Sunday, February 21, 2010

Make the best of it

So this week was a good and bad running week. I ended up missing one of my short runs early in the week and made up for it my doing a longer run mid week which was nice since the sun came out and the day turned out to be a perfect winter running day. Then as the week progressed it became abundantly clear that my long run was not going to go as planned.

My husband was away this weekend on reserve duty so that means I was a single parent for the weekend. My plan was to go visit my mother for the weekend, (I usually do this whenever my husband is on reserves) and my mom could watch my daughter while I ran my 10 miles. As the weekend approached I realized this was not going to happen since the weather was going to be too bad to make the drive.

So I came up with Plan B. Do my long run on Friday while my daughter was still at school. I was really ahead on my work for the week so I had the time to take off for a couple hours to get my run in. This sounded great to me, till Friday got here and it was about 33 degrees and a rainy, sleeting, snowing mess. URGH! I could not find the motivation to go out and run in that. I don’t mind running in the rain, I actually like it a lot, but that is when it is warm out, I just cannot imagine running in the rain when it is cold out, I just kept thinking that I would never warm up and be running while wet and cold. So this idea was a bust.

Now we come to Plan C, the dreadmill. Just the idea of running 10 miles on the treadmill was enough to make me feel depressed. Don’t get me wrong I love my treadmill, it has helped me so much this winter but 10 miles…. Come on that is just torture. All day Friday I just kept thinking how I would have to do this run on the mill, and was just sad and depressed the entire day. I did go to the video store and rent a movie hoping that it would help make the torture not so bad, but I just could not get the motivation up to be excited about my upcoming run. As a matter of fact I spent several hours trying to think of ways to get out of this run, I know bad Tracey. As the night was coming to an end I finally decided what a total baby I was being. I mean come on I had to do this run, I really need it for my training so I could either make the best of it or just be miserable right? I decided to just try and make the best of it and get it done.

I wake up on Saturday morning and get everything ready to run and then as soon as my daughter gets up I bring her down and put her in front of the TV (I know bad mom I totally used the TV as a baby sitter here, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do) got her breakfast and juice then went down to start my run. About every 15 to 30 min my daughter came down to let me know she needed more juice, more food, a clean diaper, a new TV show, or just to see what mommy was doing. This made the run take much more time than needed since I had to keep running up stairs to take care of her and get her what she needed, and the treadmill kept resetting so I am pretty sure I ran more than 10 miles anyway. But to tell you all the truth, it was not that bad. The movie helped a lot, time flew by and I still felt great and strong the entire run.

My lesson and the lesson I want to pass on to all of you is to make the best of the situation. This could very well went the other way and been a horrible long miserable run, but my decision to just make the best of it because I had to do it either way really made the difference. I went in to the run in a good mood and had fun with it even though the situation was not ideal and my run went great. Remember it is up to you to be happy or sad, if you can’t change something then make the best of it and it may just turn out better than you thought.

7 comments:

Susan O. Keller said...

Great post, Tracey. So true and glad you chose to be positive and got your run in. :)

On The Road... said...

Glad you stuck with it and got the run in.

Marny said...

Now that's what I call a "Mom Run"! I have done long runs on the TM. Usually while J is asleep, but sometimes he wakes up and I have to finish up the run in between mommy duties. It actually mixes it up a bit.

Tracey Kite said...

Skeller & On The Road, thanks I am glad I did it too I felt great after and it really was not that bad.

Tracey Kite said...

Marny, LOL yes it for sure was a "Mom Run" I like that term it is so right.

Jill said...

Haha, you and I are the treadmill queens for the week :). Nice job on the run and for staying positive and not letting stuff get in the way. It's not always easy but don't ya just feel so much better after!!??!!

Tracey Kite said...

Jill, you are the rock star 19 miles wow that still impresses me! But you are right I did feel great after, nothing like a run to make you feel good even if it was on the treadmill!