200 Hours

Here it is in ONE post.  The answer we have all been searching for... what EVERY MOTHER RUNNER needs to know.

How to fit it all in and not lose your sanity.

Step 1 – stop trying to fit it all in.

um.

Seriously, I did some math the other day to figure out how much time I really had to train for a Half Ironman each week and I came up with -32.

I need 71 hours for school, 58 awake hours for my kids, 8 hours for work, and sleep... I need about 56 hours to sleep in a week...  (Maslow says you need sleep as much as you need air and I believe him) and at least 7 hours a week to workout.  

And to me that makes sense.  1 rest day, 2 long days, and 4 regular days = 7 hours.

so that works out to 200 hours.

there are not 200 hours in a week.

but that's what I need.

Clearly some things have to give... and clearly there’s multitasking going on all the freaking time.  So do the kids sometimes have to watch me do homework? Yup.  All my time with them can’t be quality time.  It can’t.  Not possible.  

Do they sometimes have to come to my workout?  Uh huh.  They have to be part of the multitasking.  Do I put them first?  Yes.  Even when I'm at school... especially when I'm at school.  I put them first.

There aren’t enough hours in my day for me to start defending myself on that topic.

-32 seems like a negative number.

But, I have support.

And not just from Victoria’s Secret.

The support I have from my Wives, The Good Dr, my kids, and my friends helps me get a LOT done in my -32 hours.

I've noticed a trend.  Every semester I have a moment of despair.  This semester I couldn’t imagine how I was going to fit in my workout... and I still can’t...

But my support team reminded me I can get it done.  I just might not be able to get it done exactly the way I’ve done it before.

Thus, I made some changes.  

I ride in 20-30 minute blocks on the trainer at the end/middle/beginning of my day whenever I can.  I hate my trainer with a passion that burns as brightly as 10,000 suns... but I do it.

At the Hospital I used the stairs to climb 6 flights of stairs, 3 reps per shift, and called it “intervals”.  Each one took 6 minutes.  I was walking and lifting 400 pound patients for the other 7 hours of the shift soooo.... I figured that it had to count.

 

It count's, right???

I took my kids to the pool and we swam until my workout was done my 7 year old taught herself how to do the back stroke.  We celebrated her awesomeness together.  Did I get in 1600M?  um, no. probably not. But it was better than nothing.

My boy and I did a spin class for 45 minutes on a snow day.

Oh, and I ran in “Feels Like 8” for 8 miles so I could get my run done.

And lastly, I organized my Senior Service Leadership Project around my personal needs strengths...  The project is going to be a fitness/run group for 8 weeks of the semester that addresses all the fitness levels in the community so I can get something done every Monday.  

I’ll have NO free time on Mondays to do ANYTHING... but included in that NO free time will be a workout and it will be worth it.

My epic multitasking skills seem solid.

Pretty sure it's a real equation too.

(7 X 24 hours) + multitasking + support = 200 hours in a week.

amiright?