Running Mom's Motivation

This was a crazy week for me. I worked all week long to cover for my boss while she was on vacation. It isn't just the working. I live 35 miles from the office and my kids go to daycare in the town where I work. In order to get the kids to daycare and myself to work, I have to leave about an hour and a half before I need to be to work. Then I work about a ten hour day and the whole thing goes in reverse. So on the days that I work, our whole family has a very long day. Thank goodness our wonderful child care worker took the girls for a couple nights this week to help out. She is a God send and I don't know what we would do without her. As it was, I worked late into the evening both Monday and Tuesday. I was exhausted already by Wednesday. And, I was worried that my training was going to be put on the back burner for the week. For the most part, we just live in survival mode when my boss goes on vacation. I had to alter my training schedule to get in all my runs. I just couldn't run on Wednesday like I normally do. The combination of my exhaustion and the heat and humidity would have made for a dangerous experiment. But I have been very happy that I did get in all my runs this week. I didn't know if I would be able to do it, but luckily things slowed down a bit towards the end of the week and I was able to play catch up. And, my lovely friend Maria encouraged me to get out on Thursday despite the fact that the heat was unbearable.

So, I was supposed to run 6 miles today. It was a distance that I haven't run before. But, planning for it was easy. The loop around the lake near my house is 1.5 miles. I was going to walk over there, do four laps and walk back home. But, I just couldn't do it. I wanted to run as soon as I got out my door. I just didn't feel right walking over to the park. So, I ran. I decided to go 7 today (7.24 to be precise.) I wanted to make up for the crappy long run that I had last week and to prove to myself that I could run 7 miles. The first two laps around the lake were a little hard, but once I completed them, I knew I could finish. I did the entire route in 1:28:01. Not fast by any means, but a definite record for me. It tells me if I keep training and working hard I should be able to finish in a respectable time when I run the Crim 8k on the 25th of this month. And then, I will have my eyes set on a 10k a few weeks after that.

I feel great tonight. I am looking forward to next weeks long run. I am supposed to do 6.5 miles...maybe I will do 8.

Total Miles today = 7.24 Approximate Miles Since Beginning = 393

Posted in: on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at at 10:57 PM