Thanks for the running clubs

Well; what do you know? Photos suddenly work in blogger again?? (Or maybe not suddenly… I haven’t tried posting one in over a year.)

I’m thankful for my kids’ running programs. I signed them up for cross country back in 2019 when the older kids’ soccer teams reorganized and I needed something they could all do together. It clicked, and we kept going back.

They have all done cross country and track, in a club and in school, and it’s been so great for all of them. Our county’s middle schools have never had sports until last year, when the superintendent and school board instituted cross country and track across all the schools, which is so great for so many reasons. Theo and Ida both ran in high school and Lars is planning to do it in high school too. (Which is next year, if you can believe that.)

I’m thankful for the lessons they have learned from running, the friends they have made, and the fun that we have all had (I have been a coach with Polly’s age group and younger since she joined at age 6). Yay for running clubs ❤️

Go me

Did I tell you I am training for another marathon? Well… I am. Glutton for punishment I suppose, but also I want to beat Oprah Winfrey’s marathon time of 4:30.

This will mean “shaving” 45 minutes off of my marathon time of 5:15. But I think it is very doable as long as I work on speed training, which I did not do last year when my only goal was to finish.

Today was my first real speed training day where I actually stuck with it. I use an app called Runcoach, which is similar to the Nike Run app which I really like, but because it’s connected with the marathon I’m running and the “coach” bot knows my current pace and the pace I’m working toward, it has specific training instructions for me which play in my ear as I’m running. 

Today I got about halfway through my speed workout (which was 8 sets of 400m at a pace that’s about 25% faster than I normally run) and decided I would just do half of it. I was going way slower than my assigned pace (which the bot was sure to tell me after every split, lol) and I just felt terrible. It was hot and I had a cramp.

Instead I decided to keep going… not sure why… but I proceeded to run my last 4 splits at increasingly faster paces, all faster than my assigned time.

Why did this happen? I don’t know. At some point in the process I made a decision to go against what my body wanted to do, and it was like a switch flipped. These kinds of experiences are why I think people get addicted to things like marathon training.

I have a longish to-do list today, but if I don’t get to the rest of it, I don’t even care, because I’m so pleased with how I pushed through this morning. Go me!

Shake it to the left, if you’re having a good time

In 2013 I embarked on a running journey as part of an effort to make “30” special. It was an amazing year for running, in terms of stretching and growing and working hard. 

Unfortunately (and not coincidentally) I also had a sort of emotional/mental breakdown toward the end of that year, which brought me on another journey which was what I’m just now realizing has been almost exactly 10 years of therapy. Whew! 

You know, I would never change it. I actually kind of hate going to therapy but I can’t imagine my life without it. I’ve been to 4 different therapists in that time, only because the dang therapists kept moving out of state. Pretty sure they didn’t move away just because of me, but who knows? 😆 my favorite was Adina. She “got” me, and she also “got” Theo (Theo and I tend to share therapists, it’s efficient). I cried when she left. She was like a decade younger than me, too, but wise beyond her years, I guess!

But anyway, now I’m 40, and I’m embarking on another running journey (marathon in November), and it feels good. I’m even slower than I was at 30, but I don’t mind. I feel strong. I feel focused. I feel my body adapting. I feel a little overwhelmed at the miles I still have in front of me, especially when I look at my Saturday runs scheduled in September and October.

Came across this post from 2013 detailing some of those same feelings when I went through that 30-year-old running year. Felt happy to see a comment from Jenn, who’s been on my mind a lot lately. https://lizer.blogspot.com/2013/08/shake-it-to-right-if-you-know-that-you.html?m=1 

Years are going by. It’s a little wild.

Thanks for the sports

I wouldn’t call us a super sporty family but we’ve tried out our share of sports. When the big kids were little they tried soccer, baseball, dance, gymnastics, and wrestling. As they got older (and we added more kids) we settled into cross-country, track, and swim. And a basketball league at church in the winter (volleyball last year). Sometimes I feel a little bit guilty for not diversifying more. Other times I feel pretty proud of myself for managing to enroll them all in sports where all of them practice and compete at the same time in the same place. 

Would I recommend track meets for efficiency… no. Those are long. 😂 especially if you have a wide age range and a wide range of events… BUT, overall it’s still pretty efficient when you consider the weekly to daily practices all being in one spot at one time. (High school is separate from the youth club, but that’s also easy… at school, right after school.) I still think running and swimming are pretty great sports for them to carry into the rest of their lives. They’re all very flexible in terms of what amount of time and effort you want to put in, you can set your own goals and hit your own PRs, and there’s usually room for everyone who wants to participate. And last but not at all least, I love love love the coaches (including the teen coaches for the littlest kids and the coaching opportunities for my own teens) and the communities that come with these particular sports. ❤️

Thanks for my lungs

It’s here! Thanksblogging is here!

Today I am thankful for strong lungs. I got diagnosed with bronchitis today, yet somehow I ran 12 miles on Saturday. 🤔 (I’ve had a cough off and on for the past 10 days, and on Saturday I thought I was better ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ guess I was wrong)

Ida and I are running a half marathon together in less than 2 weeks, so I really hope we’ll both be healthy on race day.

We’ve been training for 2 months, and I’ve had a few minor injuries but have not had any issues with endurance. I am very thankful for lungs that let me keep up with a teenager!