This Mother Runner is Going to Justify the Boston Marathon to Herself

I hate running roads.  

If you have ever trained with me you have heard me say a million times "I will never run a road marathon.  Why would I ever do that to myself?”

Well over the course of the last few weeks I have been trying to determine exactly what being a Mother Runner means to me.  In doing this I have come up with several reasons why training for a ridiculously untouchable road marathon is exactly what I will do with my next 11 months.  

Justifications in a very particular order

(most important to me first):

1. Time & these two cute kids I made

I have always run for pure pleasure. The pleasure of being in the forest or on a mountain or aimed at a waterfall or to see if I could run ridiculous miles or to be able to drink as many beers as I want or to be able to smell the outdoors and clear my head and chocolate.   But never was it about time.  That was before Linnea and Sagan.  Now my time is so precious that if want to run for all these reasons, I need to run faster.  I need my 4 mile runs to take 36 minutes not an hour.  I need those 24 minutes for blocks and playing bands and wearing necklaces and eating another pretzel or giggling and spinney circles or wiping boogey noses  and reading little blue truck for the third time in a row and cuddles. Mostly for cuddles!

2. Weight 

So here goes.  Today I weigh 190.7lbs.  Whew.  Glad that is over.  I've never weighed this much before on my own and thankfully I get to blame this little snorty thing sitting on my lap right now and a little bit on his big sister too.  But just because I get to blame them doesn't mean they are going to help me get back to my pre-baby size.   Running will help and running faster will do it even faster, with the added bonus of giving me more time with my two cuties.

3. Friends

My best friend lives in Boston.  I shouldn't have to set a ridiculous goal for myself in order to visit her but oh well I am. I am not making her run it with me like I did my wedding, so there is that.  You are welcome OJ! (But you can if you want!) Shameless plug:   OJ’s awesome journalism.  

4. Goals

In the last decade I have not set a running goal for myself that wasn't either inspired by Craig or something Craig was doing with me.  I want to own my own running goal.

5. Truthfulness  

Here goes something I really don't want to admit to myself.  I rarely run on trails anymore.  I am lying to myself to say that this stroller pushing mother runner trains on trails.  I may love trails and set aside special runs just to be on them, but I don't sprint out my front door to a trail very frequently anymore.  I do sprint out my front door behind a jogging stroller all the time! 

6. Competitiveness  

I love a little arbitrary competition.  Every race I do I pick out someone in a pink tutu and my entire goal in that race is to beat it.  Several years ago my friend Andrea and I started running ultras together.  We were similarly paced and ran/raced with similar finishing times frequently. Well 3 years ago I started having kids and this awesome runner hired a running coach.  Andrea ran Boston 7 months ago.  Here is her Race Report.  So in the name of arbitrary competition and not so arbitrary inspiration:   If Andrea can do so can I darn it!!

7. Not running Boston  Bizz Johnson is a trail marathon that happens to be a Boston qualifier only 1.5 hours from my house.  Did I just say I can qualify on trails?  Heck ya I did!!   Qualifying is all I really care about, who would want to run a road marathon anyway? They suck!!  Bizz Johnson or bust baby!!  (I can not be held accountable for changing my mind about this justification.)

The Plan:  Beginning Monday I will spend the next 8 weeks focused on weight loss running.  (Wednesday really, remember those two cuties I made?) Here is my training plan: Mondays and Tuesdays are my rest days due to mommy and me gymnastics and breastfeeding group already on those days.  Not ideal for running but very ideal for mommying.  Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are intervals.  Thursdays are gym days with a strength training boot camp and Saturdays are my long, hopefully trail, run. 

The Stuff:  I am going to use the app Running by Red Rock Apps for my interval days.

And I just bought myself new Hoka’s.   Road Running Hokas just to be clear.  Not trail shoes!  Blasphemous I know, but they are beautiful and only $50 at Eclipse Running!

Accountability:  Between 11/30/15 and 1/24/16 I have 40 workout days planned.  40 is really not much. Even if each workout is 1 hour (which they aren't.)  It only equals a full work week of exercising over the next 8 weeks.  I can totally do that, I've done races longer then that.  A friend of mine is on her own weightless journey and she posts a fraction on Facebook of weight loss / goal weight.  I am going to do something similar but with work outs completed.  Work out #/ 40.  I’m not too worried about the final weight just that I end up with a body I can zoom in.

So in Linnea's words: TA DA!!!!  This is how this trail running mother runner is justifying nearly a year of training devoted to the Boston Marathon.

Who Was That?

With my 3 year old smashed into my back and my 3 month old cocooned into my stomach, I stare into the flickering light made by a dim plastic candle and wonder if I can look at my breastfeeding app yet. Has he eaten long enough? Can I  go back to sleep yet?   I'm trying my hardest not to think about the 3 hours and 9 minutes I have left until my alarm goes off. An alarm set for the first time only 3 mornings ago as in tears I talk with my husband about the 25lbs of baby weight that make it difficult for me to run.  

Motivator #1

Motivator #2

A few weeks ago a friend started a blog about her mommy journey which made me go back and read my own blog from years past. Today I can't help but wonder who that women was that got to set number of peak goals for her Saturday runs.  Runs that lasted from sun up to well past sun down. Who was this person that got to enter race lotteries and sprained her ankles on trail runs like it was cool? Who had a burrito place on speed dial for her post long run food? Whose collection of race bibs now sits in a ziplock in the closet and only gets added to once a year, for a Breastfeeding fundraiser 5k.

She seems so far away. Yet reading every single one of her blog entries, while tuning out more episodes of Dinasour Train then you should ever have to listen to, I was excited for her. I wanted to run like her. I missed her. That's when the tickle of the idea of having to be an alarm setting treadmill runner set in. I can't believe I'm actually considering waking up to run, not so I can run for 12 hours, but for 30 minutes. And on a treadmill? Horrors!!   The women who wrote those articles would have preferred to be lost running around the same block for 7 hours, on pavement, wearing running clothes that weren't cute, with only peanut butter flavered gels, before she would have ever considered any form of speed work.  

I guess these are the things that are making me realize that if I want to be a runner still I have to be a "mother runner." And deciding to set an alarm for 5:30am to run on a treadmill must be part of that journey.  

So here's to toddlers, babies, supportive husbands, and mother running. Let the miles begin!!

(BTW who knew you could watch TV on your phone while treadmill running? That other lady didn't! Seados 1 Episode 3 of Orange is the New Black here I come!!)