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| I swear those plates are glued on! |
Thank you all for your calming words of wisdom yesterday regarding the back-to-school onslaught of time demands. I think what wigged me out the most was the prospect of dropping the ball and forgetting something or someone somewhere and getting that dreaded phone call.
I spent lots of time yesterday organizing the reams of information collected at the multitude of meetings, putting together a master calendar and formulating goals and a plan for the month, the week, the day:
What’s Important?
I sat down with all of the requests in front of me and eliminated those that were not aligned with my priorities.
Do I need to plan a staff appreciation dinner or scoop ice cream at the upcoming social? Nope and nope.
Just Say No
I will not chair any events or take on any large projects during marathon season.
If you can’t say no, negotiate
Honestly I’d like to help out at Thing 1’s class parties. But I can’t be in two places at one time. So I agreed to help at one of them instead of the requested three and arranged for coverage for Thing 2 that day.
Set Boundaries
I ran pre-dawn all summer to avoid the heat and also the distractions that inevitably creep in. I thought it would be so luxurious to be able to run in the daylight hours on the 2 days/week both kids are in school all day. I didn’t anticipate the incessant phone ringing (or the lingering heat either). For now, it’ll be tough because it’s really dark and I need to be done by 6:30, but I’m going to keep the pre-dawn running schedule and not answer the phone ever until my workout is complete.
Adjust Expectations
Let’s face it, my training this cycle has been marginal. Theoretically I have just two weeks until I taper. My longest run this cycle was 18 miles. My only 20-miler thus far was in the pool. My hip is feeling better but the longest I’ve run since the injury is 10 miles. For me the marathon is way too serious of a distance to attempt on half-assed training. I’m going to try to sneak in a 20-miler this weekend. If that goes well, I’ll switch to a 2-week taper and squeeze one more 20 in. If not, I’ll seriously consider running the half instead of the full in Twin Cities and shoot for the full in Philly.
Now, because it’s Fitness Friday, I wanted to share with a link to some of the hip exercises I’ve been doing for the ornery one. The MYRTL routine was recommended to me by Leah at Chasing Atalanta–if you don’t know Leah and are inspired by super-fast runners as I am, you NEED to pay her a visit. You start with just five reps on each side for each exercise. Sounds easy but I assure you, you’ll feel it!
