I've finally been offered a job I am excited to take. It's a management position so I can finally put that Business Administration degree to work! However, there's a downside. A Monday thru Friday schedule with set and guaranteed hours is going to be great for my budget. It's just going to take away a lot of the time I've been using for homework, workouts, and my family. I'm going to have to rebalance my life and that's a scary thought!
On top of the new job, I'm in my first semester of my Sports Management degree. I LOVE my classes. I'm learning a ton and realizing how much misinformation is out there. I've recommitted to getting my body composition where I want to be and training to be the athlete I want to be instead of the slow plodder I currently am. However, there's always a but right? Full time college on top of a full time job is going to be hard, really hard. I have already started carrying a planner and scheduling my assignments in order of due dates so I get them done on time. The problem is that getting them done now means doing them at night after the kids go to bed and my husband leaves for work. While I used to be able to use that time for a quick run or some weights I now have lost another opportunity for my workouts.
Then there's soccer. I volunteered to coach my daughter's soccer team while I was laid off. I figured it was only for 8 weeks and it would keep me busy and active. Now it's hard to be happy with that decsion. My team is great and the kids are always happy and smiling. We always have fun but motivating myself to get out the door every Monday and Wednesday night instead of plopping down on the couch or going for a run is hard. When I was just a soccer mom I had the luxury of missing a practice. Now that I'm 'Coach Sara' I have to set a good example and show up and work hard. It's been a great lesson in dependability and fortitude.
Then there's the issue of my running which didn't happen for five, yes FIVE, days straight. I attempted to run a 50k last weekend and twisted my knee pretty badly. I got to an aid station and told them I was going to DNF. I have never made such a hard decision in my life. They told me I was only 3 miles from the finish line and I could take a 25k finish if I just walked in the first loop. Despite the creaking and popping in my knee I thought a 25k finish would be better than a DNF so I walked it in. And the but.... The race director told me the volunteers were mistaken and I couldn't be listed as a 25k finisher and I would be listed as a DNF anyway. I cried, I freaked, and I worried. My knee is still sensitive to hills and stairs but thankfully 5 days of rest seems to have it well on the way to mending.
It hasn't all been gloom and doom though. Blessings still abound in my life. The weekend before the 50k disaster my hubby and I ran a beautiful 5k in Slickville, PA called the Heritage Hustle. We both set new PR's (low-23's for him and 27:14 for me) and had a grand old time doing it! My husband also just celebrated his '29th birthday for the 3rd time' and we used his birthday weekend as an excuse to travel to a fun 5k. I was still worried about my knee so I promised Shane he could go as fast as he liked and I would run with our older daughter for a little bit and then just go as fast as I could handle while pushing the baby in the stroller.
It turned out to be a better day than I could have hoped for. I lost my older daughter in the crowds before mile 1 but she's experienced enough at this point to be okay on her own. I decided to go at an 'I'm working but I'm not dying' pace and see what happened. My knee behaved and I only walked once for a fairly large hill. At the end of mile 1, the volunteer said I had done mile 1 in about 10:45. I did some quick math in my head and thought, "Hey, I can beat my last stroller-pushing time of 35 minutes!" I picked up the pace coming off of the uphill and passed quite a few people. I leap frogged with another mother pushing a baby in a stroller for the rest of the race. My split at mile 2 was something like just under 21 minutes. I pushed to keep up with the other stroller mom who was just in front of me at this point. I was starting to get mad because she was switching the stroller off with her mother who was running with her. It didn't seem fair that she got a break and I didn't! I couldn't let her beat me like that! Coming up to the third mile marker I pushed harder and caught a few more people and started to gain on stroller mom. Then she paused to adjust the baby her stroller! It was my chance! I swerved around her and into the finish shoot for a time of 30:54 and a 4:06 PR over my old stroller time!
It turns out Team Brunazzi had a great day all around. My hubby missed a PR and ran high-23's but took second in his age group. My daughter set a new PR and took second in her age group and I took third in my age group! I never, ever would have thought I could score an age group award while pushing a stroller! What an awesome uplift right when my spirits were low!
Overall, I'm still scared of what's coming with my new job, school, and races. I've got a full schedule with more being added daily. But I'm trying to take it one day, one assignment, one run at a time and just be grateful that I'm able to do all of this at all!
No comments:
Post a Comment