Work-Life Balance

Can you believe the NZ Department of Labour has a section on their website dedicated to work-life balance.

'Work-life balance is about effectively managing the juggling act between paid work and other activities that are important to us - including spending time with family, taking part in sport and recreation, volunteering or undertaking further study. Research suggests that improving the balance between our working lives and our lives outside work can bring real benefits for employers and employees. It can help build strong communities and productive businesses.'

And according to Ezibuy, my July horoscope ‘The key to not only surviving this month but thriving, using any pressure to your advantage and as a means to achieve a breakthrough, is finding the right work/life balance.’

I can hear you asking ‘who gives a shit Craig, what is this all about?’ Well good question.

Many of you will know that I do lead an reasonably busy life – I have a full time job, I have a young family, I am training for Kona, I coach runners and I have a part time job. Believe me when I tell you that these responsibilities/undertakings take some balancing. The catalyst for this blog was that I had my work review on Wednesday, and as with any review you get both positive reinforcement for your good performances and ‘constructive criticism’ for your failings. One of my ‘constructive criticisms’ was that I need to work on my work life balance. Now I am not into Horoscopes into a big way or anything, but I am a Libra (or the Scales) and I have always thought that I do pretty damn good job at balancing activities in my life....apparently I could do better!

Libra Traits

Diplomatic and urbane
Romantic and charming
Easygoing and sociable
Idealistic and peaceable

Interestingly, these are Some of the negative Libra traits – I can also see these in myself.

Indecisive and changeable
Gullible and easily influenced
Flirtatious and self-indulgent

After pondering this information for a good 48hrs now I have determined that although it is true that I do get distracted from time to time, I think they are wrong. I believe I do a fine job, there are only so many hours in a day, and I think I use 90% of them wisely. Btw I am writing this blog while my work mates are having a coffee break....slackers.

Kona 2008

Very cool video of Kona 2008

Confusing abilty with ambition...

Well it’s been a while since my last post, but to be fair I have been very busy. Work has been full on and as my training is ramping up I in preparation for Kona I seem to have less and less time to sit put my thoughts into script.

I must say that I am little....no actually I am a lot over winter. It’s been tough to get on the bike during all of our cold wet weekends, thankfully I have a understanding wife who tolerates my wind trainer whirring in the lounge in the evenings as we both watch Le Tour replay. Last Sunday I rode 100km into a nasty cold southerly headwind...it was miserable. I was so relieved to get off my bike and into the car. My pesky calf has finally come right and I am now running 60min plus...this is a huge relief, because I felt that I was less prepared for the run at IMNZ than I would have liked....I was prepared to be beaten by Cameron, but I was a bit gutted that Terenzo ran faster than I did. I now have plenty of time to get myself into some decent marathon form before I can take it to those Euro & Nth American Tri fags in Kona.

One thing that does continue to baffle me about triathletes is that their lack of reality in their ability at each of the three of the disciplines (sorry if you’re offended...actually no I’m not haha)...and a great example of this is Rasmus Henning, last week on the IMTalk Podcast (week 168) he was asked in a interview what he thinks he could run for a marathon - ‘i could run around 2:12’ was his reply, I nearly fell off my chair with laughter, but do you know the worst part!? (rhetorical of course) The interviewers (who are experienced multisporters and should know better), didn’t even question his outrageous claim. I was miffed at their lack of knowledge....so I did some research (then emailed them...I’ll probably get slagged off this week). There is no denying that Rasmus is a class athlete, and that he has had a stellar ITU carreer, and has made an exceptional start to his IM career with a debut win at IM China, but he ain’t no 2:12 marathoner. Just as an aside the Danes haven’t had anyone run sub 2:13 for 20 years.

2:12 - wake up dreamer

Anyway this outrageous claim has given me to a new goal for Kona - I want to smash his run time.