I never thought I'd like school so much

Labor Day.

The last day of our unoffical summer.

Ahhh...

And what a beautiful day it was. What am I saying? What a beautiful weekend! Three glorious days of sun. The temperature was just right to go to the boat, or bar-b-que, or...

Or, in my case, bike 30 miles, swim 2 miles, and run 4 miles. Arrggh.

It was more frustrating on Tuesday, as I stood next to the pool. That's when it hit me.

Finally, it hit me. "I'm done," I said to Andrew standing next to me. "I just want this race to happen. I don't know that I can keep training."

I thought, maybe I'm bored with training... maybe I'm just getting too worked up for the race... maybe I'm just jonesing for a huge bowl of ice cream.

Nope. (Well, I am jonesing for ice cream. I mean, really...)

I'm just a little frustrated that I'm mising time with my family. Here I was standing on the edge of a pool the night before my kids start back to school, and I wasn't with them.

Then I realized that I just spent the better part of a glorious weekend doing stuff without them. Ouch.

No, I don't own a boat. No, we weren't invited to anyone's cottage for a bar-b-que. No, we didn't have vacation plans. I can justify this any way I want...but the thing is, I miss hanging out with my family.

Thank God school's starting!

"What?," you ask. "What kind of moron complains that he misses his family, but can't wait for school to start?"

"Really, Murphy, you're a little off your rocker. Maybe you've starved your brain from all that hyperventilating."

I know, I know. It sounds weird. But I feel like it has taken some of the pressure off.

You see, I like training in the evening. Well, okay...I don't really like training in the evening, but I HATE training in the morning. So, I train in the evening.

With school starting, they have to get to bed at a "reasonable hour". Last week, they would stay up through the sixth rerun of High School Musical 2.

You don't know when that is? Oh, somewhere between 10:00 pm and 7:00 am.

This week's "reasonable hour"? 7:30 pm.

Its amazing what you can do in two hours. Re-grout the tile in the bathroom. Paint the basement. Run six miles (note to self: work on my run-time).

Most importantly: no guilt. Okay...a little guilt. But I was a lot less frustrated at the end of the week than I was at the start.

I am going to miss tomorrow's brick with my team so I can watch Joe play his first football game and cheer Alaina at her first soccer game. Hmmm...do "reasonable hours" apply on the weekend?