In the last few weeks, I have been doing much more than is anything like normal to keep my mind occupied.
I have had a new personal stress peak, due to unforeseen circumstances way beyond any area that I could even dream of being in control of.
So, I have had to double down on normal effort.
When there is a situation that is out of your own known world, you need firstly to accept that you have no part to play.
Especially when you are told bluntly that this is so.
The only option is to try not to get too depressed about the situation.
Yeah right! That is not possible.
So finally, after the fullness of time as our politicians so love saying, you know for stone bonk certainty that the one in charge of you is YOU.
You have to take up the reins of your own life’s horse.
During the last 13 months I have made myself as busy as possible to get through the loneliness of lockdown.
It has been a lonely time. I have had the company of my absolute saint of a husband, we have been together for 44 happy years.
Stephen knows me inside out and has not complained whilst I have struggled to keep busy for as much of the day as is left after our daily training.
During the covid times my main pastime were my writing (poetry/blog and messages), which is most absorbing once I sit down, my fingers cannot keep up with my brain.
Then needle work galore that is the most relaxing pastime. Things like gardening and housework have come right at the bottom of the list on the essential things on the ‘to do’ list.
Keeping the house spick and span seemed to me to be unnecessary in the light of there not being any friends or family coming in for a chat or dinner or coffee.
Having seen that I had hit a new low mentally, Stephen has tried to make sure that I have as much time as I am asking for the extra programme I have set myself.
He is still making sure of my fitness levels as my coach of over thirty years in triathlon.
This is still top of my list too, since I am thinking of the rest of my life in my sport which also provides for another love, which is travel.
My first event that I hope against hope will go ahead, will be at the Eton Sprints weekend held at Dorney Lake that has regularly been on the race programme since the event started.
This may be the first year that I have not competed on both days.
The race I have my fingers crossed for is the qualifier for the ITU World Sprint Triathlon Championships later this summer.
The only problem will be the tiny amount of swimming I will have done beforehand, but I will be getting back in the water very soon indeed.
My biking and running are race ready… more than ready with the amount of training I have done since my last event, The National Aquathlon Championships September 2019!That was the week after the ITU World standard distance age group Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. it been a while.
Back to the plot.
I do love a good coincidence.
Toward the end of last year, I decided to try to learn a bit of Italian since apart from basic greetings my Italian was almost non-existant.
I can get by politely in German, though nobody would call me fluent. Beyond basics though.
A friend who speaks a half a dozen or more languages well, recommended I sign up for a course with Duolingo on my phone.
It is a fun course and presses the student to be competitive with a very clever points scoring plan and encouraging more practice.
So, with this you can climb up into another league and then another and keep an eye of those near you trying to overtake or at least hold your position.
There is extra benefit if you take the challenge to complete a five-day streak of an everyday study period for the initial goal of the five days.
I got sucked into that and made time for short period every day, the time I spent working away through level after level of the section they present for you.
This is where the coincidence occurs.
Today the funny little green thing that goads me along pointed out that I have now come to time when I am on a 93-day streak!
This means that next Sunday will make that a 100-day streak. No start finish plan for ever set down.
That will be Easter Sunday.
Steve and I get to celebrate in style because we can have Ice Cream then, because we gave it up for Lent and have stuck to it, dare I say religiously.
To make this a triple celebration I hope the sea is calm enough for me to get into the water again for the first time since last summer.
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