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.