reason I never felt settled in Adelaide. At the time I just figured that was the way life was. 9-5 job, paying the bills so you can make it to the next day.

But that aside, the year was jam packed. We travelled to Seattle and Montana before we left Vancouver, using honeymoon money to get a first class sleeper train across america and an amazing hotel in Whitefish ski resort. We holidayed in 5 star Hyatt accom in Hong Kong, also courtesy of honeymoon money :-) We then finally returned to Adelaide after more than 3 years in Canada. Not long after returning my dad underwent major surgery which unsettled the whole family significantly.

Following this we settled into the daily grind for a good 8 months. Working and house hunting. This period sucked! I was training hard, really as a means to escape from the shitty monotony of everyday life. I started racing road bikes which was fun, but that quickly moved back to triathlon. I also trained for Adelaide Marathon but sustained an injury about 4 weeks out so had to skip the race.

I signed up for Iron Man Melbourne in July, and Kate signed up not long after. We then trained for Murray Man as an intermediate long distance triathlon en route to Iron Man. My first big run after my marathon training injury was 20kms at Murray Man. It went really well. I think Murray Man was completed in about 4hrs 36mins. It was amazing-one of the best events I've done!

We bought a house in November, then went on a week long road trip in Western Australia. We returned on Xmas eve, and hosted the family Christmas on Christmas Day! Yep we keep busy.

On Boxing Day we adopted a dog, totally unaware of the events that would happen in June of 2015.

The next 3 months was hard Iron Man training. It was fun, and such an experience training with my wife. Life was starting to get a bit more fun. We had a house and training was great.

Iron Man weekend was early in March. We stayed for a long weekend with the parents! This was one of the most amazing things I've ever done! We returned on a high, so motivated to do more and more Iron Man events.

My training obsession continued, now almost worse than before Iron Man. As I didn't have an event to look forward to I just filled that purpose or lack there of with more training. Two days after Iron Man I was training again, starting with 4kms in Unley pool. Two weekends later I competed in the silver sands long distance multi sport festival. On the sat was a 10km run and a 2 km swim. On the sun was an Olympic distance tri. I did all the events! Yep, injury here we come right.

Training continued, probably 10 hrs per week at least. Life continued on it's dull path. The house was nice; Kate and I were "loving it", and our dog was awesome, but I just continued sinking deeper and deeper into nothingness. On paper everything was perfect, but it really didn't feel that way.

I started training for long distance trail runs, and I was commonly running 3 half marathons a week, possible a few before work and then one long trail run on the weekend. I raced the green belt half marathon and set a PB. 1:24.

I continued running and riding and swimming...lots! It is now a few months after Iron Man and still no break. I started helping with training some Adelaide Running Crew sessions...and then the injury finally happened.

I am now, 14 weeks later, finally able to run pain free. This injury was a blessing. It snapped me out of my obsessive cycle, almost. I still swam a bit, but cycling and running was totally off for a good 8 weeks. All I could maintain was some careful core work, and a bit of light stretching and yoga. I couldn't kick in the pool, so I did full sessions with the pull bouy.

At this point I got pretty bleak. I couldn't really see where to go next...then out of the blue an opportunity arose. Jobs presented themselves in Wellington. 4 weeks later we were on the plane to Wellington!

It is now 8 weeks later. I just went home for my sisters wedding, and immediately when my sis and mum saw me they noticed I was the happiest they've seen me in years. And I am! Time is flying by, we are so busy learning new things and exploring our new home. Work is amazing and so inspiring! I am challenged all the time and am loving every moment of it!

The move was hard, but it's the best thing we've ever done. I didn't realise how much I needed to leave Adelaide until I actually did it! I guess what I'm saying is, life is too short to think that you have to put up with the daily grind just cos you have a mortgage and a dog! 


Life tells us we have to do these responsible things in order to be "successful",but man, these so called life goals made me freaking unhappy! If you're hating it, go out and make something cool happen. Do something that re-inspires you to live again; something that makes hobbies fun; something that makes getting up each day exciting. I forgot what that was like for a year, to be truly happy. I now realise that the life I was living was not a prerequisite of growing up, of being "successful".

Falling into a monotonous life of bills and pay slips doesn't really sound inspiring to anyone...I hope; it is just too often that we think it is the right thing to do, but maybe it isn't? Maybe it is often for lack of anything else better to do, or lack of motivation to go and do something amazing! But remember, you only live once, it may as we'll be fun!