Running

After a one week break from running, I began training again today. The children are in the middle of a two week break from running. They will begin next Monday when we start back to school.

On April 25, Jimmy is running a FULL MARATHON and Olivia is running another half marathon in Nashville. This is a huge race.....45,000 participants! Julie is too young to race (you must be 12), and I am going to keep the children myself, so Julie and I will not be participating. Our whole family is going to Nashville for the event. Julie, Clay, Leah, Sam, and I will be at the finish line to welcome Olivia and Jimmy.

Julie and I are going to train with Olivia. I began the program today, and they will begin the 16 week training schedule next Monday. We are following a different running schedule than the one we followed for the St. Jude Half in December. This one has about the same amount of weekly mileage (16-28), and it also increases the weekly mileage in very small increments, about 1-2 miles each week. The difference is in the division of the miles during the week. We will still run 4 days a week with optional cross training on a 5th day. Our previous schedule had us running basically 4-5 miles 3 times a week with a long run once a week. This new schedule has two short runs (2-3 miles each), one medium run (5-10 miles each), and one long run (7-12 miles each). So we will alternate--short, medium, short, long. This first week the runs are 2,5,2,7.

When I typed up the running schedule and taped it to the pantry door, anxiety set in. Just looking at all of those medium and long runs caused me significant stress! I started thinking about what will I do with Leah and Sam during those long runs? What about school? What about this new homeschool co op we are joining this semester? What if it is freezing rain, and I have to run 10 miles on the treadmill? Then I stopped and remembered how I did it last fall....one week at a time, one day at a time. The big picture is overwhelming, but day by day it seems manageable.

The Saturday after the marathon/half marathon in Nashville, Julie, Clay, and I (and also Jimmy and Olivia if they are up to it) are going to run the Corinth Coke Classic 10 K. I am hoping that training with Olivia will allow both Julie and me to run our personal best times in that race.

Happy Running!