Saturday, June 26, 2010

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Seriously? It's been over a year since I wrote? And I think about it daily? I've fallen a little short on personal goals. Since May 2009, I've PR'd in a marathon, and lived a life with four kids. Rock n Roll Seattle was June 2009, and I ran a 3:24. I've run 12 marathons in 17 years, and that was my fastest. Today was Rock n Roll 2010. My husband ran, and I spectated. I had a blast, but I'm so jealous. I think more than anything, I really want the bright green shirt. I swore I wouldn't run another marathon this year. I ran the Sunflower in May, and Newport in June - both without training. A little silly, but I learned a lot about my capabilities. I'd like to focus on training for an early fall 10K, and trying to PR. I don't think that in my 30 years of running, I've ever really trained for a 10K. Funny, 30 years of running. I'll be 40 next month, and I've been running since I was 10. My kids are 2, 9, 12, and 14. They're all runners. (The little one just doesn't know it yet.) The 9-yr-old set a city-wide record for her 4x100 relay this spring. The 12 and 14 yr olds went to the city meet for middle school, and the oldest is training for cross-country season this fall. My husband ran a marathon today (his first since his Ironman last summer), and is paddling 12 miles tomorrow as part of a multi-sport relay. A 10K for me at the end of summer seems sort of trivial. In the last month, with 4 kids, I've been camping three times, there's been BMX racing, track finals, ice-skating performance, Spring music concert, 8th grade graduation . . . and then just the day to day preschool, cooking dinner, shuttling to and fro, laundry, etc. So, again, just a 10K in the fall? Maybe I ought to run a half marathon shortly after. It was a huge high to get up at 5:30 the other day because my 14-yr-old requested to go for a run in the early morning. The northwest is cloudy, cloudy, and then cloudy. This time of year when it's suddenly sunny and it's light from 5 am til 10 pm, you take advantage of anything you can get. My kids are out of school until September. Think of all that time I can train. I can take the kids to the track, I can go solo at sunrise, I can do an afternoon run at the beach and follow it up with a dip in the lake . .

I love running. I hope to love it until the day that I exist no longer on this planet. But I love writing too. How on earth have I thought about it and plotted and planned it day after day, and never really accomplished it? Perhaps because I'm more busy than I'll admit. I feel like I'm superhuman and I can do it all. Dinner has been prepped, served and cleaned up. The 14-yr-old is in the kitchen baking a gluten-free cake, the 12-yr-old has accomplished putting a new ring-tone on her mother's phone, and is busy on the internet, the marathoner is asleep on the recliner (perhaps I shouldn't have fed him the second beer). The 9-yr-old has plugged the 2-yr-old into a Sesame street video from the library. I'm sure there's some laundry to do, or some food prep for my long day tomorrow to and from the paddle event with kids in tow. But it's been fun to steal a moment for a few random words.