Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Mother's Day recap and fall race thoughts

My beautiful baby
Mother's Day was fantastic -

First I woke up with my four year old, Ben nestled by my side. Every day he wakes up with the same words, "Mama, no school."  I don't know why he requests "no school" he loves school but this is what he says first thing every morning.

Mother's Day was no different, his eyes popped open at too early of a time and I heard the usual, "Mama, no school." But then, there was a pause and a gasp. "Today is Mama's Day…. Happy Mama's Day!"

It was unexpected music to my ears. Ben has special needs. He was just diagnosed on "the spectrum." His speech is delayed, blurting out and remembering something like that (unprompted!) is super SPECIAL. My husband later told me that he had this conversation with Ben several times leading up to Sunday. He remembered! I couldn't believe it. I could live that moment fifty times a day and it wouldn't get old. Best gift ever. Will never forget those words. Yes. something so simple for so many other toddlers his age is that big of a deal. 

His other gifts were pretty great too. A homemade "mom" necklace, a homemade card, and Dad's help of a few iTune gift cards and a Kindle Touch.

let's get reading!

It was a great day. Even got 2 miles in before heading to PA to spend the day with a few other great moms: (my twin sister and my mom).

----------------------------------------------------------

Last year's bling from the half
And in other news...

I'm thinking of signing up for a full marathon in October - The Atlantic City one. I did the half last year. I know this is lame to even say out loud but I like the idea of signing up for the full with the 'safety net' of being able to run the half if training doesn't go as planned. I know, I know. I talk a great game about "setting goals" and "no excuses" but here is the truth. I like the idea of signing up for a full because it will force me to get some longer runs in again and stop the wimping out at 2-3 mile runs. At very least I'll be getting more 6-8 mile runs in again and that'll make me better at running 5k's, 10k's and halfs. I need something bigger on the schedule to get me to put in those longer miles consistently because I have figured out how to fart around and still accomplish the half now. 

I know that part of my cramping issues on my last two halfs was probably potassium / hydration related but part was probably thanks to too many 2 -3 -4 mile runs and not enough longer ones.

But when it comes to 100% going for a full, truth be told, with a part-time job that sometime resembles a full-time job, a documentary in pre-productions, a few other media projects in the pipeline looking close to going, juggling my son,  bs, bs -- getting some of those long, long runs may or may not happen. I am still a slower long distance runner. I can find an hour or an hour and a half to run if I need to in a day but when it comes to finding 3 -5 hours for those long runs - that's where it gets tricky - especially now that I'm competing with my darling husband to get out the door to run! Plus when I run for more than 2 hours, in addition to those 2 hours out there, I'm pretty useless for the rest of the day.

I don't know.

But I know one way to NOT run another marathon is to not sign up at all. So we'll see. I'm still mulling it over.

Have you ever signed up for a full and dropped down?
Do you ever struggle to find balance when you're in full training mode?
How was your Mother's Day?

XO

Jen

PS: Exciting stuff!! OUR first piece of press on the documentary! http://relayguide.com/









9 comments:

Frickin' Fabulous at 40 said...

Mother's Day was great. Very fortunate to spend it with my mom.

On the marathon topic...I fell like I should have a marathon under my belt before the relay! I have the half on 10/7. When the hell would I squeeze a full in there? And "If you believe it, you can achieve it!" (Cue Jen rolling her eyes...)

Sara said...

Happy (belated) Mother's Day, my friend!! He is a cutie! :)

Laura said...

Happy Mother's Day!

I have heard not-so-good things about the Atlantic City full marathon, though haven't actually run it myself. On the plus side, a lot of full marathons have half marathons as well, so that's not hard to find!

Unknown said...

Thanks Linda and Sara!

Oh really Laura? Hmmm. I thought the half was OK (definitely not as nice as Jersey Shore but fine) - Hmmm. Will have to take that into consideration for sure.

Sorry I missed you at the Jersey Shore race by the way!

BabyWeightMyFatAss said...

Oh your mama's day sounds wonderful!!!

Unknown said...

I'll do the half with you and Marty but I know I can't be ready for a full.

Lealah said...

I've decided to sign up for my first full in November, and I am at the exact same point as you. I'm excited to have something to train for and to have an excuse for the longer distances, but finding the time to do it is the problem. Being able to juggle is what makes us super women, though! You can do it!

TCruz said...

Happy Mother's Day! I'm so glad I found your blog. I'm just getting started running and I'm hoping to have similar success as you.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.