Monday – 1/2 hour of bowling
Tuesday – arm workout
Wednesday – ran 2 miles (not an improvement on time but not much slower, I was tired.)
Thursday -3.25 double stroller miles
Friday – at least 7100 steps
Saturday – 1 mile run outside ALONE!! So nice lol did it for time 12:36! Working on that speed
Total miles this week: 6.25
And somehow another year is coming to an end. So many great memories:
I ran 351.6 miles this year, my highest mileage ever. I am very proud of that. Marathon/half Marathon training was a BIG contributor to that so as much as I would love to say I want to strive for even more in 2024 I don’t know that that is realistic. We shall see. We will call that a thought to keep in my head rather than a goal.
Unfortunately with all that running I did not lose a single pound. I will take a saying from a podcast I have been listening to called ‘Homeschool Together’ when they talked about their fitness and weight loss journey is “you cannot outrun your fork” And I literally did not outrun my fork.
I have two major problems that are probably tied for first place. 1) portion size 2) eating out.
My biggest not resolution or even necessarily goal, but lifestyle change for 2024 and onward is to really tackle those two issues. My portion control and to stop eating out, especially fast food.
My 3-year-old has discovered he loves fried rice from Panda Express and both my kids like most children love nuggets and fries from McDonald’s. So they are constantly asking for this. Well, my three-year-old is constantly asking for this. I say no a lot but even once a week adds up very fast. There is hardly a week where we don’t drive through someplace at least once.
My two big tools to help with these changes are my daily step goal and calorie tracking.
It is amazing how many days I don’t get over three or four thousand steps a day even chasing after two kids. So it’s time for me to start being really intentional with my steps and my movement. I started this about a week ago and I missed one day which was yesterday when I felt like death. Because yes we are all sick AGAIN. And both kids have ear infections AGAIN!
I’m not sure anybody enjoys calorie counting. It can be tedious, but honestly calories in calories out is how you lose weight especially in the beginning. As my weight goes down, I may focus a little more on macros and the amount of protein I take in and things like that, but it’s time to just put on my big girl panties and countless calories. I’m not going to be incredibly tedious about counting my calories. Like every single bite that goes in my mouth will probably not be tracked perfectly. But big picture tracking is what I’m going for so that it’s sustainable and honest.
I do have fitness goals like most people. It’s not so much about the new year’s resolution, it’s just the next phase in my life. Currently I have Beachbody on demand. I’m going to be canceling that before it renews I think in April because it’s just not working for me right now. 30 minute workout videos are difficult for me to get through with the kids. They are running around jumping on me which is fun and funny but makes it difficult to get a true workout in and 30 minutes is a long time to ask them to let me be at this age unless I get up before them. But at least one of my kids is usually up by 6:30 in the morning so getting a workout in and showering before they get up is probably not sustainable. I am going to try and look for like a 15 minute weight workout that I can do. I think that’s a much more realistic time frame for me. And I’m going to continue running with kids and without them. My current goal is going to be to get my mile time down and then increase the amount of miles that I can do at that time frame.
Because my running has been so stop and start since the half marathon between coming home and resting a little bit and ALL the sickness that we have had my current mile time with the double stroller, because I’m doing run walk intervals, is 17 minutes and without the double stroller the last time I clocked a mile I think I was around 12:40. I would love to get down to at least a 10 minute mile and be able to sustain that for about 3 miles and then eventually continue to decrease that. If I can get down to like a 9 minute mile that would be freaking amazing but I have to be realistic with myself too and see how it goes.
I will NOT be staying up until midnight tonight to watch the ball drop so HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
It has taken some time and reflection to realize how selfish it was for me to sign up for a marathon at this point in my life without fully thinking through the repercussions for my family.
I am not saying running races is selfish, or being a wife and running marathons is selfish or even being a mom and running marathons is selfish. Simply that for me, at this time in my life, it was.
I didn’t really discuss it with my husband before I signed up….oops, I’ve been married for 5 years and sometimes still forget I’m in a partnership now.
Running a marathon is a HUGE time commitment and can be a large financial one as well. Both of these were/are true for me. Currently I am a slow runner so my long runs took a LONG time. Meaning, we lost most of our Saturdays (during my training) to my long run, especially when you add in that my youngest (and sometimes my oldest) still needs to nap. This means we had no opportunities to camp or do any overnight trips this last summer.
Financially it was a big commitment as well since I chose a marathon in another state (my home state). I did use this as an opportunity/excuse to spend time with my family there but this meant plane tickets, days of extra food costs, and all those miscellaneous costs that come with traveling.
I am not saying I regret doing it. My husband was pretty gracious about it all. My kids got to see family and we as a family got to do an awesome Disneyland trip and make lots of memories.
Also, doing something for me is not selfish (that is not what I am saying) but doing something that impacted my whole family for a big part of the year…….was pretty selfish…..in MY case.
I love to run and will keep running, I love doing races too, but this isn’t my time for racing. That time will come again. For me and my family, this is the time for healthy fitness for me…..and lots of family fun together.
This coming year I look forward to lots of family camping and fun family weekend trips.
What are you looking forward to in 2024?
Monday – ran almost 4 miles.
Wanted to spend some time outside so I loaded the kids up in the double stroller and ran to one park, then to another, then home
Thursday – ran just over 3.5 miles
We skipped one park
Not as much as I hoped to get done but better than nothing!
Back at it!!!
Sunday -OFF
Monday- 3 miles
Tuesday – lower body workout
Wednesday – Upper body
Thursday – 4 miles
Friday – full body burn
Saturday – 1 mile for time (to establish my base mile time that I want to improve on and 4 hill sprints
Sunday – OFF
Monday – 10 min leg workout
Tuesday- 3 miles…..I forgot to take a picture after
Wednesday – 10 min butt workout
Thursday – 3 miles
Friday – OFF
Saturday – OFF we went to a harvest festival
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday -OFF it’s been a weird week hahahaha
Thursday – 3 miles
Friday – OFF
Saturday – 18.5 miles……..was gonna try for 20 but it hurt so much, had to have my husband come pick me up since I was still a little over 1.5 miles from home.
I’m starting to think I might drop down to a half marathon. I’m just so tired. With 2 kids under 3 I have been sleep deprived for over 1.5 years now, I stopped doing cross training or weights because I’ve been so tired. I haven’t 100% decided to drop down to a half yet but I am seriously considering it.
Sunday -OFF
Monday -OFF we started a 1 day a week preschool on a farm and it’s on Mondays
Tuesday – 3 miles
Wednesday -2 mile walk with the kids
Thursday – 3 miles
Friday -OFF
Saturday- 16.37 miles
Total running miles – 22.37 miles
Thursday September 7th
I woke up at 6:30am, the baby was just staying to stir in her crib. I got Ella up at 6:50 and made coffee.
Put Roberts and Ella’s entamology pen pal clubhouse letters in the mail. (We just started this from an Instagram account called Mornings together, we get a new little packet each week emailed to us, I print it out and the kids color it then we mail it to a family member. As they get older it has a few questions and some facts along with the coloring).
Robert woke up at about 7:15, I fed ella and snuggled with the kids for a bit. We had breakfast burritos just after 8:00. While we are I read the kids ‘How to Make Apple Pie and See the World’.
Then I unloaded the dishwasher while they played and colored. After that we worked on Robert’s good and beautiful math lesson number six. After that we went outside around 10:20am Robert fed chickens while I started laundry. We swung on our swing set and at popsicles. I watered the yard while they swung.
At 11 we walked to the corner market to get chips for lunch. The kids had tomato soup with grilled cheese and chips, I had a ham sandwich, soup and chips.
After lunch they played with daddy while he was on lunch, then we got ready for a nap run. I ran 3 miles while they napped.
When we got back I set them in front of the TV with some ice cream so I could take a quick shower. Daddy came out and sat with them for a couple minutes.
After I showered we did our tea time where I read to them and we have snacks. We read a few passages from what your preschooler needs to know and the book ‘H is for honey’. Then we completed all about reading pre-reading for the letter f. Then Robert did some practice with scissors while cutting papers and then they both did some dexterity work by threading animals.
After we finished our school work, my husband told us Starbucks having a deal on their foul drinks. So I loaded the kids in the car and we drove through Starbucks and then since we were out and it was close to dinner we drove through Taco Bell haha.
We ate dinner as a family. Then the kids took a bath then played with their daddy while we watched sea shanties and other songs on YouTube. My son is currently obsessed with the shanties.
My daughter was asleep by 7:25pm, and my son was asleep by 9. We have been having some big bedtime battles with our toddler. But I think it’s slowly going back to normal knock on wood.
Then my daughter was up from 10:30pm- 12am. I couldn’t get her back to sleep in her crib so she came into our room and took another 2+ hours to fall asleep…..it was horrible.
And that was our day.
After so many years of not consistently running; moving in with my now husband, getting engaged, getting married, enjoying being married then kids. I find myself having to remind myself that I AM A RUNNER.
Even if I run slow, even if I have runs where I walk more than I run, even if I have bad training months, whether I finish first or last in a race (I have finished last lol) whether I run a marathon in 3 hours or 7 hours….I ran it…..I am a Runner.
For some reason now, I don’t know if it’s tackling the marathon or maybe having had kids, but I seem to be much harder on myself than I was 5 years ago when I was running. If I have a bad run or a run where I’m really tired or even a bad month of runs suddenly I think I’m not a good enough runner. I don’t remember ever feeling like that when I was training for half marathons before kids.
I think it might be because this has been such a bad month with my kids sleep and my stomach issues that I feel like I’ve backslid in my training a little. But I don’t ever want to be a perfectionist. So I have to continually remind myself that there will be seasons in life where it just doesn’t go the way I want it to.
But I am STILL a runner!!!!!
Trailing the blonde 