Mental Fatigue and Balancing it All

I was supposed to do a ~2 hr bike/~1700 yd swim today. It's slated as one of my last longer workouts before the my BIG Triathlon. Well, the day started off right: I packed my tri bike in my car along w/all my bike/swim gear to hit the pool after work. I had all my new food/nutrition/snacks lined up for the day. I had the kids ready to roll for pre-school with snack bag ready for Ironman Dude to pick them up in the afternoon. It was all g to g (good to go).

But I stayed just a little bit late at work. Which made me decide to x-nay the swim, and do a bike/run instead. In my head I justified the decision knowing I had a bike/run slated for tomorrow. So I drove home, geared up, and double checked my workout for tomorrow - which was NOT a bike/run. AGH! I just messed this one up. I need that freakin' swim! But now it was ~3:30 and I really wanted to be done with this all by 6 o'clock. So I stuck to the new bike/run plan, and was going to ask Nutrition Gal if we could switch it up a bit.

Well, my ~2hr bike went fine. But when I came home to switch into my running shoes- it was already 5:40. And Ironman Dude asked 'So, what's your ETA?' uh, uh, ...I don't know, 40 min? Then Lil' A comes running out "MOMMY! Here's the prize I won from the coloring contest!' She was beyond beaming, holding her coloring and Mary's Pizza Gift Card she had won. It was simply too much. And she really wanted to go use her card tonite to take us to pizza. Ironman Dude said 'You go run, I'll take em' to pizza'. Yah...right. I guess I could have done that. And I almost did. But how could I miss this? And lil' A wasn't up for waiting another day to show off her prize. So I bagged the run, threw on a dress, put on matching necklaces, and went out for pizza. 

And it was hard to sift through the myriad of emotions of this workout or lack thereof. But I realized two things. First, I'm stoked Vineman is less than 2wks away because I'm a bit mentally fatigued from making the training hours a top priority. I'm tired of the ~3hr workouts and all the prep it involves to make them happen week in and week out. I'm looking forward to a lil' change.

Secondly, and more importantly, how could I not celebrate lil' A's coloring contest prize?! I love training and training hard, but at the end of the day, I'd rather eat pizza, share an ice cream, or watch a Yo Gabba Gabba with my lil' ones -as opposed to a post bike-run workout. This is what I have learned through all my training. It's been a learning process for sure, but I feel content with this level of training commitment.