Good morning!
It is a run rest day for me so I'll be doing my Chalean Intervals later today. Tomorrow is my long run, 14 miles, setting my alarm for 4:15 will be physically painful. I think I am finally finding a good running schedule, only took me a year and half. I use to be a solid Saturday long run runner but it was never as stress free as it should have been. Jess works a lot during the week, generally home around 7:30 at night and that is just how it has always been. When Saturday morning would roll around I would get up early and head to Portland to run with my running group.
Katie and I after a 16 mile run, she looks much perkier than me
I normally wouldn't get home until after lunch and by the time I ate something, showered, and got myself and the girls dressed the day was done. That left us with one day a week together which just doesn't cut it. I am not about to give up my goals as a runner but I will rearrange my running schedule to make it work better for my family. Jess never said anything, not one word about me being gone, I just don't like being away from them all that much. Honestly I doubt he even noticed, he is so involved with our girls that he never looks at it as "watching" them, he loves every minute he gets his kids.
First day of Preschool last fall
Since we've been in Michigan I've realized how much I enjoy getting my long run done on Friday. I have to set my alarm for the middle of the night to get it done before Jess heads to work but it has been working really well. It frees up the weekend and I've started to do my shorter recovery run on Sunday. I am going to stick with Friday as my long run day after we get home. There will be certain Saturdays that I run with my running group, the weeks that I have a 20-miler scheduled for instance. The rest of my runs will be done on Fridays and I already feel less stressed about my training this summer. I am super lucky that Katie has Fridays off of work so hopefully we can get together for some of our long runs. I also have zero shame in hiring a sitter to come Friday morning for my extra long runs, zero shame. I say this because I actually use to feel bad about having help...oh the things I would tell myself as a new mom, sigh.
Another item I'll be working back into my routine is my Chalean cross training. I did Chalean 3-4 times a week last summer as I was training for the Portland marathon, I firmly believe it helped me cross the finish line still standing. Chalean also helped me to build muscle which made me feel stronger all the way around. Running helped me take off some of my baby weight I was holding onto, but the weight lifting actually changed my body. Ordering Chalean was some of the best money I've ever spent. If you can't tell I am pretty excited to get home and do some of these races I have signed up for and get back to my routine. You can check out my 2013 race schedule here. It'll be nice to have my weight set back again and have a little more flexibility in getting my cross training done. I just don't have the time to get both a run AND cross training done at the gym before Jess leaves for work. I am not making excuses I am just being honest with myself and current season of life. We all have different seasons and I made of the most of this traveling period by really working on my speed training.
Sorry for all of my rambling! Just wanted to put all of that out there, sometimes I feel like I just share my workouts and never any of the person behind them. It can be hard to fit everything in sometimes, especially as a mom. I don't want anyone to think I don't struggle with mom and wife guilt and this all just comes so easy to me. I am extremely fortunate to stay home with my girls and it is important to me that I don't waste this time with them. I want to spend both weekend days with my family as much as possible, they are my top priority. I have my whole life to run, but one day they'll have their own family and I don't want to regret a moment missed together.
Are you a mother/father runner?
Do you struggle with mom/dad guilt?
When do you do you long run when you are in training?
i'm the opposite; i'm a lifter and HIIT cardio lover so i've done all the insanity dvds, the p90x etc but i'm a (sort of) newbie runner. i say 'sort of' because i started late in the fall just before winter hit, realized how much i love running and then bam! winter screwed everything up and it's been zero running since. i loathe the treadmill so i've been biding my time with beachbody programs until recently when mother nature finally granted us some warm weather and i couldn't wait to hit the pavement.
ReplyDeletei don't have any guilt; i spend about an hour on saturday running but my husband is with our daughter and they have a blast. i say we do what we have to do and while we love our kids, we also have to look out for ourselves and do things we enjoy doing even if that doesn't involve our children.