132 days.

In 132 days I will run my 5th Half Marathon, the Niagara Falls Women's Half Marathon. 

It will be my first real race since having a baby and by far the furthest distance I have done since the day before I found out I was pregnant (when I did my best 16k yet with a 3wk old baby in my belly - you can read about it HERE)  I feel excited and scared.  I know that physically I can do the distance, even if it isn't pretty when I cross the finish line.  And I am fairly positive mentally I can do the distance - but motherhood seems to have changed me in more ways than a leftover belly bulge and the ability to eat, do online banking and brush my hair all while nursing.

It feels like motherhood has left me scatterbrained.  I heard of "baby brain" when I was pregnant, but "10 month old son" brain does much more damage! I survive only on making notes and lists now or I would forget even what day it was.  I can only enter a grocery store if I have a hand-written list and I am on my second white board for the kitchen to keep track of bills, to-do's and honey-do's.  So I feel challenged to complete the run not only physically but mentally as well, but than I remind myself of the battle it took to get Lincoln born.

Lincoln surprised us 3 weeks early and still took 21 hours of labor to appear - 21 just so happens to be the distance in km's that a half marathon is and I keep telling myself if I can survive 21 hours of labor and 3 months recovery after that, I can certainly labor my way through 21.1km again.

So that means I am officially back in training.  I normally follow the 18 week Half Marathon training program from The Running Room but this time I stretched it out longer in order to give me a couple weeks to start building my cardio again.  I figure I needed it since it has been so long since I have been regularly running and regularly building any distance.

With training comes outdoor long runs which I have realized are much more difficult in the winter, with a baby.  I am a true Northerner and I can handle some cold snowy runs, but I cannot make my poor son suffer to same fate and spend an hour bundled up in a stroller trying to not freeze his face.

So I bought a treadmill and I named her Niagara.

I set her up in the living room (mainly because its the only place she will fit) and I even have her facing a small upper window we have so I can have a little "scenery" when I run.  I take advantage of Lincoln's regular nap times and am currently running 3-4 times a week.  I bought this treadmill used so it doesn't have too many bells and whistles but it has an incline, adjustable speed and a fan which that is all I really need :)  I just set up the baby monitor and off I go.

Now, I have always hated treadmills - I have a hard time getting into a rhythm and I think my pace often suffers from it - so when we decided to buy Niagara I wasn't really looking forward to it that much.  That is until I had a hard "mom day" and I didn't sleep well, I felt frustrated at the baby and I wanted a break from this new job of mine.  On that first day, when I got on the treadmill and was able to run, like really run without a stroller or a dog leash or the bitter cold air - I felt free.  It was wonderful, and I sweat and felt sore and my shins burned and I loved every minute of it.

Because I felt like I had a piece of "me" back.

Being a mom really is all about self sacrifice - and though the sacrifice is all worth it at the end of the day (or so I am told lol) I really struggled with feeling like I lost myself when Lincoln was first born.  And looking back now I think its OK to feel that way, because your life has changed.  I am no longer thinking about myself solely but instead I have a little person whose needs and feelings go before mine.  I missed my old life, I missed work and adult conversations, I missed being able to go for a long run on Saturday mornings without needing "baby permission".  I missed and still miss a lot of things but as Lincoln grows and becomes more independent I get little bits of "me" back as well.  Moving out of the 'newborn' stage into the 'little guy' stage brings all sorts of new challenges and rewards and my return to running is one of my rewards.

I am a mom first and foremost, but I am also a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, friend, soul mate (JM), young adults leader, lover of Kraft Dinner, member of SheReadsTruth and a runner.  I am working on embracing and loving ALL of those things - even on an old dusty treadmill.


My name is Barclee and I am a half marathon runner - to be confirmed again in 132 days.  ;)






Friends, if any of you struggle with treadmill life check this out: 26 Treadmill Workouts

Running Bravely.

I am trying to be brave. 

 

In every aspect of my life, a theme of “bravery” is coming out over the last few months.  I think part of that is that I have been trying to be brave because I feel I now have so much to fear.  I did not used to feel afraid of many things (except bears, for sure always afraid of bears) but becoming a mom has given me a whole new list (and I mean a looooooong list) of things to be afraid of. 

Some very rational: 

What if Lincoln is hurt? Is in an accident? Or becomes diseased? Or what if someone tries to steal him?

But many are very irrational:

Did he just cough? That red spot looks like it may be a rash? Is it Ebola? Are we prepared for a zombie apocalypse with a baby? I could outrun a bear while carrying a car seat right? Is that an ant near his crib?

*And while some of my regular blog readers are annoyed right now, wondering if I have become “that mom” that will no longer blog about running but instead diapers and naptimes – stay with me, the running part is coming.*

When Lincoln was first born, my mother came down from up north and stayed with me for the first week.  I remember the night she was leaving I was standing in the kitchen, hiding by the stove as  I burst into tears feeling so overwhelmed by fear that she was leaving and Stuart would be at work and I would be home ALONE with this very scary little baby.  She gave me this Bible verse which my heart has clung to ever since:

 

 
 

This is where a theme of bravery has begun to show in my life.  Little things that have been sprinkled in my life that I never noticed until recently; all speaking to me about being brave.

  I made a short video when Lincoln was first born and one of the last shots of me pregnant shows up just as the music says, “I will be brave”, sermons at church have spoken about being brave and trusting the Lord, when we had Lincoln dedicated we had read about the bravery of Moses’ mother as she sent her little 4 month old son down the Nile in a basket, the book my small group is studying regularly discusses being brave, a friend sent me THIS BLOG about being brave with our kids -  I  even went to my first MOPS meeting and do you want to guess the theme this year? “Be You Bravely” J

 

 

Another friend shared a new song called "You Make me Brave" and I think it perhaps was written entirely for me (see the video at the end of this post!)  This theme of bravery has been showing up everywhere and I am excited for it, because I need it.

 

Ok, ok get to the running part right? Well running has been awful.  I felt really good once I hit a few 5k distances and thought it would not be that hard to get back to where I was pre-baby.  Than my body realized what I was trying to do and it rebelled against me essentially sending me back to day one with my running.

My shins are my worst enemy (not the first time I have said that!) and when I look at my Garmin during a run it makes me want to throw it in the ditch instead of see the pace.  I began to be afraid to run.  I dreaded it, I felt it was pointless to try this again and I thought it was best to let that part of my life go for good.

I did not feel brave running, I felt scared and insecure and frustrated.  I felt like quitting would be the better answer, and being afraid was easier than trying . 

But I want to be brave.  I want to be a brave woman, I want to be a brave mother and I want to be a brave runner.  I have been brave – I have done things that other people would be afraid to do and I am being brave now as a mother.  By fighting through the hard sad feelings I had when Lincoln was first born, by embracing the new life I have since starting a family, and I will be brave again as a runner.

So here it is, the test of my bravery – my registration for my 5^th Half Marathon:

 

I will run this distance again.  I will train my (mom) body to carry myself 21.1km regardless of how scared I feel about my shins, the distance, the long runs, the possibility of failure, or a slow pace.  I will choose to be brave in my life, even on the days I would rather hide.  I have 8 months to prepare for this run, I will begin official training in January and I will see my life as something different than it was a year ago, but view that as a new adventure not something to fear.

Frederick Buechner says, " One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can."

So I will do my best as I prepare physically and mentally to run long distance again. and I will try, to be brave.

"You make me brave.  You call me out beyond the shore, into the waves"

tbh

I don't love running. To be honest; I am not sure I even really like running.

I have considered myself a "runner" for almost 3 years.  Starting with a 2km run during a Try-a-Tri that I was sure might just kill me - to currently preparing for my 4th Half Marathon (Read how it all started...).

When I began running, and began learning about running I was enamoured by the amount of runner friends I had that were so in love with running.  I would enviously listen to their stories about hitting the open road, reaching a Runner's High and feeling like they could run for days on end.

I was eager to experience those things.  I would imagine myself hitting 5k and feeling wonderful, deciding to run just 5k more, than 5k more, than 5k more. 

3 years in and that has not happened to me yet :)

Running is hard for me. Very, very hard.  It is not always pretty and this weekend while out on my 16km long training run I thought to myself "I don't even like running". But I think as a runner it's OK to not like running because I know what I do like.

I do not like anything past the 15th km.  I do not like the first 2km's or the last 3km's.  I do not like being passed way more than passing.  My legs get sore around the 9km mark  - my back reminds me it is crooked and reeking havoc on my lungs at the 4km, 8km and 15km mark.  My second toe gets sore and I start to wonder if my toenail is bleeding as I pass 10km.  The entire time waiting for a runners high to hit instead of  runners trots.

But than the part I do like happens. I hit 16.01km and I am done.


And I feel like a million dollars.


I forget the pain from the 9th km, I take deeper stronger breaths and a small part of me hopes a bloody sock is coming out of my shoe to proudly show my battle scars.

After I run I love the run.

I love the way my body responds to my long runs.
I love how strong my legs feel.
I love how they look in shorts during the summer.
I love how deserving I feel of my full body massages.
I love my massage therapist.
I love how my clothes fit.
I love how I sleep.
I love being able to say, "Oh this morning? I was out running 16km"
I love how much nicer my skin and hair are since I became a runner.
I love my post run smoothie.
I love how I release an entire work week of stress in one long run.
I love seeing my husband at the finish lines.
I love the equally slow runners at a race encouraging each other.
I love the medals.
I love the accomplishment.
I love breaking past the mental barrier that tells me I am to slow to keep doing this.

I loved crying like a baby as I crossed the finish line for my first Half Marathon



So this weekend was when I decided it's OK to not like running, because instead I love what running has done to my body and to my life. 

And that perhaps is more important, that is what gets me up at 5am on a Saturday, and that is what makes me push through and finish hard - even if I don't like it all the time ;)