You see I only have 2 more hours before I need to leave to get the kids. What have I been doing? Hmmmm, I biked with my kids to school (we have been opting to not take the bus several days a week and biking the 1.5 miles to school instead to get in the needed activity level that kids don't get now days, unless you sign them up for sports, but I can't afford that, and I hate spending time in the car-sorry, it's true, I hate being a soccer mom and can't live my life in my honda oddyssey, no-can-do, and I hate sitting there. . trying to keep the other kids in line in beautiful weather that I want to enjoy myself (or sometimes not so beautiful that I don't want to enjoy), so instead I try to find ways to help my kids be active just in their regular daily life and keeping them in good enough shape so that we can also do some fun adventure type activities together as well, not to mention Gunther, our dog, needs a good brisk walk and he is great at going alongside me on the bike. So we biked to school.
I had planned to meet a friend to do some strength training with, but she had to cancel, so I did some strength-training in my yard (and discovered ways that I can turn my yard into quite the great place for a great workout), and then I decided that I wanted to get in a really good aerobic workout as well, so I went on a real bike ride without gunther (oh and he was so sad, but he can't run that long, that fast-we went 10 miles on an old bike-which is like going 20 on a new bike and 30 or 40 on one of those amazingly awesome bikes that my brother has that is really expensive that someday I will own-but for now my 30 year-old bike that I bought at a garage sale when I was a teenager still works pretty darn good-retro without the price-right-ha ha).
And it was a GREAT bike-ride-did I mention that I LOVE being outside, I love the wind in my face, I love having Amelia there with me to share this awesomeness with and we discovered a GREAT park with a lake, a pond, fishing, playgrounds, an awesome path, and I am so excited to take the kids there-and I mean bike with the kids there-I wore my watch, so I know that it is 2.75 miles away from our house and they can totally do that. So then I got home, took care of some yard things, fed Amelia lunch, got some laundry going, cleaned the kids rooms while getting Amelia fed and down for a nap. Then took a stop here at the computer, checked my email, called and chatted with Jon while he was on his lunch for a bit and I had another letter from my nephew that I keep meaning to write (on his mission) and decided I better sit down and write a quick letter to him. As a fellow runner, I got telling him about my latest marathon. And then I realized I had just made a blog post in this letter, so then I decided to just "hurry and post" a bit of what I had just typed to him! So here I am and I better hurry, because my super-power-to-clean-superly-fast is going to have to really kick in hard and good in just a bit here! I added in a whole bunch more detail so if parts don't make sense, so sorry, but I have to hurry-such is the life I have at this point!
So my nephew had some really hard challenges in his life and he waited a bit before deciding to go on a mission-which is totally fine-I think it was good for him to figure some things out and go when he was ready to make that choice. In his letter he talked about how it was hard to make that choice and now he is so glad that he did. Anyway, this really got me thinking about hard choices and hard things that we do and accomplish. You see, it’s the hard things that help us grow and become a better person and help us discover who we are and what we can become. Like running-so many people that really could run, think they could never run. Well if you focus on your weaknesses and how hard it is and therefore, don’t give it a real fair try-you are right!
I NEVER thought I would run a marathon, let alone 3! Infact, I just PR’d (personal record) at the Pheonix marathon a few weeks ago! 4 of my siblings ran it with me (and two of them also PR’d) and my dad ran his first race ever-he did the half marathon! It was so neat to be a part of that with my family! The cool thing was that all 5 of us siblings came in within 20 minutes of each other!! I came in at 4:04-which I was very pleased about (I kept under 9 minute miles most of the time). It was so hard to keep myself going, but I realized at the beginning that I could run it in under 4:10, and possibly under 4 if I really concentrated the whole time and not loose track of my goal.
Disclaimer:
At this point of my blog, if you don't want lots of detail about my race, I have just summed it up in the previous paragraph and you can stop now. The last couple of paragraphs of this post are more reflective on life in general if you would like to just enjoy that portion of my post. Enjoy!
I hadn't trained as hard as I had hoped, so I didn't go into this race with an original thought of doing super awesome. But my awesome, amazing little sister, Emily and I got talking about how we need to decide what we can run this race in, and then figure out where we should be at certain miles with our time and then if we are on track with our goal, we should come in at the time we want to.
Now this got me thinking. I had to be realistic. I had trained good enough-not the best, but really good enough. I knew I could at least beat my previous times. So we started the race and I was running with Emily. She is in way better shape than me and she is faster and trained super super hard. She gave me some running tips that I had never tried-to take smaller, quicker steps to go faster and that was more easy than longer, big steps. She said to just watch my arms and if I needed to speed up, move my arms faster and my legs would follow. I started to do that and I was surprised that I seemed to be doing just fine running just a bit faster than what I had trained. We ran the first couple of miles together and I knew she had goals to do awesome, so I fell back a bit and let her go on. But as I did so, I thought, you know, you are doing pretty good, why don't you just keep your eye on EMily and stay up with her as long as you can. IT was then that I had some serious thinking going on in my mind. I realized that I could not only beat my other times, but that if I really focused and I really pushed myself, that I could come in at 4:10 and possibly even 4 hours. I re-thought about how we had discussed setting small goals through the race and so I figured out where I would have to be every hour to come in at 4 hours. Though I was pretty sure I couldn't do it in under 4 hours, I knew I could come close if I really focused. Besides, this was my 3rd marathon. Why not go with a different strategy? What's the worst that could happen? I have to walk at the end because I pushed myself too hard at the beginning? But I knew the route, I knew the hills, I had run them many times, and I knew that I could run this. I had trained-not as hard and as amazing as I had originally hoped, but I had trained hard, and I had trained as good as I could in reality with what else was going on in my life. I determined that I would regularly check my watch and be sure that I was right around 9 minute miles. I would only walk through the water stations, and I would not stop at the bathroom unless I REALLY had to go REALLY bad-for longer than a mile. I also have to mention that my incredibly sweet, loving, and thoughtful husband downloaded several new songs onto my "clip" for me the day before while I was gone with my dad and siblings getting our race packets, checking out the course and whatnot. I had really wanted some new music, but hadn't had the time to do it. And without me even knowing until the night before, he did it for me! I attribute enjoying my race so much greatly to having some really awesome new music to listen to-and I am picky and I love "modern classical"-movie soundtracks, trailer soundtracks, that kind of music just really sings to my soul and that's what really gets me going and he found some great songs that gave me that extra boost at times. So with these new thoughts and my new running style in mind, and my new music to thoroughly enjoy, I moved forward. I kept my eye on my watch and any time I was over 9 minute miles, I sped up-I would move my arms faster. I didn't think about my legs. PRetty early on my foot starting hurting. I didn't let it get to me. It hurt throughout the entire race and I just kept telling myself-you have trained for this, you are just fine, just keep going. It was very hot-probably one of the hottest days we had had in Mesa at that point. I was worried about hitting the wall at the classic 18th or 20th mile. I knew if I kept well fueled, that would be less likely to happen-or at least not happen so intensley. So at every stop, I took what they offered-gus', drinkage, chomp type things. I did feel pretty sick to my stomach because I was likely over-fueling, but I just ignored it and kept going. I focused on my music and enjoying it and my arms-just kept them moving. At the biggest hill, I knew it well-I had run it many times and I knew I didn't need to slow down too much, so I pushed myself up it. When I got to the top, I knew this was my only good down hill so I didn't hold back, I flew down it. At every stop (every 2 miles) I would think, alright, I am there already! It was really fun to see my sweet little Aubrey along with my sister in laws at mile 10 holding up a sign cheering me on! I ran right up to Aubrey and gave her a big hug! I also even saw my old Gilbert workout buddy! That was really fun to see her along the way! Anyway, I just kept focused and I only stopped and walked for the drinks (I never even stopped for the bathroom-and I did go-you can take that how you want-but I knew that if I stopped, I wouldn’t make my goal). About at mile 23 I was feeling pretty wasted. I wanted to walk, but I knew that if I did, I wouldn't make it under 4:10. At this point in the race I knew I couldn't make under 4, but I could still make it under 4:10 if I kept running and I knew that I was actually pretty close to making it closer to 4 than to 4:10 if I could keep up my speed. I did slow down a bit for the last few miles and kept finding myself to be closer to 10 minute miles and making my arms go faster to speed up. I had to really really focus. I really wanted to get in as close to 4 as possible. As I finally reached the end, I was so focused on that finish line that I couldn't even look to the side-lines. I just knew I had to keep running for that finish line or I might collapse, yet I was so so excited that I had run this race so well and that I had pushed myself so hard! I ran as fast as I could through that finish line! It was an incredible feeling to know that I did it and I did it in 4:04!! I had done a great job, and I knew it!
It’s super hard to train and do, but if you follow the training schedule and utilize the tools out there, you can totally do it! And no, nobody needs to run a marathon, but life is like this! There are so many awesome things out there. But if you never set out to do some of them, it's never going to happen. I couldn't just run a marathon without a lot of planning and work. The same is true for any worthwhile accomplishment. Our world or at least our country is so so so lazy! We aspire to things, but aren't willing to give the effort it takes to really gain from our aspirations. Good things take effort! Great things take work!
The gospel is so similar!
I call running my anti-depressant because it teaches me so much and it
makes me feel great! But I need to expound on that, because I feel great in the long run-after I have gotten up and gotten out and on my way. Often it takes me a mile or even a few before I feel like I can really get going. And some days it really sucks to get up and go
running, let me re-phrase that-most days it is really really hard to get myself out of bed and on my way-I NEVER feel like getting out of bed, but I am so glad when I do it)-and I seriously mean that because so so so many moms that seem so on
top of things take anti-depressants to help them (I am not saying anyone shouldn't be on anti-depressants-I am just stating a fact here).
Being a mom is super hard. I have come to the realization that being anything with eternal value is going to
be hard and I think we forget that!!!
I think we figure that because it is of eternal value and because it is a wonderful, good thing to be doing, that it will be easy because we know it is what we should be doing. The truth is, as we all know, that it is super hard to be a mom. Sticking with it, fixing meals, cleaning house, tireless hours-it’s a
lot of work. We are a lazy lazy
society. We do not stick to things that
require too much effort. I am no
different than a billion other moms out there.
I am tired-the work seems endless at times. Life is hard.
BUT I am coming to learn that the mind has so so so much power. Perspective-having the gospel is really what
it comes down to-knowing the end result-knowing I get to be with Jon
forever-knowing that I get to enjoy my family and my sweetheart after this life
is over, and knowing that this is only a small portion of my existence is what
really keeps me happy. And with that in
mind, I can generally not let the hard times get to me and just keep going,
knowing that the end of this hard moment will come, there will be great moments
of joy and the more I keep my eye out for them, the more I will see them and I
keep going-just like in a race-moments where you are flying and you are feeling
on the top of the world, yet in the same race, moments where you are hurting a
lot and you think you might puke, and you just wet your pants a little-hopefully nobody will notice because we all stink so bad anyway, but
with each long run, those moments bother me less and less, because I know that
the great awesome moments aren’t coming along if I don’t have these moments to
build and strengthen and help me appreciate and joy in the great moments.
