Running Down a Dream

It’s probably been almost a month since the last time I ran. My lack of motivation has been part laziness and part health. I know it takes time to build up endurance but I get discouraged when I can only run a mile and start having chest pains and get light headed. Not to mention, I’m just always tired. No matter what time I wake up I cannot get myself out of bed. I’ve even started setting my alarm for 10 minutes earlier just so I can lie in bed before forcing myself out.

I do plan on running again. I swear. But for some reason I always have an excuse—my knee is acting up, I have a migraine, I’ll run tonight when the temperature starts going down, I’ll go in the morning before it gets too hot…

My goal is to run a 5K. I know it’s not much to some, but it’s big for me since I’ve basically been in a nonphysical mode for the past 7 years. As a teenager I played soccer and ran a ton. That put a lot of strain on my knees resulting in a few surgeries to remove and smooth out the torn cartilage. At 28 I had so little cartilage left in my in knee that the bones were rubbing together. I had undergone a meniscus transplant to replace the cartilage that had been previously removed. This resulted in 3 months of no bending my knee, 6 months of no physical activity at all and a year of only light activity that would not chance any injury to my knee. After that I was too afraid of any future injuries and became a total couch potato. Fast forward to now and anyone can see why it’s been difficult for me to get motivated.

I am fully aware that my goal of a 5K this year may not happen and it is my own fault. I have plenty of excuses lined up, the best one being that I’ll be on vacation for 2 weeks. Thankfully my vacation will consist of a lot of walking!

Until next time…

Time After Time

Time is the one thing that everyone has yet no one has. We all have the same amount of hours in a day, but for some reason some people are always wishing for more. It seems to me that if those people had more, they still wouldn’t have enough. Unfortunately, I think I am one of those people.

Summer is usually looked upon as a time to slow down, relax, and maybe hang out by a pool with the kids. I know I was looking forward to a slower lifestyle this summer. I shouldn’t make it sound like I was as busy as during the school year. Really we only had soccer games to go to during the week, sometimes there were a few other things thrown in like appointments or visits to Grandma’s. With only a month left before the start of the new school year, hockey season, dance season, etc. why do I not feel relaxed, refreshed and ready to go? Perhaps it’s because I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my kids in the morning. Hubby & I both leave for work before 7am. That leaves us with the problem of who will watch the smallish kids and put them on the bus in the morning.

I have been stressing over this all summer. I could drop them off at Gram & Gramp’s before 7am and have Gramp drive them back home to catch the bus. But that scares me, Gramp’s driving isn’t all that…safe. I could ask to start work later to stay home with them in the morning, but I have school myself. If I started work later, then the days that I go back and forth to class I would end up working until 8pm. That would not only be a long day for me but then the hubby would have to deal with all of the chauffeuring back and forth to any extracurricular activities the kids have. There’s no way that hubby’s hours can be adjusted, unions won’t go for that.

Recently I’ve been contemplating putting school on the back-burner and shutting the gas off. If I don’t have to worry about the half hour drive back and forth from work on top of the hour and half long class, then starting work later wouldn’t be such a problem I could start work by 9 and still be home by 5:30. My main could remain on the kids (as it should be) instead of what assignments are due and when. I could potentially be in a better mood since I won’t need to work on those assignments later at night and could go to sleep at a decent hour. On the other hand, that will mean that all of my time that I spent on school instead of my family for the last few years will all be for naught. Those hours will all have been wasted. I hate wasting anything, especially precious time.

Until next time.