Hills, Speedwork & 2-a-days

Like most parents my life revolves around my children's activities...my running included. During the school year I still only run on my days off work, but the majority of those runs occur while they are at school. For my rare weekends off I tend to save shorter runs.

I spent all of my spring on the trails. After the ultra, school was over so it has proven impossible for trail buddy to get out during the week so I have been back on the road. It's not a bad place to be. After all, I do have a fall marathon to train for...but the transition has been more difficult than I imagined. Back on the road I am less carefree, less fun. It's not that I dont enjoy the road...I still love to get out there and run, but my mind has transitioned from time on my feet training with no numerical goals to hill repeats, Speedwork, hitting my splits, etc etc. I certainly get satisfaction from meeting those training goals and working hard, but I have come to mostly look forward to my 2-a-day workouts.

They happened by accident. Sheer luck. My sons' XC coach assigns his runners summer workout programs, but also hosts 2 group runs a week. These happily have involved the local running clubs' summer XC trail series on Wednesday nights & another night at another local trail. In order to motivate myself to do the hills and Speedwork, I schedule them as my morning workout on group run days, then reward myself with a safe trail run in the evening. I figure, I have to drive a herd of teenagers to these locations anyway, I might as well run too. I have become 'that mum that always runs too'...the kids even occasionally acknowledge me as they blow past me on the trail.

Tonight, my kids & their friends ditched the XC series because it was too hilly and decided to meet at the park for a group run. At first I was bummed, but then I realized that any run is a good run & I could run the dike and still get 5k in. Then, I still had time to blog, read my book & enjoy this beautiful evening....

Happy running!