Why it Pays to Set a Good Example for Your Kids

This morning I was laying in bed with a case of the winter blues and extreme fatigue from fighting snow all week, fully resigned to sit this day out when in walks E-man with a set of weights for me, a set of golf balls for himself and the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD.


Here is my little super hero, showing off his latest Lego project.

I Am Not An Angry New Yorker

Some days I stop for a moment to will my clenched jaw into a smile, slow my maniacal pace and think, "What ever happened to that 'nice' person I used to be? Why am I always so angry?"

Such is the state of mind this morning as I will myself to be a calmer, happier person. I planned an entire afternoon off where I would run a few errands and then take E-man to an indoor playground where he would slide, roll, bounce and play in the company of other friendly kids, making the 3 boroughs and 4 train rides we would maneuver to get there totally worth it.


I awake to yet another snow storm which weather.com has eerily predicted as a "Wintry Mix" and think, "Why again did I pick today of all days to gallivant this city with my two-year-old?"

Only a couple hours later, question still unanswered, but lunch, toys, change of clothes for E-man and jogging stroller weather shield in place, we make it out the door and are greeted by the quiet, glistening white of a February snowstorm that has scared all but the gallant indoors.

On such days, it is almost possible to feel like a VIP. The sidewalks are empty enough that one does not have to make the choice of walking over mountains of garbage on one side or frozen dog excrement on the other in order to squeeze past a slower pedestrian. There are few enough cars on the road that brown slush is not sprayed into your face as you cross the street. Even the subway elevators are empty.

That last thing was a big hint that it may have been best to stay indoors.

First on our list is visiting the doctor's office to pick up E-man's records, thus skipping weeks of bureaucratical waiting for records to be mailed from one doctor to the next. E-man survives these three train rides with snacks, books, his jogging stroller version of peekaboo and my assurances that after this we are going somewhere really fun!

We get off the train, and forgetting my zen state of earlier, I automatically resume a maniacal forward momentum right into a lake of freezing brown slush. (An extra outfit for myself would come in handy right about now.) But I figure, "Ah, it won't kill me," and keep on going. Such is my positive state of mind.

Two hours, an annoying but ultimately successful conversation with a receptionist, a slightly grumpier child, a couple train rides and a few more walks through slush later, we arrive at the indoor playground that is to be our haven for the day, the one that I called ahead of time to make sure was open, and we are greeted by a lady who I think is opening the door for us. But no, she is there to tell us that the place is closed 'till 4 (it is 3 now).

Only an hour you say? Ah yes, but only an hour to a grumpy toddler and his mother who has waded through hours and lakes of Antarctic temperatures the color of I don't think I want to know what I just stepped in to get there.

Then we have a look at the place. It is a small room with some toys on the floor...not quite the indoor playground I had anticipated. Still E-man is banging on the door, trying to open it. He obviously sees something in there he is excited about.

So we wait the hour.

E-man is pretty nice while we wait. Other kids show up to wait. He is hugging them very gently. It is nice to know that when I explained to him that it's very sweet of him to hug somebody but he has to be gentle about it so he doesn't scare them off, he actually understood this.

Finally the door opens.

But by then E-man is so tired that words like, "Share" fall on deaf ears and I end up putting back on my wet sneakers and carrying a kicking screaming kid out of there, only to shove my way through two hours of rush hour trains full of people who have been heaped with all kind of unfairness having to go to work on a day like today.

So much for positive thinking.

Wake up call, "You're a Mom Now"

OK, now that I'm saying this out loud, it sounds terrible, but I've kind of thought of having one kid as being the trial period...and when I have two kids, that's when I'm a real mom, like a my life is over, I will do nothing but be a great mom until the kids graduate college and then I'll have a grand mini vacation until they have me some grandkids and call me up to raise them.

And having tasted what being a mom is like during the "trial period," I've been living and running like I better get it in while I still have the chance!

So this year I planned my first 50 mile ultra, 24 hour ultra, 24 hr relay, under 4:30 marathon and a bunch of mini races to qualify for the NYC marathon the following year. Oh and to top it off, a goofy challenge of half a marathon one day and a marathon the next day a year from now.

I figured then I'd be all run out for a while and ready to take a break and have some kids. Oh see there I go saying it again, forgot to say more kids!

Then in between the break of mom and grandma, I'd do that marathon maniac thing, maybe a 100 mile ultra or two and fulfill my life-long dream of becoming an Ironman. Oh and then there's the 7 continents, 50 states and running-mom/Forest-Gump thing I want to do.

Well, I had a wake up call from all that race planning when I started looking into preschool this week.

Wow is it expensive to pay for 30 hours of sanity / wk! I'm talking don't-do-another race-'till-the-GREAT-grand-kids-grow-up, eat-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwiches-21-times-per-wk OR win-the-lottery-kind-of-expensive!

How does one do it...I do not know!

But one thing I have learned this week, is that I'm a mommy now...yup that one kid does make me a mom, even if he doesn't hear his siblings calling me mommy and so still calls me, "Hey!"...and it's time to find some balance between taking good care of my kid, and the many dollars it apparently costs to do that if you're not good at doing it all by yourself, and having some kind of life.

So I will still be running, and I will try to train for this ultra whenever I can find the time and hope that I come up with the money to travel to Key West, but meanwhile I will know that while running in and of itself is a priority, being a good mother definitely takes precedent over exotic races that win me bragging rights.

They'll be time for that...some day...

Ah, Sweet Dreams!

Yesterday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, my online running mom group organized a one-mile challenge.

The idea was to run a mile (both the fastest and slowest runners win, oh yeah that's why I love this group!) and we each had to come up with our own dream and team name.

I had a lot of time to come up with this the night before when I was not sleeping. My dream was that E-man would let me sleep so I could dream. My team name was sweet dreams.

Well guess what?

Last night, my dream was a reality. E-man went to bed at the super early time of 12:00 midnight. And that's not even the best part. I had tried to put him to bed at 10, he laid down for about 10 seconds and then jumped out of the bed and ran back into his playroom. After the previously night where he did go to bed on time, but then was up at 3, 4, 5, 6 and finally 7, I was in no mood to fight him. So I just let him play.

Well at midnight (nope I'm not joking, this is a good 2 hours before his normal bedtime), he came and put his head in my lap. I said, "Are you ready to go night night, E-man?" and he said, "YES!"

So I brought him to bed, shut off all the lights, he cuddled up next to me and went straight to sleep. He is still sleeping now and I managed to get five whole hours of sleep and two hours of work done so far today! Oh I am so happy!

As for the running challenge, I love this group of running moms. They are always inspiring me to do things that I would not normally do. Yes, crazy things sometimes, but mostly really great things. For example, yesterday I did 3 one-mile repeats. Which means you warm up, then run for a mile as fast as you can, then recover a mile, then repeat for a total of seven miles.

When I was training for my 10k last year, I could barely bring myself to do quarter mile repeats at 8:45 pace. I think one day after plenty of sleep and with some really good music, I got in one half mile repeat at that pace. But yesterday, I did a whole mile 3 times at that pace!

Shave five more seconds off, hold that pace for 26.2 miles nonstop, hope that Boston doesn't change their qualifying times and Boston, here I come!

This is a picture of the tent I bought for E-man. He doesn't seem to like sleeping in it, although he LOVES to play in it.

I, however, have snuck a few hours of sleep in here by crawling in and closing the zipper when no one was looking. I guess E-man just figured I was gone since I wasn't in any of the places he usually finds me (not many other places to hide in this one-bedroom apartment) and so he bothered his daddy for a change. I highly recommend a tent for this purpose.

Today has been OK

I often think of this song at the end of a day.

It makes me think of my mom. I'm sure it makes anyone think of someone they have loved and lost.

I especially like the line that says, "No one's gone in vain...life has been insane but today has been ok."

Somehow I find it comforting that life is insane for all of us, and that we can all only count on the same small things, like that today will be OK.

Even though I did not get to know my mom so well because I was only eight when she died, she is with me all the time. I feel like I get to know her better, being a mom.

I think of her and wonder what she would do in a situation I'm in or even talk it out with her. Sometimes an interaction between me and E-man reminds me of my mom and me.

Lately, I have had a real struggle getting E-man to sleep at a decent hour. He tends to go to sleep around 2am on average and get up around 10 or 11. I've let it get to this, knowing I need to do something about it, but either feeling too tired to get up and wake him up early so he'll go to bed early, or looking at him all sleepy and sweet looking and think, "Great, I can finally get something done."

Well last night I decided that no matter what time he went to bed, today was going to be the day that I made an effort towards putting him on a schedule. I would start by waking him up at 9am.

As usual, he did not go to sleep last night 'till about 2:30 am. But this morning, I stuck to my guns, went in there and said, "E-man, it's time to wake up."

Usually he wakes up on his own, runs into my arms, cuddles for about 10 minutes and then eats some breakfast. This morning he was laying on the couch all groggy, trying to go back to sleep, and I was sitting next to him.

I finally got him to sit up. So he's sitting there, rubbing his eyes and I'm sitting there looking at him, willing myself to get through the day and thinking how cute he looks rubbing his eyes. My little guy is growing up so fast.

These are the thoughts that are going through my head and then I remember a picture of my mom and me. She is sitting on the couch next to me looking at me and I am rubbing my eyes. For the longest time, I thought that my mom looked very angry in that picture. That was until I became a mom.

Now I think that my mom is either thinking, "What do I do with you?" as I often say to E-man or she is just really tired from being a mom and it is showing in her face. She looks like a mother, thinking motherly thoughts. And now I am the mother in the picture.

Forget running, mommy needs some sleep!

For the past few days I have been so depressed. Nothing that I could put my finger on, like oh this is depressing me, if I could change it, I would no longer be depressed. I guess that's what depression is like, if you could put your finger on it, it wouldn't be depression.

I have just had a general feeling of no motivation, nothing to look forward to, can't do anything right, could barely bring myself to run yesterday, could barely get any work done, just a general hopelessness.

But no more of that today. I am back to my old self, feeling happy, motivated and full of ideas on how to make myself, my family, my home and the world a better place.

So what changed? Sleep, I tell you, sleep! The problem is that my child has some issue with going to sleep at night. Actually, scratch that, he doesn't have an issue with it, he just doesn't do it. I am the one with the issue, with him keeping me up 'till 2, sometimes 3am and then I have to get up at 5am to get my running and work done.

But last night I put some new satin sheets on the bed (this was my first time ever to try these and they were a big hit!), cuddled up inside of them and said, "I'm taking the morning off." It was still a little annoying that my son kept coming and getting me all hours of the night, but at least I knew that once he did fall asleep, I too would be able to fall asleep and not worry about having to wake up in two or three hours.

Now I am feeling great. Only one problem. Do I have to make a choice between being a happy person that never gets anything done or a depressed be-atch, but with many accomplishments?

Perfect Running Week

This was one epic week where running and I made up, remembering what we love about each other.

For the past few weeks, I was feeling a little burned out. That's how I'm describing it now, anyway.

When the fight was at it's climax, running and I were pretty pissed with each other and I was even a little worried we might have to break up.

We had accomplished something together that we worked hard for, exceeding our goals. After some vigorous training, I ran a 10k in 58:31 on December 5th. That was a whole minute faster than my goal and it was a PR by several minutes.

Right on schedule, I was left feeling tired and bummed out, wondering if all that hard work was worth it.

Running seemed to feel the same way about me. We were no longer enjoying each others company and we were hurting each other in unnecessary ways.

So we did what any non-martyr would do, we took a break from each other.

But now, after two weeks of bs'ng and a full week of not running at all, I decided it was time we make up before we had to start all over again.

I went to the gym on Tuesday and had a nice easy run. We made a treaty. I wouldn't push it too hard and running wouldn't injure me.

The next day I took off and just did some cross training. Thursday I ran for 101 minutes...whatever I could do in that time. It ended up being a good 9+ mile run. Friday I ran just long enough to complete my goal of 20 miles for the week.

Come Saturday I had already completed my goal mileage for the week. But I just couldn't not run.

First of all, it was New Years Day, and I had to start the year off right. Second, it was the first day of a challenge in my running mom group, and I can't back down from a challenge. And finally, the kid was driving me crazy and the kid's dad was offering to occupy him for the day, so it was paramount for the sake of all our sanity and well being that I go for a run.

I ended up doing a 12 mile hard run, the longest run I've done in months and 12 miles more than I planned to run this week.

There's just something about running more mileage than you plan to in a week. Something just clicks. Today is my day off and I want to run.

This is very different than the way I usually feel on my day off. Usually when I barely make my weekly mileage, by my day off all I can think is "Only one day off?" My body usually feels like it's begging for a longer break.

So I'm left thinking this. Maybe I completely mis-understood the dispute between running and I. I thought running was mad at me for taking it too hard, too far. But no, I think it was the other way around. Running wanted more from me.

Or maybe it was just a good week.

Whatever it is, I love running this week and running loves me! Now that is a good feeling.