A life lesson

Funny old day today. Sort of an in between day.

Tomorrow is Australia Day here in Australia, which is a national holiday. So today was a strange sort of day stuck between a weekend and a national day off. It is the sort of day I would usually love if I was in proper training. A day where you can go to work, or not, and nobody will mind either way. A good day for squeezing in a nice morning on the bike or something like that.

For me I had the morning in bed and then headed to work. I made the decision to stay in bed by channelling my inner surgeon and telling myself that if my shoulder was sore it was my body telling me to slow down. The shoulder certainly was sore and so staying in bed was a no brainer.

It seems to have been the right decision because my shoulder is less sore now. In fact I am thinking on jumping on the trainer later on this evening and getting in a bit of a spin. From what I have seen so far the trainer doesn't seem to stress my shoulder, so I view the Kickr as a kind of a free hit. If nothing else is working I can always do that.

It will depend a bit on how the rest of the evening goes. I am on daddy duty tonight, which has a habit of taking up the entire evening. Or at least leaving you collapsed in a heap by the end. Plus my philosophy at the moment is that there is no such thing as too much rest. That philosophy tends to clash with my aim of trying to regain fitness. But I am realistic enough to know that the battle for fitness has to be tempered by sufficient rest. If not, then there isn't a lot of point.

Speaking of daddy duty I had a very proud father moment on the weekend. On Sunday my daughter showed that she has finally mastered the art of riding a bike by making a couple of faultless laps around our park. The process of teaching her to ride has been a long and painful one. It is a process that has involved some a lot of encouragement, a bit of begging and even the odd threat. It is a prime example of one of those times you wish kids came with a manual. I obviously love to ride and like to think I know a thing or two about it. Part of that knowledge is a few theories on how best to teach somebody how to ride and boy oh boy it took all of them. But we got there in the end and I couldn't be prouder.

Nearly a year ago she asked about doing a kids triathlon and at the time we said she would have to learn how to ride first. She is still about a year away from being old enough, but this was the last piece of the skill puzzle required. Once she is seven we will have to see if the interest is still there, but even if it isn't, she has now learnt what I consider to one of life's great skills. That sounds over dramatic, after all it is only riding a bike. But I know just how much joy a simple thing like riding can bring a person. She may never grow to love being on a bike, but if she does there is such a wide world that it can show her. It makes me all warm and fuzzy to think that I helped with that.