Whiny

I’m just giving you fair warning that this post will be exactly that.  It has been a long week and it’s only Wednesday.

Monday was a run day, and it is also a day I am blessed to work from home.  I prefer to run first thing in the morning after I drop the kids at school, since that allows me to be at my “work at home” desk for the rest of the day in case someone needs to call me (which happens pretty often).  The day dawned bright and sunny…oh no, wait, that was my dream.  In reality, it was more like this:

Pouring rain and yucky.  There was just no way I was going to run in that, so I held out until lunch time, when the rain had stopped, thankfully.  I tried using the “course” option on my Garmin again, just to see if I could figure it out.  I plotted a starting point using the map on their site, and then I went outside walked toward that point, waiting for it to do something magical when I got there.  Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. I found the compass rose with the arrow directing me where to start, but it seemed no matter where I was, it wanted me to be 2 feet in a different direction.  I’m sure my neighbors thought I was a bit looney, standing there in the middle of the road, staring at  my wrist, moving first 3 feet back, then 2 feet forward, then 5 feet to the side, then another 4 feet back, then 7 feet to the left…!!  In retrospect, it had to be pretty comical.

Despite my inability to figure out the course option, I did get the run in.  This time, I really pushed myself on the second mile, because I’m trying to decide what I’m going to do for my race on Sunday.  I had originally signed up for this Mother’s Day 5k to walk it, but that was weeks ago, before I had any inclination that I would become a runner.  So now I’m trying to figure out whether I should try to run part and walk part, or—heaven forbid—run the whole thing!  Right now I’m up to 2 miles, and my running friends assure me that I will be able to do 3 miles without issue on Sunday.  I’m not so sure.  So on Monday, I ran the second mile really hard, to see how difficult it would be.  My thought is that maybe, based on how a “hard” two mile run feels, I can run a full 3 miles at a really, really easy pace.  I’m still unsure at this point, but I will say it felt good to push myself for that last mile. Not while I was doing it, mind you, but afterwards.  While I was doing it, I was swearing at myself a lot, lol!  Here are my splits:

Once again, a new PR (that means “personal record”) pace!  Oh, and I weighed myself Monday morning and essentially stayed the same, so I’m thinking that adding 3 points instead of the whole 6 may be working for me.

 

So here’s the whining part of the post:  I. Am. So. Tired.  Every night this week has been hockey, baseball or both.  For a visual representation, take a look at my Google calendar this week:

Each kid’s sport is color coded (DS#1 hockey = orange, DS#1 baseball = brown, DS#2 hockey = green, DS#2 baseball = red, my calendar = blue and my husband’s = purple).  See all that purple?  That is my husband, who has happened to work every night this week!  Argh! Tonight was the culmination of the insanity, and since it was impossible for me to be in two different places at once, I had to tread upon the good graces of my big sister.  My email to her earlier today went something like this…

So tonight you are going to the same ball field as before.  DH will need to leave by no later than 5:15pm to get DS#2 to his game on time.  Can you be there by then?

Make sure you have all of DS#1’s gear before DH leaves.  DS#1’s game starts at 5:30 and he will need to come off the ball diamond by 6:20 (or earlier–if they are about to start a new inning where DS#1 will be catching, and you think they won’t be done by 6:20, take him off before the inning starts so as not to be disruptive).  His coach and the manager (coach’s wife) know you’re taking him.

Then you should take the road that is right next to the ball diamonds one mile north and turn left.  Go about 3/4 mile to the freeway and take that north to Exit XX.  Go right on Road A and take that to Road B (or, you could do what I do and take Road A to Road C, turn right, take Road C to Road D, turn left, and take Road D to Road B–less traffic on Road D and you can do 55mph instead of 45!).

DS#1 will need to get dressed in his hockey gear in the car–he’s done it before.  Ask DH to pull out all his gear and put it in your backseat except for his skates, gloves, and helmet.  Drop him off at the door to the rink with his bag and stick and then make sure you bring his pants in when you go in!  And don’t let me forget to get his baseball stuff out of your car before you leave!

At that point, hand him off to his coaches, who know that you will be getting there right about the time the game starts (supposed to be 6:50pm, but last time they started at 7pm–maybe we’ll get lucky).  They’ll get his skates on.

DS#2’s game ends at 6:50pm so I will yank him off the ice as soon as it’s over and get over to DS#1’s game ASAP.

Love you!!

 

Her response was:

Whew! Had to print that one.

As for poor DS#1, well, don’t feel too sorry for him.  He lives for hockey and baseball, and this is fun stuff for him.  He thrives on the rush, I think.  Personally, I don’t know how he does it all, but he does, and he never complains.

So does this help explain why I’m so damn tired?  I know it could be a lot, lot worse (I could have more than 2 kids, for one thing!), but adding in the stress of the road construction project on my work commute is really taking a toll on my mental and physical health.  (That project adds between 20 and 40 minutes to my roundtrip commute each day—and it goes through November. {sob})

I’ve had to cut my walking down to 1 lap around the mall in the mornings (if I’m lucky!) due to the construction traffic, and I have had to arrange my “run days” to work around the added commute time as well.  I have two days I can run when I won’t also have to drive to work, but to keep up with a three-day-per-week running schedule, I have to run on one “commute day,” and with my evenings totally booked right now, that means I have to get up eaaaaaaaaaaaaarly to get it in.  That day is Thursday, and that means I have to get up at dark o’clock tomorrow and run 2 miles before I leave for work.  Wish me luck!  I guess that means I probably need to get to bed…

I’d like to say I’ll rest on Mother’s Day, but oh yeah—I’m running a 5k that day!  Ha ha ha! How well-planned was that?!  I’ll let you know how it all turns out next week. 😉

Thanks so much for reading my super-whiny post!! 😉