IronMum

It's been a while. Calving finally eased but the hours on the farm haven't. October is Artifical Breeding month where we try to get all the animals in-calf to set up next season. It takes time out of our daily routine and because I'm the boss, I put my hand up for the really super stupid early morning starts. 2.15am, every morning for the whole month so if my spelling and grammer are awful, please cut me some slack. Normally I can handle the hours but this October is a bit different. This October I have a guy by the name of Jason Wheadon from Sweat, in Hamilton trying to kill me.

Jase is the trainer for the most magnificent Northern Knights, the New Zealand womans cricket team, Commonwealth Games star Joelle King and of course, me. He is a great guy who is always happy and cheerful to be around. He is also somewhat of a sadist. My days consist of either 90km bike rides, 50km rides backed up by 5km runs, 12-14km runs or just massive amounts of time in the pool. Some days I get the pleasure of doing more than one task. Now whilst I have lost a heap of weight, I am still carrying to much and this has a twofold effect on me. Firstly, it is harder for me to get through the workload because I'm carrying to much weight. Secondly, it means I am still hardly an athlete so the body takes far to long to recover.

I send Jase an email giving him my feedback on how the week has gone, how I'm training on some days for 3-4 hours. I'm expecting some kind of response filled with gushing words of praise. Instead I get "...wait till your training for 8 hours at a time..." and "...work harder..." and the gem "...the half Ironman is about the equivilent of 1/4 of the full Ironman..."

Wonderful

Now people often think they have it harder than everyone else. Either their job has more stress then anyone else's. Perhaps they think they work longer or harder than anyone else. Naturally I think my life is tougher than Wendz, I'm doing this program set up with a guy who has a love of pain, Wendz is 'just' 9 months pregnant. She is in all sorts of discomfort with bad eczema yet I still joke to her the only thing worse than being 9 months pregnant, is living with someone 9 months pregnant.

Wendz is still doing work around the house, she still fronts up every day after milking and inseminates our cows. She mows the lawns, cooks tea, cleans up after me, chases Cam around the house, chases me around the house imploring me to leave the toliet seat down, makes sure the place looks great when friends come for tea, cooks extra when other friends pop in on the same night for tea, reads to Cam, teaches Cam basic skills, handles his tantrums when something doesnt go to plan, makes the beds, hangs up the laundary, deals with her mothers daily phonecalls, makes sure my cycling clothes are washed for the next days ride, bakes for friends, bakes for me, you get the point. Short of wearing her undies on the outside of her clothes and saving the starving in africa, she gets through a lot, on a daily basis all the while totally covered in eczema brought on by the pregnancy. Did I mention I was difficult to live with and that our son has Autism? So as you can imagine, she is as full of sympathy for my aches and pains as Jase is. I'm starting to think they are colluding with each other.

Whilst I'm not pregnant, I wake up, I ache. I get in from the morning milking and I ache even more. I have a snooze and when I wake up, I still hurt. I go for a ride or a run and within 5 minutes, I'm beyond aching. And this is only after three weeks of reasonably serious training. I used to think I had a healthy music collection. Now I leave the music at home because it's surprising how quickly you can get sick of hearing every one of 1500 songs over and over again. Running or biking without music means I have lots of time to think. I spend time thinking about how Wendz manages all that she does all the while the baby is pushing on that nerve or kicking under the ribs and rolling lots. I try to tell myself that what I am doing is hard, that it takes mental toughness and everyday where I complete another of Jase's floggings is just further proof of that. Yet I start to realise that Wendz and indeed, all mothers of children in the ASD spectrum are just naturally tough. If your a Dad who is the chief caregiver, than I put you in the bracket as well.

You have to be tough. When you become a parent you have these dreams of how everything is going to turn out. Going to be an All Black, going to be a Doctor, going to make a great mark on Society. Defentely going to marry the daughter of Jessica Alba. People are commenting on how the baby looks cute in the little bootys knitted by nana and you are just not contemplating how things can go so no to script. For us, when Cam started to get to an age where he could start to impart his personaility on the family, he was forever upset at something. Wendz and I start to argue because of course, it must be the other parents fault. 'He is just badly behaved and spoilt, it's all your fault'. Or, 'you work to much and never spend any time with him, it's all your fault'. I reckon this is where Mum, or Dad, starts to build mental toughness. Your marridge is going to a place it hasnt been before and you have to handle that as well as handle the frustration of your child just not doing the things that other kids are. In our case, I had the farm as a release from the pressures of home. Wendz didnt.

The faily doctor says there might be something not quite right, we will get tests done, after of course, the 6 month waiting list. More mental toughness. Mum is dealing every day with a child that isnt responding to the ways we have been shown to parent. The sun comes up in the morning and sets in the evening and whilst inbetween you have plenty of happy times, frustration builds. Again, not letting this frustration become evident to Cam is just mental toughness coming to the fore.

One day, a group of specialists confirm your child falls under the spectrum. Even though we knew in our hearts this was coming, hearing the words for Wendz was still tough. But she picks herslef up, walks into the next room where Cam is playing and starts to deal with it, again showing real strength. You say to yourself it could be worse, this will make life difficult for him but it won't kill him. Wendz deals with hurtful comments from some ignorant 'friends' and family that the environment you have raised your child in is what has caused it. You deal with stares from people in the supermarket whose eyes just convey such a feeling of disdain for you as a parent as Cam is having a meltdown. All this just builds more mental toughness. More resiliance and a deeper love for our son. I'm not sure how other parents handle it, I suspect its quite similiar for most.

People come up to me and say what I am doing is great. What I am doing isn't great. I follow a program all set out for me by Jase. If I stick to it I will finish the Ironman and hopefully later in life , Cam can take something from that. It's pretty simple really. The real Ironman is the Mum or Dad that raises our children and deals with the highs and lows of Autism every single day. They have people like Estelle Pretorius and Anna Dekker who help and these people are magnificent but their plans arent as clearcut as a training program. There are to many variables that cant be planned for. At the end of of 3 or 4 or even an 8 hour training session, I can go into recovery for the next day, play with Cam and get the best of both worlds. For Wendz, the training session isnt a defined period of time, its from sunup to sundown, every single day.

I'm doing the Ironman for Cam because it's my way of trying to let people know that Autism doesnt have to be something to be embarrassed of and hopefully people can see how great our kids are. People say when it gets tough you can use Cam for inspiration and in part thats true but the real inspiration comes from the mentally toughest person I know, my wife.