A very Fathers kind of Day

A busy but very enjoyable Father's Day today.

Today, triathlon and coaching took a back seat (mostly) and instead today was all about the family and having a bit of fun, which is exactly what we did.

One thing I am really enjoying about being forced to detrain is the sleep ins. I haven't really slept in for years and years. In fact I do a pretty poor job of sleeping in now, generally waking up at 5:00am at the latest. However, I am quite loving the feeling of waking up but knowing that I can stay in bed. When it is Father's Day and you know you have a couple of kids that are looking forward to coming and giving you hugs, the enjoyability (I don't think that is actually a word) of staying in bed only increases.

From the drop today was flat out. I had the above mentioned sleep in (5:00am) before getting up to write a couple of programs for people, which was the one bit of triathlon I had in my day.Waking up early to write training programs may not sound all that fun, but actually I really enjoy it. There is something peaceful and fulfilling about sitting snuggled up on the couch on a chilly morning writing programs on the laptop while the rest of the house is asleep. I knew I had to get the programs written today and I also knew I would be busy later in the day, so as well as being a nice way to spend the morning, doing the programs early also meant that I didn't have to worry about the later.

Once the programs were sorted it was time to get on with Father's Day, which in this case meant getting on with waffles, one of my true weaknesses. After waffles the day was spent in a fairly typical rambling Sunday way. A visit to the markets, a gentle paddle on the river with a mate (low intensity and no more than 30 minutes), a trip to a hardware store and then several hours spent watching the kids romp in a freezing creek with the cousins.

Low intensity and now more than 30 minutes

The last few hours of the day with the kids and the creek in particular were a lot of fun. You see a lot of criticism of kids in the media these days, saying how they are never outside, spend too much time in front of screens etc. While these claims might be true of some kids, I find it quite annoying when all kids are lumped in with this generalisation. Watching our kids and 7 of the cousins industrially build a dam in a creek until the sun set and the moon was up, in water that must have been a maximum of 15 degrees in an air temperature of about 13 degrees, made me think, 'you know what, I think this generation will be okay'. They built until their hands were numb and they were shivering with cold and still we had to drag them away. A soft and spoiled generation, no I don't think so from what I am seeing. Perhaps some kids, but certainly not all, plus I am pretty sure every generation has had spoiled children. In fact I saw very little difference between what our kids were doing today and some of the things I remember doing at their age.

All that aside, spoiled kids or not, this afternoon was a whole lot of fun.

Back into it tomorrow.