I’m less than 4 weeks out from Edinburgh and I’m currently sitting here having a bit of a mini breakdown.

I knew that training for a marathon — and doing so while working, keeping on top of my strength goals, raising kids, volunteering etc — would be hard. I knew it would take up lots and lots of time. But right now? I’m basically spent.

The funny thing is, it’s not even the marathon training getting me down. If anything, that’s the one thing in my life that is currently distracting me from the chaos of everything else. It’s non-negotiable. I’m not quite doing all of the runs I’m supposed to be, but I’m getting out there and running to plan at least twice a week. I might even be learning to actively enjoy running, if that’s possible.

It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that my training is clashing with the biggest growth of my business in the nearly 7 years I’ve been working for myself (and currently, the Easter school holidays too) as well as ongoing projects and deadlines. Because I can’t just put a stopper in my business temporarily, I’m having to ride out the chaos and some things have had to give. At the minute, that’s weight lifting. It seems unjust that I’ve had to almost completely stop the sport I love, to further engage in a sport I don’t love, for the sake of neither.

Most frustratingly of all, it’s lifting that gives me the breathing room I need to excel at my every day stuff, and because I have been struggling to find the time to fit it in, I feel like all of my endeavours are failing. It’s a little on the dramatic side, but I’m very good at catastrophising.

I’m no stranger to the myths of ‘having it all’. I wrote several years ago about the concept of having it all as a working woman over on my personal blog (spoilers: it’s a load of bollocks) and while my challenges have changed (I don’t have to nurse — literally or metaphorically — snotty children through Skype calls these days) and my goals are more gym and less cleaning inspired (you get used to the mess eventually) they are none-the-less always calling, nagging at the back of my mind.

I don’t think there’s an answer. Life is always going to throw a spanner in the works, and as spanners go “having too much work on” is as as good a problem as one can have. But what I wouldn’t do for life to back off, for work and deadlines to melt away, and for a few uninterrupted hours in the gym right now…

Lead photo by Hans-Peter Gauster

In my last post about our recent house move I expressed frustration about a series of relatively minor but annoying problems that we’d had so far. The two main issues were the lack of hot water, and a mystery leak. Shortly after posting I started pulling out wood cladding in the downstairs bathroom (part of… read full entry »

Having blogged back in February about jumping head first and putting an offer on a local property that we were not really ready to buy, we finally exchanged and completed on the 22nd. Excitement and trepidation had been building for some time, and with the help of friends and family we prepped and packed virtually… read full entry »

Keeping with the “posts I didn’t think I’d write” theme, I have some slightly less traumatic but otherwise Important Life Stuff news. Having earlier this week spent the Nth (I’ve lost count) night waking up — tossing and turning — stressing about work, I decided that enough was enough this week. The reasons are many… read full entry »

I have a blog post in the works about my Easter excursions with the kids, but unfortunately it needs pictures and they’re on an SD card 13 or so miles down the road, d’oh. Instead I shall ramble on for a little while about where I’m at with my lifting and running and generally not… read full entry »

After a positive end to the whole30, which I carried on for several extra days, I had planned to implement a sort of 5 days on, 2 days off approach to clean eating. Eat well Sunday-Thursday, ‘treat’ myself on Friday and Saturday. This worked as planned at the beginning of the weekend, when I gorged… read full entry »

Never mind my food, my lifting and whether or not I carry on this crazy lifestyle change, I know this is the bit you’ve all been waiting for. Have I actually lost any weight or fat? To refresh your memory, my measurements at the start of whole30 were as follows: Weight: 161.6lbs (73.3kg) Thighs: L:… read full entry »

Unless something happens in the next few days, I’m on track for completing my first whole30. Notice the word first in there? Yeah, that’s because I’d consider doing this again. So what’s the deal? I thought you were fed up with it! I have been fed up with it, for almost the entire 30 days…. read full entry »

Bit of a blogging hiatus here recently, although not intentionally. I’ve been struggling with my mood a lot recently, which I had mostly attributed to PMS but had also considered the possibility of a reaction to the reintroduction of alcohol after going dry for July. It all came to a head on Saturday night when… read full entry »

I realised yesterday that I’ve been comfort spending over the past few weeks. It’s somewhat ironic that a shopping hater would reach out to shopping to fill a gap where my sanity once was, but I guess it’s easy to click your mouse button a few times when you compare it packing a toddler and… read full entry »