Finding Balance: Wellness for the Everyday Struggle: July 2019

So in the last few weeks, I have learned I can ride a bike, do some gentle indoor rock climbing, and run. My pelvis is at least somewhat more put together, finally.

I'm going to do a short post soon about what I think made the biggest difference there, but...this change brings us to a new thing.

I allowed myself to get talked into attempting another half marathon.

Now, the last one, I ended up with a partial tear to my plantar fascia (the band of tendon that runs from heel to ball of feet on the bottom), 3 months no weight bearing, months of PT and a whole year before I could run again. So, to say I'm a little nervous is an understatement.

Now, we're starting slower, increasing slower, I have different shoes and might get even slightly more supportive shoes soon, AND, and this is the biggest one, we're making a point to train on the same surface the run will be on. Last time we did our longest runs mostly on dirt, but the race was on asphalt and concrete. I'm hoping this makes a huge difference.

That all being said, we were training 6 years ago now and my body is not the same. And training is not the same. Either I have to wait to do my training runs until after the kids are in bed (or wake up to finish them before kids are awake, HAHAHAHAHA), or there's potential for Jade's second nap being cut short, running in the hottest part of the day, putting more stress into the already chaotic 5-8 pm chaos of Eric gets home, make dinner, do kid baths and bed rush, but get to run with Eric, and he pushes the stroller. I am too out of shape to run with the stroller at training level distances. Our huge double with kids loaded is 100 lbs. Our single which can hold both kids for me to run at least reduces that to 80 lbs and less ground resistance but...still. It's just not practical.

Running in hottest part of day and listening to Legan ask 1000 questions and argue all the answers as I struggle to keep my pace and breathe is...hard. Hard physically, hard mentally, hard emotionally. Just hard. Having to make sure I have dinner taken care of before Eric gets home (even if that just means making sure that we have leftovers ready, because cooking everyday is for OTHER people), kids prepped and ready to leaven upon his arrival (which varies by almost an hour, so that's fun), and missing out on the normal hour I have when he gets home that I like to spend dumping kids on him while I do some emergency house maintenance in somewhat quiet.....is hella hard. And so is running by myself in the dark, or by myself in the morning and losing sleep over it. So....idk.

I'm trying, I'm really really really trying. But at this point in my life, running isn't mind therapeutic at all, because trying to eek out the time to do it, plus listening to even more of my kids' whining and questions is doubling stress.

And bike riding as a form of fitness instead of either fun or occasional transport, that's new to me, and I don't think I like it. I have a super cheap mountain style bike, so lots of weight on my wrists and hands. Plus I'm just not great at it, so it's hard and stressful. Staying upright and in a straight line is work for me. Hills are bad all the way around - up is way too hard and down is way too fast and scary.

But cross training during run training is SO important to help avoid injury. So we're trying to get a family fitness bike ride in per week (kids in bike trailer behind Eric), and a yoga/strength training session in too for other muscle building, because you really want to put mulitple stresses on your body, so it adapts and gets stronger more evenly, which keeps you from having a strong muscle completing with a weak muscle, which pulls unevenly on joints and...causes injury.

So I'm trying. I really am. But I worry I may have bit off more than I can chew.

Because I'm getting less kid free time and I'm adding more stress of all kids plus just being more tired. Hopefully it evens out as I'm only a week in. And hopefully my body reacts by getting stronger, and making it all feel easier. Hopefully Jade and Legan stop whining during training so much (hahaha). Hopefully I get better at time management or at least nap management to cut down on some of the feel of timing stress; or at least keep it from getting worse as workouts get longer.

Hopefully.

And hopefully, we can find people to hang out with the kids on the race route that morning, while we run. Because no strollers allowed in the race itself.

In the meantime....I'm just trying to keep it all together, somehow.

More photos to come. I promise.

And the title...well, running a marathon is CRAZY. So running a half marathon? Only HALF-crazy!