Coffee, saying good-bye to a friend, and running...

This morning, I couldn't pick up my coffee cup. I didn't sleep well last night, either. Something in the right shoulder/neck/upper right quadrant area of my body was off enough that when I rolled over in bed, the pain woke me up. I'm a right-side sleeper, generally, and trying to sleep on my back was hard. And then I got up this morning, and I could get my coffee cup about four inches from my mouth, but not all the way there because of a pull in my neck. Haven't had this kind of soreness in quite some time. What on earth?

A few weeks ago, a close family friend passed away. She was in hospice care when my mom called to    tell me that it wouldn't be long. Our friend and I had fallen out of touch. But I imagine it's like many friendships--people weave their way in and out of life. At the point that my mother called, our friend was not really in my life. And I didn't get to talk to her before she died. By the time I was ready to make the call, she was already gone. 

So yesterday, when I headed out on the bike, I found myself in conversation with my friend. And by the time our conversation ended, it was 45 minutes later, and I had ridden really hard without noticing...until last night when I was laying in bed and kept having weird, stiff pains in my neck. And then there was the coffee cup this morning. Clearly, an excuse to skip a scheduled run--day 2 of the Galloway training program for Dopey.

(Spoiler, I didn't skip...) So I went and got my running shoes on. My neck was stiff enough that I couldn't really negotiate putting on my shirt and bra, so that was my first adventure. And I set out planning to walk as much as I wanted to. But then I started running. And I hit the hill pictured above, and it felt pretty darn good. Galloway calls for a couple of 45 minute runs during the week, so that's what I set out to do. Ran 4 minutes, walked 1 in the heat and humidity of this fine Indiana morning. And then came back home to another cup of coffee. This one, I could drink. 

The Dopey Challenge--Re-entry to the blogosphere

First Run Selfie

Happy Cross-Training Day Selfie (in an Oberon Jersey!)

Imagine my surprise when I signed on to my running blog this morning and realized it has been four years since I have posted. Fear not, I've been running for the last four years. I just haven't been writing much about it. No time like the present, though, to kick off a new round of entries with a cliche and everything! 

I have signed up for (and plunked down a good chunk of change for) the Dopey Challenge at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida taking place in January of 2018. I will be running a 5k on January 4, a 10K on January 5, a half marathon on January 6, and a full marathon on January 7.  Why? Bucket list, of course. But also because it just sounds badass and hard, and I like doing things that sound badass and hard. 

There are all kinds of logistics things running through my head as I write this first entry. I'm a teacher, and I'm supposed to be back in class on January 8. I'm not going to make it. But I'll be in class on the 9th! My best friend usually goes on these adventures with me, and I'm still trying to convince her to at least join me for the full (the Dopey Challenge closed pretty soon after registration opened). My mom has offered to come to Florida with me so that I'm not down there alone, and now I want to run around the parks with her, but that isn't in the race plan.

But the training plan really should be the focus of this first entry. So I'm using the Galloway training plan for right now. It started yesterday. And he lists the goal for the plan as something like, "To finish upright." That seems like a reasonable goal. But in September, I'll be switching to what I perceive to be a slightly more rigorous program--the Hal Higdon training plan.  Galloway sticks with a three-day per week training plan early on. It doesn't feel like enough given how much I have to get done between now and then (much getting in shape to happen), but I like it for the summer months of July and August so that I can get in some biking. I just finished up a Hal Higdon training program to run a marathon in April, and I was feeling pretty burnt out by the time I was done. Hoping that cross training will help me maintain some sanity.

On that note, I took a day 1 selfie for the run (look at that happy smile!). And a day 2 selfie for my first cross-training ride (look at that jersey!). I am a runner who loves a plan, and I've got the next several months of training runs mapped out. 

Transitions.

I have 34 teaching days left in the school year, and I am on the tail end of my Spring Break. And we are about to make a major transition. Major. We are moving the family up to northwest Indiana to settle in at a new job, new school, new house, and new community. Except it isn't all that new (for me). I worked there for six years before moving to Kentucky, and I feel like I'm moving home. That being said, moving when you have a husband and child is a whole different ball game, and we're in about the bottom of the fifth inning. The house is on the market (ever tried to sell a house with a 3 year old living in it?), and we are trying to figure out the logistics of closing up one house/job and starting another. 

My best friend (who lives there) and I were texting the other day, and she said, "I saw two women getting ready for a run together, and I didn't even get jealous because I knew you were coming back." We ran a 10-mile run around the lake there nearly every Sunday for about four years. I'm realizing that I can't even write about it here because I don't know what to say. However, I will say this. I lived downstairs from her in a two-story apartment building, and we got to the point where we wouldn't even talk on Sunday mornings before the run. CBS Sunday morning would end on the television, and I would hear her door open and her feet on the stairs, and we'd meet in the parking lot outside and head out. I moved away in 2005, and I haven't lived in a building with a second story since, but there are Sunday mornings when I'd swear I'm still listening for the sound of her door. 

And now we get to run again. 

"Hmmm, but I'm a distance runner."

I was home in Michigan during this last week, and we were bopping around to various kid-friendly venues over the course of the week to keep our daughter entertained and to maintain our sanity. We ended up at an awesome play space for kids--$5.00 for 15,000 square feet of fun: kid cars, a kid's Meijer's, a bank, a playhouse, a stage with costumes, a spaceship...all kinds of fun. And I started chatting it up with another mom while my daughter was taking her first shot at using Elmer's glue in public.

I commented on how dreamy it is for me to come home and run in my hometown. It seems that I run fast every time I run there. It could have something to do that my hometown is on a lake, but the air doesn't make me feel like I'm running in one. In Kentucky, the heat and humidity can be so oppressive that a run on country roads feels like a slog through a swamp.

Me: Every time I come home, I drop a minute off my mile time. It's awesome.
New Friend: Oh, but I'm a distance runner.
Me: Me, too. I mean my pace. I'm faster here.
New Friend: Yeah, see I run distance.

At this point, I'm not really sure where the disconnect is. We're chatting, though, and it's nice to find a fellow runner. She tells me she hasn't run a race since before the birth of her daughter 22 months ago. I totally get this. I tell her that I ran the Flying Pig in May; it is my first marathon since, um, the marathon at Ironman in 2007.

New Friend: See, I like running the half.
Me: Me, too! It's my favorite distance. It's much easier for recovery!
New Friend: But the half is so competitive!

Now I've got it. We're two different types of runners. My friend is actually one of those folks who looks at the competition when she shows up at the line. I am one of those folks who looks at every step of the route I run as the competition. Me versus the road. There are other people there? I seldom notice (except in the case of the end-of-marathon nuttiness if you read my previous post on the Pig).

I don't know at what point I fell into this camp. I was competitive when I was doing sprint distance triathlons and could pull off a place in my age group. I liked that feeling. But I have somehow always, always known that the only person I was competing against on a run was myself. In the triathlon world, I am a strong swimmer. And given enough time on the bike, I can pull together a decent leg on the bike. On the run, I'm always just holding on for dear life.

So since making the switch primarily to running post-baby, I haven't really thought much about being competitive. I've just run. Run. Run.

I'm reading a book right now. "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by Haruki Marukami,  and I was really struck by his definitions of running seriously or running rigorously, and it made me ache a little bit for the kind of training schedule I had when I was "competitive." And while I realized at  the time that I was with my new friend that we were different, I didn't realize until I read this book that I  have been in both camps at one point in my life and that I miss that feeling, too. I miss recognizing two different sides to my athletic self. So I've got to head back a bit more rigor in running.

PowerGel 2008--the vintage version

I went out on my long run today with PowerGels from 2008. Well, they expired in 2008. So that probably means that they were made in 2006. For some reason, this doesn't bother me. Odd because I won't eat most food that is a single day past its expiration date. My friend got this great deal at a discount store on boxes of gels, and I have been carting them around ever since. I'm not training enough, clearly. They should be gone by now. I even swore I'd throw them all away after the marathon last May and start fresh. But I'm cheap. They are my everyday gels. And then, on race day, I get to have my dress-up gel that I buy at the race expo. I will never eat Strawberry Banana anything again. Ever.

The school year started. My schedule got out of control. Blah, blah, blah. No posting here. So what did I need gels for today? A 10 mile long run. And what was I doing a ten-mile long run for? The Indianapolis half marathon that is happening in about a month. And at what point in my adulthood did I stop understanding when to hyphenate and to stop asking questions that I was going to immediately answer in my writing?

On to the running. I feel like the kid in class who works really, really, really hard but is still going to be a "C" student no matter what. You know the kid. There are a couple of pieces to kill the metaphor, though. I only have been working sorta really hard on my running (I actually started doing "speed" workouts, for crying out loud). And if my performance is anything like it was at the Flying Pig, then I'm really more of a "D" student.

So I'll throw this out there. Last year, my goal at the Indianapolis half was to go sub 2:30. I think my official time was a 2:29 something. So I did it. And I set out at the start of my training to train for a pace that would put me closer to 2:20 (I think that's 10:40 miles or so). I successfully ran a solid 5-miler at race pace on Tuesday of this week. On my long run today, though, I didn't even come close to that pace. I know I wasn't supposed to. But sometimes it's kinda nice when the pace just magically comes together. Today wasn't so magical. Still, I've got a super-secret time goal of 2:20 for this race. A not-so-secret time goal of 2:25.

What I'd really like, though, is to be running the times that I was pulling off in 2008 when my vintage Powergels weren't yet expired. We'll get there. I posted this quote this week on my facebook page because of last week's long run: "Of course it's hard. The hard is what makes it great. If it weren't hard, everyone would be doing it." Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. The hard really is what makes it great.

Controlling the controllables

Want to get mentally stronger? Try running on an 80+ degree day in 80+% humidity while pushing a running stroller carrying a two-and-a-half-year-old tornado who passes the time by alternating between randomly demanding a change of direction ("Go that way, Mommy!" while pointing vehemently at a stranger's driveway) and saying things like, "Get out!" (meaning I don't want to be in this stroller any longer) and "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" (followed by not actually saying anything when request for my attention is acknowledged).

The complaining started a mile and a half in. Ruby objected to my turning the stroller around to head back towards home and wanted to play in the "Ruby park." It's her adorable phrase for any swing set that she sees. While huffing and puffing my way through the next quarter mile, I didn't have the energy to explain for the 900th time that we can't just go up to a stranger's house and climb on their swing set. So, "Nope," was all she got out of me. This, understandably, frustrated her. However, having had this conversation 899 times before, I didn't think a longer conversation would result in anything other than that same frustration, and I'd be more out of breath. So I took the shorter path to her frustration, and just uttered a, "nope."

Another quarter of a mile down the road, and the "Get out!" began.  I reassured Ruby that we would be home shortly. So then the "Get out!" was followed by, "No, no go home!" Hmmm. No one ever said 2 1/2 year olds were logical. She wanted to not be in the stroller and not go home, but we were in the middle of a country road between a soy field and a hay field. How would getting out help? I felt my pulse pick up a bit. Probably my blood pressure, too. I was getting frustrated. I was trying to run in this miserable heat and counter an illogical two-year-old with logic. This wasn't going well.

With a half mile to go to get home, the one thought that clicked in my head was that I was the control here. If I was going to finish the run strong, that was up to me. If I was going to finish the run frustrated, that was up to me. Ruby was going to do what Ruby was going to do, and I was going to choose how to react. The distance to home wasn't changing. I say all the time that I need to control the controllables, but here I was letting the controllables control me.

I put myself in a parenting time out. I slowed up the pace. I apologized to Ruby for having snapped at her when she started with the whining (my less-than-proud parenting moment), and I finished out the run. Lesson re-learned for the day.

Corn? Cattle Prices? Dry heat, please...

I got out the door at 5:40 this morning to do a quick three miles before my husband had to head off to work. I had resolved that I wouldn't run anything shorter than 4, but the clock got me this morning. So I ran a "fast" three early.

I get that we need rain. Drought is a bad, bad thing. It kills crops. Farmers sell off their cattle. It drives up the cost of food. But let's look at it from a glass half-full perspective--we don't have to mow the grass as often. Okay, that's it for a list. Not mowing the lawn is good. From a runner's perspective, though, the dry heat at the beginning of the summer was awesome. Maybe those Arizona folks are on to something.

I stepped out the door, and my first thought was, "Oh, scheisse. It's 80 degrees already." Just go.

I don't like having a time limit for my runs, but I was very aware of my husband's need to get out the door for work, so I needed to go. My legs felt stiff. My shoes felt heavy. My steps were a shuffle.

A quarter mile in, and my mind started to click. Every now and again, I would get a slight breeze coming off the soybean fields, and then a ten degree change two steps later that would take my breath away. I stopped thinking about my legs, my feet, my lungs. I started thinking about staying loose.

Three miles. One car. Two workmen at a church up the road. And just me and the road. What a great way to start the day. I do miss the dry heat. Time for coffee.

1500 steps...5:00 a.m. Ouch. And awesome.

RGB got me up at 3:30 this morning in her usual wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-torture-mama-routine, and at that point, it was not in my best interest to go back to sleep if I wanted to make it to the 5:00 a.m. stadium runs. So thanks to RGB, I had plenty of time to get my stuff together, get my butt in the car, and make the 30-minute drive to the stadium. Much better than last time when I was doing the fastest tri transition ever. In the dark. On no sleep. Move on, Kim.

I went in this morning determined. I was going to go down and back through those stadium stairs. I didn't count every stair, but I did do some math (before I got too tired to do so...see earlier post on fatigues and runs) after counting one set, and the total up and down would be 1500. 750 up. 750 down. Give or take a few.

I was drenched by the third set of stairs; the humidity was high. I was rethinking my goal with four sets of stairs (300 steps) to go, but I did make it down and back. The .44 miles on the stairs took me 25 minutes (with sets of push-ups on each of the downs thrown in). But I kept reminding myself that speed wasn't the point.

And the reward was four laps on the stadium grass in my bare feet. I swear, that's like a drug to me. Next week, I'm going earlier so that I can get started earlier and get to the grass more quickly.

The week? I had a great long run on Sunday. Ran 8. Ran the first six without a break. Haven't done that in who knows when. Had a good, fast, short ride on Saturday and averaged over 16 mph for the first time in quite a while. Ran a solid four on Friday night. Ran a solid five on Thursday night. A couple of other workouts thrown in there. Decent week.

I'm reading back through this post and I'm not impressed, so I ask that you re-read my first line again. 3:30 a.m. No nap today. Sigh. Try again tomorrow.

Beginning at the end

I sunk down into the coldest tub of water I could handle at the end of my ride yesterday. Actually, short of adding ice to the water, I couldn't have gotten it any colder. I kept running my hand under the water coming out of the faucet wondering if I had turned on the wrong one. In reality, I was just that hot. How'd I end up there?

I rode part of the bike route that I used to ride when I was training for Ironman Wisconsin. I have not gone over 20 miles on my bike in recent memory, so doing a 33 mile ride was going to be a stretch, but I thought that if I would just soft pedal if I started to struggle, I'd be fine. I ride a bike with a triple chainring, and I seldom let myself use the smallest of the three, so I figured I had that, too. It would be fine. 

And everything was fine. For most of the ride. Up until a certain point. I rode well through Mammoth Cave National Park. I took on a couple of 5-minute climbs and felt really great about how those went. I was taking in calories in the form of peanut butter pretzels and gel and gatorade mixed with water. I had a few run-ins with cars, but I'll save my ranting about vehicles for a post dedicated to ranting. (But just to interject here, if you have to force a car coming in the opposite direction off the road in order to pass a cyclist, you need to just hit your brakes, for the love.) 

My first stop on the ride came in Park City, KY. It's a far cry from Park City, Utah. Here's the view from my stop:

Yep. So you can tell that I was pretty tired because I stopped here. At this spot. After rolling through beautiful Mammoth Cave National Park, this is where I chose to pull over. I wanted to give my toes a break. My shoes were killing me. I wanted to regroup before I headed into some rollers, and I wanted to assess my calorie situation. Regrouping done, I resolved to soft-pedal. I was starting to feel the heat. How bad could it be? 

I hit some gorgeous green spots. Check out this road:

and I was doing okay until about two minutes after stopping to take this picture. I rolled up on a house that I haven't been past since I last rode the route. And when I last rode the route, they had a dog. I remembered that. I got past the first driveway of the house, and that's when I heard him. Man, he was huge. And charging. And barking. And showing his teeth. I was yelling, pedaling all over the road, telling him to go home, and trying to decide if I was going to have to jump off my bike to try to put my bike between me and the dog. The confrontation lasted probably less than 20 seconds, but my heart rate took a heck of a lot longer to come down, and any energy I had been conserving for the last five or six miles of the ride home was shot. And I still had this hill to climb:

The picture doesn't really do it justice because it's a much sharper climb than I think this shows. But I was riding into Rocky Hill, and I kept telling myself to remember that they named it that for a reason. These aren't mountains, but they are little rollers with a little out-of-the-seat climbing required now and again. On an 80 degree day, this would not have been a challenge. On this 104 degree day, this was looking pretty tough.

After pushing my way through Rocky Hill, I stopped again. I called my husband to let him know that I was about five miles out from home and doing okay but that I was hurting. Too hot. Legs were shot. Looking back now, I was probably just pushing the edge of the call I've never, ever made: "Come pick me up." I gave myself a few minutes more in the shade and headed on. Two more good climbs ahead.

I hit the first climb, and when I needed to stand up out of my saddle, I got off my bike. Yep, I did it. I walked my bike up that hill. In the ditch. I was thinking that the most important thing at this point was to make it home and that killing myself on that hill was not going to have any physical benefit at all. I was probably being a bit melodramatic, but I was also just so damn hot.

Made it up the second climb and was grateful that my dog friend at that house decided to stay home. You might remember him from my 20 mile run; he accompanied me for several of those miles.

And then I was home. And in the bathtub. And feeling okay sitting in freezing cold water.

I don't know what I was thinking. I know better than to add 33% mileage, even if it is on a bike ride and not a run. And I know better than to ride that far on those hills in that heat. I KNOW better. I've felt wasted all day today. I didn't get up for the 5:00 stadium runs this morning because I knew I needed the rest. I was sad to miss running on that fantastic field, though.

So I'm feeling like I don't want to ride my bike ever again, but I think I'll go out in a couple of days with a friend from my running group. And I'll get back into it. And I'll enjoy it. And next time, I'll at least pack more peanut butter crackers.

Flying by the seat...the swim, the bike, and the run

The swim
I got to swim one night this week, and I'm headed back today for a 3K yard swim. I was psyched to get to share a lane this week with a random guy named Drew who is racing the Muncie Endurathon this weekend and then the Louisville Ironman next month. On the Ironman, I gave him one piece of advice--don't forget that it's supposed to be fun. Even when you are miserable, it's fun. Dammit. That's why we do this stuff. I think he thought I was nuts.


I took this picture of the locker room at my pool because I continue to be blown away by the stupid, stupid, stupid design. I was concerned someone might think I was a perv when I was taking the picture, so it was a quick pic. Have I ranted about this before? I'll make a quick list.
1. These lockers are the only lockers they have, and they are only for swim-team members. So people with memberships at the pool can't use the lockers and have to haul all their stuff out to the pool deck every time they swim.
2. This is actually what you see when you open the door from the toilets. So if you happen to be naked when Joe Schmoe opens the door, tough luck.
3. Fortunately for you, you probably won't be spending any time in front of these lockers because there isn't a bench. The only bench is on the other side of these lockers.
4. And there's no private changing area unless you want to tuck into the handicap-accessible shower. I don't mind being naked in front of other people, but I remember being horrified when I was in middle school and would see someone else naked. I'm not out to horrify anyone.
5. The toilets are actually outside of the locker room and are used by both swimmers and the general public. So if you are coming in off the street and want to use the toilets, chances are you are going to have a wet, wet butt because some hapless swimmer has been in the toilets before you.

Those are my top five. I could also write about how the lifeguards always seem to want to clean something when I'm swimming and the fumes seem to mix with the chlorine making me want to gag, but that's actually in the pool.

The bike
The sun probably tells the story, but it has been a great week for cycling. I rode on the 4th and followed it with a two-mile run, and I was surprised at how great it felt. A brick. A BRICK for crying out loud. But I miss my tri bike.

I need to get the ride in for a tune-up, but I don't have a back-up bike besides my beach cruiser, so I have a hard time making the time to drop it off. There is bird poo on my handlebar tape. And duct tape because the tape was coming off, and I didn't know how to fix it. No wonder I got dropped on a  group ride a week and a half ago; who can take a girl seriously when she has bird poo and duct tape on her bike?

The run
I now walk out the door to do my runs and tell my husband that I'm going to go see what the neighbors are up to. Why? Two days after the run-in with the teenagers at that house, I was out for my morning run and came up on the house to see a girl coming from around the side of the house to let herself in the front door...wearing only a thong and a tank top. Yes. I saw her ass. We did not make eye contact.

I ran a fast three yesterday morning, and I was fired up by my splits. When I first got home and checked my watch, I thought it hadn't gone that well, but I'm an idiot with math at 6:00 in the morning when I've just finished a run. When I plugged the numbers into the computer, I was really pleased with how well it went. Finally.

Up next
Swim today. Long run tomorrow. Bike on Sunday of the tri course I'm thinking about doing.

Three-a-days (running, swimming, and mom hood)

Pillow talk with my husband last night revolved around my fantasy of getting in two workouts today. I wanted to get up at 4:15 a.m. to leave the house by 4:30 to get to WKU stadium by 5:00 to do a "stadium run" workout with the folks from the local running store. Then, I wanted to do a swim workout when my husband got home from work and could take over the Ruby duties. Two-a-days make me happy (as do six-hour bike rides and runs that require refilling the Camelback), and I just don't get to do them as often as I would like--much less frequently since having Ruby. So hubby and I agreed on the logistics, and we headed to bed.

Then parenthood struck. Ruby had gone to bed at 8:00, and her first wake-up call for me was at about 11:30. Ruby-wake-up calls generally involve Kevin getting her something to drink and me climbing into her big-girl bed with her to get her back to sleep. I'm not sure my climbing into bed with her is as much about her as it is about me just wanting to get horizontal and to get my world quiet in the fastest way possible. I was back in our bed by about 12:30, and I remember feeling relief that we had gotten the wake-up over with so early. Phew.

4:09 a.m. "Mommy?" You have got to be kidding me. My alarm was set for 4:15, and Ruby was up again at 4:09. Scheisse.

I went to her room. Did a quick diaper change. Got her settled down in her bed again. Curled up next to her and waited for her to roll on her side--the sure sign that I am home free. Clicked on my Timex: 4:17. Crap. Two minutes gone that I could have been eating toast and a banana.

(Change to present-tense to share my real-time thinking.)
4:23. If she falls asleep now, I can still grab a banana, brush my teeth, get changed, and hit the road. Don't forget the water. iPod?

4:25. Why are your eyes still open? Geesh. There's no way. I was going to be out the door by 4:30. What can I do if she falls asleep right now? No teeth brushing. I'll put my shoes on in the car. While driving. I can still make this.

4:27. Sigh. Give it up. No stadium runs for you. At least you'll get in a swim later today. Sometimes parenthood sucks. (Martyr switch on.)

4:28 Really? Are you really asleep? If I jump out of bed now, I can still make it. But I have to jump out of bed slowly. I can do this. Slide out of bed. SLIDE. QUIET!!!!

I climbed out of bed, checked my watch every thirty seconds, channeled the triathlete in me to make the fastest transition ever from pajamas to running clothes, and bolted down the hall. Grabbed a pair of running shoes from next to the back door (Geesh, I hope this is a matching pair). Grabbed a banana off the counter. Told my husband I was hitting the road, and I was out of there. 4:39.

For what? This:

I think this picture is actually of the side we didn't run on. They have remodeled the stadium, and I'm not sure this is even a current picture, but in my hurry to get out of the house in the dark this morning, I forgot to bring my phone along with me, so I couldn't get actual pictures. Next week.

There were about ten people there this morning. And those folks were amazing. We went from one end of the stadium to the other, up one aisle and down the next--stopping on the downs to do ten push-ups. I made it through one time. Others went down and back. Others went down and back and down and back. Incredible. My legs were quaking by the time I got halfway through.

My favorite part, though, was when we went down to the stadium grass at the end and ran laps around the field. Barefoot. I would go back again just to get to do that. I couldn't help but remember the laps I got to do around Badger stadium during the Ironman in Wisconsin. And I was thinking how jazzed I would be to get to do this same workout in Michigan stadium.

I'm not sure what the takeaways from this morning are. Sometimes, parenthood gets in the way. It's great to be a mom, but it doesn't always make it easy to be a runner or a triathlete. And while I love curling up in bed to watch Ruby sleep, I also love being a grown-up with other grown-ups doing athletic things at 5:00 in the morning. I think that's the biggest challenge of parenthood--having to find a balance.

On the workout front, it was tough to watch everyone else doing two or three times what I did this morning, and I wanted to do more. But I think there are times when it is wise to know if I am doing a workout because my ego wants me to or if I am doing a workout because it's what my body needs. As I stood there on the steps about halfway through the workout and felt my legs shaking like jello, I knew I needed to put the ego in check. Had I known how much I would love running barefoot on the field, I would have headed down there sooner.

Swimming tonight.