Stress Relief

Today I got a nice reminder why I do exercise. Besides the racing thing and the health benefits etc, the other big benefit is my sanity.

Today has been a bit of a full on day mentally. They often are a few days before a trip. Usually at this point I am madly trying to finalise some details and for some reason I always seem to land a busy day at work. In this case I spent most of today in meetings, which was keeping me from the urgent sorting stuff out that I needed to do. As I sat in these meetings all I could think of was all the other stuff that I needed to get sorted. In this case, just minor things like hiring a car and sorting out a bed to sleep in...

I got through the day in the end and all the eyes got dotted and tees crossed (I have a bed to sleep in), but by the end of the day I had about a million thoughts bumping around my head. Then I went for my run and just like that...all gone. Mind clear, focus restored, stress levels reduced. Like a magic pill without the pill bit. Reasons like that are why I don't think I could ever totally stop exercise, even if I wasn't racing.

'Hold on a second' I can hear some people thinking, your little zen running moment is great and all, but why leave major details like accommodation to the last minute like that. You are just asking for stress by leaving stuff to the last minute. For this one I have to plead the 'not entirely my fault' defence. For this trip I am going to give some home stay accommodation a go. I have never done a home stay before, but I am pretty keen this time around. Travelling for racing isn't always as glamorous as it sounds. In fact sometimes it can be straight up lonely. For that reason I am really looking forward to travelling to a race but staying in a home environment. Ironman has been brilliant in organising a home stay, but unfortunately I only found out the final details today. The late time line Was making for some tense moments, particularly for somebody like me who likes to have all the details tidied away well in advance. All sorted now, but it didn't do any favours for my peace of mind today.

Still, like I said, one run and all that stress is gone.

Now, time for sleep.