The fall focus
When I went for a run on Tuesday afternoon I had a blog post all cooked up in my head about how great September was both with the new family addition and having some great runs. Now I can’t even remember what exactly I was thinking about. A bike ride and another run later, September really feels like a long time ago.
Such is life with a newborn and an almost 5-year-old. And I certainly wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Someone once told me they didn’t understand what I meant by there being so many other important things in life than running. It’s those more important things that are giving me some new focus this fall as I come off lower summer mileage and prepare for races at the end of the year. If I didn’t add to my family this year I very likely would have been in this same routine as the past few years of getting ready for a fall marathon.
Quite honestly, that would be boring.
As I head into fall with so much else going on around me, I feel like I can make the best of the my running time so much more than before. That’s my 30-60 minutes several times a week to get it done. That time will likely be very split in mornings, mid-day and night runs for the next few months.
My 13 goals for the year have kind of taken a backseat to everything else going on. There are certain things I know won’t happen, such as my fastest 5k, but I’ve replaced that with wanting to go for a 10-mile PR at Surf ‘n’ Santa in December. There are certain goals that I’ve hit or will hit, and those will all be deserving of their own posts over the next few months.
With the final quarter of the year staring at me, I’m ready to focus on just a few things with running and my overall fitness. The same will ring true for 2014. It’ll be my 10th year of running, and I want to have a few goals that will leave me focused and feeling satisified as I aim to reach them.
I’d love to go back and redo my 13 goals, but I’ll just let that be a lesson learned. I’ll look back on them later this year and see what worked, what didn’t and how I can apply everything to next year.
The new (temporary) normal
On Saturday morning around 8, I was on my phone and saw in my Inbox my last post. My posts are scheduled to email to subscribers at 7 a.m. the day after a post.
At that time on Saturday, I was at the hospital and my new son Wesley had already been a part of the world for more than 2 hours. Maybe I can forever take credit for that being the push to have him finally make his appearance after a couple of weeks of patiently waiting.
This first week has certainly been a blur — some trips back and forth to the hospital over the weekend; the first mainly sleepless night at the hospital; taking my other son to and from school; squeezing in a few short runs; going into work for a few hours in the second half of the week.
It’s very much the new normal for a few weeks, then it will change again for a few weeks when his patterns change, and then again and again. It’s the great mystery of life that I’m looking forward to experiencing once again, as well as the ups and downs of being a father to two.
I’m sure that my occasional posting on here will continue to be, well, occasional. As I take in this new life in my world, I’ve thought a lot this week through all the other craziness about my goals, readjusting them, coming up with new ones.
I’ve got a lot more on my plate, which only makes me focus even more about what the rest of this year will bring and what I want to do in 2014.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting some more.
I could type the word waiting a thousand times because that’s the story of this month as my wife and I wait for Baby No. 2 to arrive.
In the meantime, I’ve had some good runs and some good bike rides. I’m actually on pace to have the most running miles since the spring, but I doubt that happens unless the baby still isn’t here a week from now.
I’ve had a couple of people reach out to me on Twitter to make sure they didn’t miss any news, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to update here, too, that nope, you haven’t missed anything.
Join the Runner’s World Half Marathon and Festival
A collection of bibs and medals from last year’s event
In just a few short weeks, I’ll be heading to the Runner’s World Festival once again. With so many things going on in my life, and my desire to focus on the Richmond Half, I’ve opted to skip out on the half marathon this year and instead do another crazy aspect of the weekend — the Five and Dime.
The Five and Dime is the 5K and 10K, back-to-back, on the Saturday before the half marathon. I don’t know how to really prepare, or how I’ll approach either race, or if I’ll just do it for pure fun, but I’m certainly looking forward to this opportunity for a unique race experience.
I’d love to have you join in. My #RunChat partner Scott will also be there that weekend.
You can register now with a 10% discount code for either the half marathon or the Hat Trick, which consists of the 5K, 10K and the half.
Enter the follow codes when registering:
10% off Half: runningbecauseRWHalf
10% off Hat Trick: runningbecauseRWHat
Race dates are Oct. 19 and 20.
For more information about the Runner’s World Half Marathon and Festival, visit their website.
No plan is the working plan, for now
As I look ahead to running the Blue Ridge Marathon next year, I’m already thinking about what I want to do for training. Plan or no plan or the in between.
Generally speaking, I do best when my exact mileage isn’t on paper or an Excel file. When I have a mileage range for each run or week, I don’t have any major problems. When I do have exact plans, I do OK for 2 weeks, then I get overwhelmed when I look at it and then change all my plans.
That, however, doesn’t mean I’m not open-minded about trying it again.
That, then, leads me to what I want to do the rest of 2013. This week is a perfect example of how not planning things has worked out to my advantage. While each day I’ve been anticipating possibly being thrown off for a long time with my second son, I got in 4 good runs, 3 short bike rides, and a solid amount of push-ups and sit-ups for my monthly goal.
If I can do that in a week filled with a lot of life’s stresses, then surely I can build a solid base through the rest of the year, run a decent Richmond Half Marathon and Surf ‘n’ Santa 10 Miler, and be ready for winter training for Blue Ridge.
Whether that’s on paper or an app or my own file or nothing at all is something I’ll do a lot of thinking about in the next few months. …
New life … not yet
I flipped the calendar to September the other day and was suddenly thrust into fast forward as my wife and I thought our baby was on his way. Without too many details, the baby IS on the way … he’s just taking his sweet time getting here without us needing to be in the hospital.
With all that happening and juggling things at work, my focus on goals for September stopped at 2,000 sit-ups AND 1,000 push-ups. That in itself will be tough, but with the help of a few friends I’ll stay focused enough to get close. Something will be better than nothing is pretty much my mind frame right now.
That something has actually started off pretty well in these first few days … I simply don’t want to get to the end of the month feeling exhausted and like I did nothing.
I also kicked off the week with a 7+ mile run with my friend Josh, who is in the process of moving to Richmond. I was able to knock off 20 minutes on my bike on Tuesday and a short 3-mile run this morning. It’s all about doing something with running and biking too.
By the time you hear from me again, my family should be a little larger …
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