What have I been doing?!?!

Time goes so slowly and then it is in fast forward.  I try my best to keep the pace and stay focused on our family goals, personal goals, and maintain some level of normalcy with my exercise and healthy choices.  Life just gets too busy.  I am and was an advocate for all things healthy and then I find myself eating cookies when I am bored and not waking up to get my run in for the day.  I became extremely tired, exhausted, overwhelmed and flat out spent.  I went from working 11 hours a week at a part time job to keeping that going and picking up another that was demanding more of my time.  I was doing all of this and imagining everything would just stay as it always was.

I stopped making the time and instead finding all of the excuses.  Peanut butter and jelly on white with a glass of milk was becoming more of my norm as I rushed out the door to get my people where they needed to be or get myself to said new job to get some hours in at the shop.  I was loosing all focus and not caring that my "me time" was not happening.  

So many exciting things happened in the last few months, Ben, my hubby, completed his first and probably only 100 mile race.  I ran/walked for 21 of those miles with him.  There were tears and silence and life goal discussions had, and he finished 8th out of 63 finishers and led for the first 50 miles.  It was amazing!!!  I headed to Chicago for my 7th Ragnar relay and had a great time with amazing women as always.  This one definitely made up for the heat and hills that Kentucky brought us in September and we are all looking at upcoming dates for our next adventure.  I ran just over 20 miles for this one and felt pretty good considering my weekly mileage was no where near it should had been for training.

runner girls always there

I stopped riding my bike and doing my monthly fitness challenges.  I had so many plates in the air spinning I had to take them down before things really started to break.  The end of the school year came in early June and there were so many things to do with the kids I wasn't sure I was going to make it.  As always, we seem to preserver and come out on the other side with a smile on our face.  The smile, though not always real, was present as we continued to overwhelm ourselves with the list of things that had to get done.  With this my list of things I wanted to focus on for me started to disappear.  This person that I tried and worked so hard to be was quietly walking away.  I could see it happening, I left my job at the running store for more responsibility and more time with my family when school starts up in the fall.  My running friends were there for me asking me to join them, taking slow runs just to encourage me to get out the door.  I was starting to feel like a full on failure and a phony.  I was falling into my own black hole.

Things are better than they were a month or so ago.  I feel less overwhelmed, anxiety over my out of controlness has decreased, and there seems to be a bit of order developing in our chaos.  I am taking all of this as a lesson.  A very hard lesson to admit to myself.  It kills me how I ran a marathon with a Boston qualifying time just over a year ago and now I can barely get out the door to run three times a week.  I had hopes of completing a full IronMan this year...not in the cards.  I need to get my head back into this game and then the body will follow.  

supportive hubby

Did I mention how it is so hard with partner in all of this just does his thing after kicking butt in his goal race for the year and maintains all aspects of order.  One would hope that would encourage but on many days it did the complete opposite.  I felt like he was taking pity runs with me but I had to get that out of my head and let him help me find my way again.  That is what this whole life thing is about...not the big huge lofty goal that you think is number one, but all the smaller learning steps along the way.  The true people that come out of everywhere to check in on you when they see something isn't right and you just aren't you.

People are always asking...so what are you doing next.  Well...I am taking baby steps to get myself back into my fitness routine.  I am carving time out for my family and figuring how to go back to be a working mom.  I am taking responsibility for my actions and my non actions and re-righting the ship.  I am accepting that none of this is going to happen overnight.  I am accepting that I need help and encouragement when I probably don't really want it.  I am accepting that things that were once easy are really damn hard.  I am accepting that who I was before does not lessen who I am now.  I am accepting that change can happen and will happen when you let it happen.  

My mom keeps asking if I am okay.  I always answer her with yes, just exhausted.  I would dare to wager that most of you reading this are okay but exhausted.  I don't know how to slow the spinning plates without them breaking, I don't know how to not over commit ourselves to things for ourselves and our families.  I am okay, I will work through this and I will be stronger for it.  I know that my journey is similar in many ways to yours and we all find a way of getting there.  Thank you all for being the supportive group of people that you are, knowing when to check in, encourage and most importantly...continue to inspire.

Embrace the suck...choose you...re-right the ship.