Tough Training

I have decided that training for a half marathon is very time consuming. It would be more time consuming if I were able to take it seriously. As much as I absolutely love having something that selfishly is just for ME, these days it is more of a compromise with the kids and Ian for Mommy to get some time to run. Most weeks I am able to get the shorter runs in during the day with Simon in the stroller, but Ian has been travelling with work and it has made things a little bit more complicated.

Some training strategies I have tried:

Running hills in the morning with the dog and Simon - didn't go quite as planned. During the warm-up, the dog's leash got stuck in the stroller's wheel. Simon did not enjoy the repeated hills and complained so much after the 6th hill, I let him sit in the car and watch the last three.

Intervals at the soccer field - Plunked the kids in the middle of the field with tennis balls, a soccer ball, baseball gloves and water. I managed to keep an eye on them while I circled trying to do 2 min intervals of fast and slow jog. With three boys, I guess you can't expect them to just play nicely. It turned into more of a yelling and wrestling match for the boys than a nice supportive run for mom. I only lasted about 40 min before I had to stop for fear that one of the boys was going to get hurt.

Biking to do errands - Just so I am not on my feet all the time, I am trying to bike to do errands rather than drive. You should have seen the face on the lady at the dry cleaners when I picked up my nice clean dress and folded it into the bike trailer with the kids.

Post tapered 12 km run on Sunday I chose to join the kids in a game of ball hockey - I felt good. It was a nice relatively short run, so I thought I could get rid of my extra energy with some fun. I managed to tweak my knee when I tried to stop too quickly. Ouch! Now I am being forced to rest and feeling grouchy about it!

I think that if I ever train for another half marathon, I will do it at a time when I can get most of the training done on my own time and I don't have to drag one, two, or three kids some place so that I can run.

Next year perhaps....