Winning at Life and being a Galactic Badass

A Mother Runner’s Guide to Winning at Life and being a Galactic Badass

Aka

Sh*t I just came up with on the fly.

I was chatting with another working mom the other day and she asked my opinion on training for a fall marathon.  She has twin babies, a job, a husband, and all the responsibilities that go with the above.  Oh, and most importantly, before kids she was a badass mother runner of marathons.

So what did I tell her?

You grew a human being out of two cells; you can f*cking do anything you want in life. Including train for and run a marathon while being the proud owner of babies, a job, a husband, and all that rot. Avoid putting limits on what you can do. The example you will set for your children when you do this is extraordinary. I speak from experience. My kids are a trio of galactic badasses.

When you start drinking alone before the sun comes up, people worry; this will also apply to running. Get used to it. If you’re going to do a fall marathon and juggle life, it’s going to take some pre-dawn running.

Respect the distance. You didn't grow the baby in three weeks. Your fitness isn't going to return in three weeks. Savor the work you put in, and on the days that suck, on the days where if feels like you will never get there from here, look at that hard work and see how far you've come.

Your stroller is a rolling sag wagon. Use this fact to bribe or beg your friends to run with you. You can carry the water, gu, babies, snacks, TV, kitchen sink, and extra body glide. The best way to run with a BOB is to have buddies who have no strollers of their own who are wiling to share your load. Consider it a public service to your friends. Their training will be greatly improved by the resistance. It’s like running on hills... all the fecking time. Amiright?  With additional help pushing, the over all pace of the group will be faster, and everyone will be happier, including the babies.

Face it; you’re not the only one. Moms run. They train. There is a community of support out there.  Find your people. Maybe you need physical runners to join you – great – find a running club and join a group run. Perhaps you thrive in an online community of thousands of women who support each other. Perfect, find the Another Mother Runner Facebook group. Just whatever you do, find your people.

You will never be good enough. You will always work harder than you ever worked before babies, because you will always be striving for better and more. Maybe this is because you have these babies that you want to instill your values into, or maybe this is just because mothers are all pretty badass, but whatever it is, your standards for yourself will be different from now on. Goals that seemed impossible before will be broken, and rewritten to reflect new “unreachable” goals. You’ll realize that it never gets easier, you just get faster.  Or stronger. Or more.

~savor the run~

Parenting WIN

“What do you kids want for Christmas?”

I would guess that question is rolling around a lot these days.  It’s alternate forms include, “What will you ask for from Santa?” and “Hanukkah is about to start...” and “It’s December ... do you need anything?”

Well this year I had an extraordinary answer from two of my three children.

From my son, Gfly, “I don’t know.  No, don't get me anything.  I don’t need anything.”

From my eldest daughter, C, “I don’t need anything either, but please spend the money you would have spent on me and go buy yourself a new warm coat.  The one you have is not warm enough.”

And that was when I realized that A, it’s possible to cry with pride without your children knowing that you are crying and B, I *probably* don’t suck at parenting.

Happy Holidays.

An Open Letter to Mother Runners Who Are Better at This than Me

Dear Mother Runners who Work...

Dear Bad A** Mother Runners who work,

How do you do this and train?  Specifically, how do you get up, wrangle your posse, go to work, and train for a race?

I’m no novice here.  I’ve trained at crazy hours to get my running in while I’m in nursing school.  It’s just that now I’m working in the hospital in an immersion program and it’s completely flattening my mojo.

Motivation = 0

If it was 0.2 I could multiply it by SOMETHING and get motivated.

But it’s not.  It’s 0.

The issue is that I can’t run in the morning because it’s too early.  I mean, realistically I can’t get up at 345 a.m. every single day and run an hour, be done, get the kids lunches packed into their backpacks, get ready for work, greet the babysitter, commute to the hospital, work a (12 or 8) hour shift on my feet for (11.5 or 8) hours, and function...

it's the functioning part that has me crippled here. I mean, if that wasn't a requirement of my relationship with my kids, The Good Dr, professors, etc, then I could so totally do this...

And if you remove the run, have me sleep in till 5:15, so that I could work out in the evening.... well, I’m usually so freakishly tired at the end of the day that I’m barely functioning enough to collect my kids from the sitter, get them home, feed them, get their homework done, get my homework done, and get the (Laundry, Dishes, House picked Up) that training isn't on the menu by that point. 

Today I came home from a 10 hour on my feet work day and got on the trainer for exactly 20 minutes.  I told myself that 20 minutes was better than nothing, but I gotta be honest, not sure where that 20 minutes is going to get me when I'm on a 3 hour bike ride in June, or a 13.1 mile run in mid-March...

So, I need to know:

How do you do it?  

What is the trick that I’m missing?  What lie have I told myself about training that is preventing me from seeing the answer?  What do YOU know that I haven’t figured out yet?

I don’t want to be a slug.  I’m registered for two pretty solid races in 2014.  One in March and one in June.  Both are important to me, albeit, the June race is more important than the March race so if a sacrifice was going to happen it’s there... still... I don’t want to sacrifice, I just want a solution to get me moving in the right direction.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Regards,

GBA gf

UnBroken Things

My little family isn't broken. It can't be. We have all the parts needed. We have love, memories, togetherness and belief that we are a good thing.

I’m under no illusion that you want to read about my little family trip to MA & PA... but it's something I feel strongly about.

 

This week was hilarious, eventful, relaxing, exhausting, and memorable.

We started with a 10 hour drive from RVA to Marlborough MA with a notebook and a conversation about “what we used to do on long car rides."

So we did it. We played the License Plate Game – we drove through VA, MD, DE, PA, NJ, NY, CT & MA. On that drive we “collected” 37 license plates. Every 5^th state that was written down, the notebook passed to the next child. 

Curiously, there was no fighting between them over who’s turn it was or wasn’t to write.

We have smart phones, or dumb phones... so we had questions that needed answering... like, why is NJ called The Garden State? (< ~ they grow a lot of food in NJ) and why is MD called The Old Line State? (< ~ they held their lines in the Revolutionary War).

Other notes made were that Albany was settled by the Dutch in 1624.

The Statue of Liberty is 305 feet high. 

And there are 72 steps in front of the Art Museum in Philadelphia.

And we got that figured out via phone.

We renamed my navigation system voice to Navigation Nazi, instead of Navi Nancy. She was disastrous. She routed us through NYC, around random small roads through CT, and I was constantly turning her off and restarting her to get an accurate route. 

Arbitrarily she decided at some point to navigate us to Kilburn Circle Philadelphia PA, instead of Kilburn Circle, Henrico VA... which means we suddenly were told, “Do an immediate U-turn. Take 95 N”... pretty sure RVA, the capital of the Confederacy, is South of MD...

Another memory we laughed at. Another #bestdayever.

My little family slept on floors, in corners, piled on top of each other in beds, and loved every minute of it.

They Played Rock Star, and I’m proud to say my son G knows most of the words to Beastie Boys What’chu Want. They swam. They bowled candlepin. They watched Monster’s U. They ate blue icecream and salad greens. 

There was surprisingly very little fighting, despite our sleep deprivation, long hours and cramped quarters.

And one kid or another announced on every day of our trip that it was The #bestdayever.

I rode a borrowed MTB down Kelly Drive and through the city of Philadelphia. I sweated. I loved it. That city knows how to encourage active people. They have made it possible to get around via bike and foot.

And we did get around via our feet.

We walked 900 miles... ok, maybe not, around Philadelphia. 

We waited in lines, saw the liberty bell, took a horse drawn tour, and went to Independence Hall where the declaration of Independence was signed in August of 1776... er.... yeah, close enough to July 4^th...

 

We climbed the “Rocky Steps” and then drove for another 100,000 miles to get home. <~ or 500, whichever sounds better.

and despite being in the car for hours, B'nut declared it was another...

#bestdayever.

Every day I spend with them... playing, driving, walking, sleeping, sharing silly stories for the sake of sharing silly stories... is a best day ever.

My little broken family is not really broken. Because we don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s broken. 

We are unbroken.

And unbroken things are whole.

People are upset about the wrong things

In 2006 the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, Mike Jeffries, made some inflammatory statements about who should be wearing the "exclusive" clothes his company sells. I find this interesting in part because by "exclusive" he meant, "sold in every single mall around the globe".

For whatever reason, these statements have recently hit the news again.

People are upset about this.

Then, Business Insider reported that Abercrombie refuses to make large-sized clothing.

People are really upset about this.

My take on it is that it's Abercrombie's prerogative... If you design the clothes, market, label and sell the clothes, you get to pick the sizes. And, after all, as one blogger pointed out, "if Abercrombie chooses not to make large sizes, this means that 60% of Americans are excluded from shopping in their stores". Simple math:  Eventually they'll have to sell larger clothing or go out of business.

Upon reading that I thought, 60%? What? No way. That seems insane. A quick trip to the CDC website should clear this right up.

My stomach flipped as I read the stats. Sixty percent is just about right. 
That's when I realized:
People are upset about the wrong thing.

According to the CDC, more than one-third of U.S. adults are obese. The official 2010 number is 35.7%. This number encompasses "over the age of 20".

I can see how once an individual reaches adulthood obese, or reaches obesity by the numbers in adulthood that getting the weight off would be a real challenge. I mean, I couldn't shed the weight stuck to me, so I called in some big guns when I saw a Physician, an OB/GYN, and eventually a Dietitian, and I'm only trying to knock back a total of 14.7 pounds. It's 10% of my body weight though.

What would it be like to be trying to lose half my body weight? So I'll give some lee way on this whole statistic. Once obese, hard to repair.

But.

Obesity should be preventible. Right?

Well, in theory, it is.

The statistic that made my stomach clench and a wave of nausea roll over me was also found on the CDC site.  "The percentage of children aged 6–11 years in the United States who were obese increased from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2010. Similarly, the percentage of adolescents aged 12–19 years who were obese increased from 5% to 18% over the same period". CDC

6 year olds? Seriously? I have one of those.
11... I have one of those also.

And, wait, adolescents? Isn't that the Abercrombie market?

In 2003 data was collected on high school students obesity rates. The data is scattered, because they were targeting 'at risk' populations.

By 2011 the data is less scattered. I would guess this is because by now the "at risk" population has been expanded to include more schools.

So, after looking here at this very simplified data I have to wonder, why are people upset that Abercrombie & Fitch is going to go out of business? Why aren't we panicked about the fate of our children? Or our children's peers? It's mind numbing to me.

People are upset about the wrong thing. 

Now, that's not to say people aren't upset about the growing size of Americans. I see things about it all the time.

"The government should DO something!" people shout in outraged articles and blog posts that pepper the Internet.

No.
No people.
Sorry for sharing my opinion if it offends you, but NO!

It's NOT the government's responsibility. I would personally love if the government stepped out of food politics. ALL food politics. The government is already elbow deep in policy that is harmful to the American Food "system". And yes, I found something accessible to back that statement. (an article in a little known publication called The Wall Street Journal).

When people lay the responsibility at The Government's feet, they remove their own accountability. Furthermore, they lose their sense of empowerment to adopt lifestyle changes that will positively affect their health. They blame school lunches instead of their McLifestyle.

I know, I know.

Mind my own business. Raise my children. Feed them as I choose too. Hell, give them cake for breakfast, let them top their own salads. It's my choice. and let people be upset about Abercrombie's business forecast as much as they want. At this point, I think it's pretty obvious though...

People are upset about the wrong thing.