WELCOME!

Hello Everyone! Welcome to the inaugural post of Workout Widows, my blog as the spouse of an amateur triathlete and marathoner.  My goal here is to provide a place for the partners of endurance athletes for them to get and share information, commiserate about the good and bad about of have a partner dedicated to/ obsessed with endurance sports, and for non-athletes and athletes to find ways to improve their relationships.

This is not a spot to slam athletes across the board. Being nice to athletes who succeed in making their hobby a part of life instead of the center of it is just as important as pointing out the skewed identity of someone who puts athlete before spouse as how they regard themselves.  75-85% of endurance athletes (bike riders, triathletes, marathoners, ultra runners, etc.) are decent folks who have found do a good job of balancing their hobby and their family lives.  What I will talk about and mock mercilessly are the  15-25% of people who are (for lack of a better term) complete pricks when it comes to non- athletes, including the people who enable them to do the very thing they use to hold themselves above everyone else. 

My slogan is “Partners not Spectators”.   Probably the single biggest thing that sets me off is when I hear athletes deride someone who doesn’t share their interest as a spectator, especially in regard to their own partner.  The spouse or significant other of an endurance athlete is so far from being a spectator that it just makes shake my head at how myopic some people can be.  Spectators see an event and decide to go wave and clap at people they’ve never met.  Most spouses put a ton of time, effort, money, and emotional investment into their partner’s race.  For athlete who is married or in a committed relationship to not realize their successes are just as much to do with their partners as it does with their trainers is just plain arrogant to the point of being blindingly stupid. 

What will I talk about on this blog?  I’ll cover a wide variety of topics that would affect the partners, but it will generally fall into one of these categories:

1. Rants.  My observations and opinions on all things relating to the good and bad regarding being the partner of an endurance athlete.
2. Recipes.  Food, drinks, and snacks that would be fit into an athlete’s diet without tasting like something that would be fed to a sick rabbit.
3. Athlete’s Perspective.  Sometimes I’ll ask my wife or another athlete to give “their side of the story” to something I’ve posted or some event or situation regarding endurance sports.
4. Q&A.  One thing I found when I started a group on Facebook regarding this subject is that no one joined, but I got sent a lot of questions from Workout Widows.  I’ll address those questions as well as questions posed here on this blog.

Hope this is a big help to everyone.

Let the games begin

Dave