Comparison

This morning I ran 9 miles, the longest run I’ve done since having a baby. It was wonderful. Despite starting at 530 am, I felt great. It was mild, the roads were clear, and there was a stunning sunrise. It was one of those runs where everything just clicked.

Then I finished and saved my run and saw that my over-all average pace was 9:47. My pride started to dissipate because I thought I was running so much faster. Then I went inside and looked at my phone while I stretched and saw that 7 years ago  today I had just finished the Antarctica Marathon, 4 years ago I was in Japan after the Tokyo Marathon, and 3 years ago I was in New Zealand getting ready to run the Mountains to the Sea Marathon. Suddenly 9 miles didn’t seem like such an accomplishment.

I’m finding this training for my first post-partum half marathon more challenging than I expected. Physically, my body has changed and I haven’t run longer than 6-7 miles in 2 years.  Practically it is really hard to fit in the training around work and being a Mom. It’s still too cold and snowy to take Cooper with me, so I have to run when someone else is around to watch him. Mentally, I struggle with comparing myself to what I used to be able to do. I used to run marathons and I used to run faster.

I’m trying to remind myself that I am in a different point in my life and comparing myself to what I used to do (or to other people) serves no purpose. I am doing the best I can do right now. But taking it easy on myself, is not one of my strong points.

When I Have Kids, I'll Never #2

As Cooper grows, so does my list of things I do as a parent that I said I’d never do. I did a post like this when he was just a few months old and I thought it was a lot of fun, so here’s #2!

1)      I said I’d never let my kids in the bathroom with me

I like my privacy. I don’t want my husband in there when I am going to the bathroom and I said I’d never let my kids in there either. Well it turns out letting Cooper in is easier than having him standing outside the door screaming and pounding on the door. Or even worse, hearing nothing but silence from outside and worrying that he has found a new way to try and kill himself.

2)      I said my house wouldn’t be overrun with toys

I am a neat freak, so I planned to be a minimalist parent. My kids wouldn’t need a thousand toys. I'd have a place for everything and clean up every night. Well it turns out people love to buy babies lots of toys (and we do appreciate it, really!) and that babies get bored quickly and do need quite a variety of stuff to keep them amused. As for keeping everything neat and organized? Our collection rapidly outgrew our storage containers and we quickly acquired some large items that didn’t fit in containers. By night time I am so completely exhausted that the last thing I want to do is clean, especially when I know it will all just get messy again first thing in the morning.

3)      I said I’d never let my kids eat in the car and trash the backseat

Cooper is not a fan of the car right now. Turns out I’d rather have to vacuum up huge quantities of Cheerios every few days than listen to him scream the whole time we are in the car.

And then of course there is the whole separate category of  things so strange that I never even imagined I’d be doing them. Like try to get a decent picture of your child’s butt crack in order to show the doctor his diaper rash. It involved multiple lamps to get the right lighting and then a lot of coordination as I tried to simultaneously hold his cheeks apart so you could see the rash, keep him from launching himself off the changing table, and hold my phone and take a picture.

Total Body Drop Set Burnout Workout

My gym has cancelled a lot of my favorite classes. But every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case it has forced me to get out on the gym floor and create my own workouts more. I really have enjoyed this. It has forced me out of my rut of always doing the same exercises for 3 sets of 12 reps. I created this one Tuesday that was inspired by this workout on Peanut Butter Fingers.

A drop set workout was a great change of pace and a good way to really fatigue my my muscles! I was SO sore after this workout!

For superset 2 I did all the reps on each leg for the squats and deadlifts.

I used a mini band for all of super-set 4. It was easier than putting on just for the monster walks and it made the jump squats and long jumps harder!

Inspire me- what workouts are you doing lately?