People who can juggle kids, jobs and running with calculated efficiency, always amaze me. Those folks who can get up at 5 a.m. in order to get a run in at 6 so they can be finished in time to get the kids out the door by 8 are Supermen and women.
(right: The Breakfast of Champions.)
Even better, some of them even add a second run at the end of the day or during a lunch break. It really is very amazing.
I can’t do it. Even when I didn’t have a real job, a mortgage, bills, kid, etc., I was never one who got up early. Before I actually began writing about baseball and sports I kept “baseball hours.” That means if I get to bed before 2 a.m. I must be sick or really tired or something.
Because of this schedule and lifestyle, racing is often difficult since they are usually held early in the morning. In order to race, I have to make a real commitment to a particular event and then make sure I’m in bed or horizontal very, very early – for me. Nevertheless, the day before a marathon I make sure I’m finished walking for the day at 5 p.m. and in bed at 8.
The rest is just that important. I never realized that until I went to race a couple of months ago and just couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t able to get loose or run the way I had been in workouts. When I expressed this to my wife she smartly told me why I was slow on that particular day.
“You got up in the middle of the night to run. You’re usually asleep at the time the race started so you intentionally got yourself up in the middle of your natural sleep time to run. You were tired.”
She’s very smart.
Fortunately, I have the luxury working out when I am well rested. My wife is to thank for that. While I keep my baseball hours, she keeps her schoolteacher hours. That means she is up by 6 a.m. even on days when she can sleep in. But she’s always been that way, I’m told. So while she tends to our son and gets him ready for school, I ease into the morning. I can get all the sleep I need, wash up, get my coffee, do a few hours of work and then start my workout. Afterwards, I pick up the boy and we wait for her to get home.
It definitely works out well for me.
But today’s schedule had a bit of a monkey wrench throw into it. There was no school for the boy, which meant an extra-early wake up call for me. Usually this means I have to start my run when my wife gets home around 4 p.m., but with an ART appointment as well as the threat of 24-hours of downpour looming, I was left scrambling for a mid-day sitter, which isn’t exactly the easiest thing to find in the world.
But my mom came to the rescue by taking an extended lunch break. I guess 30-plus years of service at her job has its benefits… for me, too.
Thanks to my mom I was able to squeeze in a quick 13-miler, which I completed in 1:27:10. That’s not so bad when the fact that I did it on five hours sleep a days after doubling up for 21.5 miles. It took some extra effort to keep the pace in the early going, and loosening up wasn’t fun, but it’s definitely one I’ll take.
I just wish I could have gone longer. This is “Blast Week” after all. Perhaps if the rain holds off until the boy goes to bed and I’m not too tired after the ART, I’ll double-up again.
Stats: 13 miles in 1:27:10. The first nine went in 60:01. Not bad for a sleep-deprived dad.
On another note, my boy Michael and I had a lovely breakfast at Starbucks this morning. He had one of their apple streusels and organic chocolate milk and I had a venti Colombian with a Clif Bar. He enjoyed the overstuffed chairs and the broad windows. I enjoyed the company. If mornings like that is the reason to put off workouts, I’ll have no qualms about becoming a slouch.
A tremendous slouch.
Running nugget
Runnersworld.com reported that Lance Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France champion, would get some help in his marathon debut on Nov. 5 in New York City.
According to the brief, Armstrong’s sponsor Nike is putting together a pace team that could include 1984 Olympic gold medal marathoner Joan Benoit Samuelson, three-time New York City Marathon winner Alberto Salazar, and 2004 Olympic 1500 and 5000-meter gold medalist Hicham El Guerrouj.
So a guy hoping to run 2:45 or so gets a team of rabbits? Wow. If Nike wants to send someone to Harrisburg on Nov. 12 to help me snap 2:40, I’m ready.