Staycation=no motivation!!! Man not going anywhere can be exhausting!!! The hubs, me, and my sprouts spent the last 9 days just hanging out in our cozy little neck of the Boro. We played, giggled, cried (well we didn't but the 3 footer did during all of her MANY time outs). We jammed in lots of local fun and flavor during our staycation/vacation. I managed to squeeze in 2 short runs and 1 long run.
So I tried something different this week. Normally when I head out for my long runs I do just that, head out and go. My Nike+ does all the tracking for me, but man as the sweat is pouring down my face and I am beginning to feel like I am about to win an Olympic gold, I push the center button to hear how far I have gone and the robot lady says "1 mile completed"....well I kinda want to shoot myself. I mean really shoot myself. I begin to say "Why the hell are you doing this??? Hello, it's summer in south GA!!! 26.2 really???? You are an idiot." And now although it's not like thousands are reading my words, I sadly have made myself accountable to my commitment. The "runner" in me then gets pissed because I have to keep going. This literally has happened on every long run until this week.
This week the hubs told me about a sidewalk. Sounds kinda strange, but we live in a pretty small, but growing south GA city (the word CITY is a stretch, it's a town. It's a small southern town where you can't buy beer on Sundays), but we have a sidewalk that starts at the university and stretches to the outskirts of said...city (town. no real city is partially dry). I needed to run 8 miles and this stretch of cement from start to finish just happened to be 8 miles! I started to run. This time I knew where I was going. The run never got to tough, never got boring, I knew where I was headed. Plus the smell of homecookin' from Snooky's, fresh pig a fryin', was an awesome treat (seriously it's a town, with a restaurant named Snooky's..come on). It got me thinking about my life, more importantly my early 20's. I always thought I knew where I wanted to go, but hell if I had a clue how to get there. I think I took nearly every side road, back road, trail ride, to get where I am today! As I ran it felt so good to know where I was going and doing exactly what I needed to get there. It wasn't until my late 20's that these two notions collided and I became driven. I really haven't felt this way since I finally decided to "go to college", what I mean by that is actually attend class and produce a GPA. I went to college on and off for nearly a decade before I actually started "producing" (ps. Graduated in 2.5 yrs with a GPA of 3.489, only had 11 hrs after nearly a decade of service, not too shabby...driven). It felt good to feel that way again.
Being a stay at home mom these days all I drive is a minivan, literally. This marathon is for me, about me. I want my girls to know their mommy didn't quit, but more importantly I want to feel driven. I am driven daily, driven a bit closer to crazy everyday. I love my girls and my new job, but being a full time mommy is hard. If you aren't careful you lose yourself and can become just miserable. This journey I am on is keeping me from losing site of myself and making me the best version of mommy I can be.
This week I ran farther than I have since 2007. My knees are having some growing pains, but overall I feel great. I have hidden the scale b/c after standing on it 100x's a week, I am losing site about what this is all about!!!
Week 4: 14 miles
Lesson learned: Knowing your path makes it easy to follow.
I love your lessons learned.
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