New Plan of Attack

One of my biggest obstacles to overcome in this adventure with Team in Training has been and continues to be balancing all the training time with my role as a mother.

I am a single mom with three kids attending two different private school campuses, both of which are nowhere near where I live or work. Just the challenge of getting them all to and from school, working a job, preparing decent meals and keeping up with a home is enough to keep me up to my eyeballs. Add to that the fact that each of my children are involved in extracurricular activities – Gabe is currently in cross country, Math Counts, youth group and running for student government, Carson is in karate and Hailey is taking tap/jazz dance class. There is the ongoing battle of keeping up with the mountains of homework as well – a real sore spot for a former homeschooling family. We attend church regularly and are involved with our “family” there. And somewhere in there we do try to spend time with friends and with each other as a family. Needless to say the recent events with my mom and all the traveling and stress involved have not helped matters.

Now add to that a rigorous training schedule with TNT.

After yet another somewhat grueling and discouraging time running and doing drills and sprints with Gabe's cross country team yesterday afternoon, I finally came to a conclusion. I need to be a morning runner. I’ve adamantly avoided early morning ANYTHING in the past, not being a morning person (note serious understatement here). Of course, I never wanted to be a runner person either (once again, major understatement). Now I’m finding those two things go over much better when they go together. By the afternoon, having had a full day of kid shuttling and work, it’s hard to get into a good run. Also, up until now it has been hot in the afternoons – anywhere from the upper 80s to nearly 100. The last few runs I’ve done in the morning, however, have been satisfying and even exhilarating.

So today, I was up at 5:00 am and outside my house stretching with my dear friend and neighbor, Alicia, at 5:15 am. She volunteered to run with me today even though she is neither a morning person nor a runner person. That girl was a serious trooper on this quite chilly morning in the dark! We ran 4 and 2 minute intervals for 35 minutes or so then cooled down a little with a walk around the block. My energy level, attitude and endurance ability were tremendously better than any afternoon run of comparable time or distance. What a difference!

And now I’m done for the day. I’m looking forward to picking my kids up from school then taking Carson to karate and actually sticking around to watch him rather than running off (literally). The afternoon and evening are our own. (Insert contented sigh here.)