The Reality of Running with Kids
I'm not sure how I managed to get in the miles I did last week, but somehow it happened. Every mother-runner knows, running with kids is hard. This is how it all went down: Tuesday's Run: Wake at 5:45am. Head outside for a chilly, but good 3.5 miles. Come home to coffee and breakfast waiting (my hubs is awesome!).
Thursday's Run:
(Attempt #1)
5:45am Alarm goes off
5:53am Decide that I am going to get up and run.
6 am Get dressed.
6:16am Finish pumping (because now that Jack is sleeping through the night pumping is a necessity) and lace up my shoes. Ready to head down to the basement to the treadmill.
6:18am Just as I get my shoes on hear "Mommeeeee! I'm hungreeeee! Come get meeeeeeee!" I pause. Debating wether or not I should tell her to go back to bed and try to run later or go up and get her. I think of my husband and how he was up at 3:30am unable to sleep and is now sleeping soundly. So I get Sophia and we have breakfast together.
Attempt #2 went similarly. I thought I could buy myself more time if I skipped one of Jack's naps, fed him a little early and put him down at the same time as Sophia. Fatal error. It did not work. I got both little ones down for a nap and got going no the treadmill, about three minutes in I heard little feet on the steps. I hopped off to see Sophia, saying she had to go potty. We did the potty thing. I settled back into my run only to be interrupted on two separate occasions, first to change a poopy diaper and then to try to get a restless three year old to stop shredding kleenexes and dumping the contents of her water bottle on her bed and actually start sleeping. I hoped on the treadmill one last time with about a quarter mile left in my a 4 mile run. When all was said and done a 41 minute run (by the treadmill stopwatch) took me an hour and twenty minutes. And just when I finished around 2:30, they both fell asleep and my husband came home. Ironic. Considering if I had waited I would have been able to run outside. Oh well. Origionally I wanted to do a tempo run on Thursday, but at the last minute decided to do a "recovery/easy pace" run. I'm glad I did, because if I'd planned to do a tempo run and had been interrupted like that I probably would have quit because the workout wasn't going "as planned." Choosing to run easy made me feel that hoping on and off and stopping so frequently wasn't detrimental to the workout.
Friday's Run: The morning started with me sneaking down to the basement to run, only to hear Sophia yelling for me in the monitor. The yelling stopped after a while and a few minutes later Sophia was in the basement. Luckily my husband had a better nights sleep and was able to take over so I could get a few miles in. Once I was alone I could focus on a hard effort hill workout.
Looking back I'm amazed that I was able to get three runs in this week. I seriously wanted to give up on Thursday. But I felt like I needed that "me" time so badly. I know that once I start training for a race and get serious about the distance that it is going to get harder and harder to carve out time. Right now I'm not sure how it will happen, but maybe like Thursday I'll just deal with it in the moment: adapt my run to the situation.
How do you deal with the demands of being a parent and finding time to run? How do you adapt when things don't go as planned? Do you have any tips for keeping a three year old in bed past 6:30am?
--Sarah