Running + Motherhood = Messy

Running is hard. Running as a mother of 3 kids under 5, well it's just plain stupid.

Having kids, for a long time, was accepting that my life was put on hold. And now suddenly, with 3 of them, I've realized that's total crap. But there's fine line between taking personal space and pursuing my own interests and outright just saying 'see ya later!' and I often have to cross it. But the funny part is, the kids seriously do not care that Mama is tired from her run and just wants to sit down for a minute. Oh no, once I'm back, it's game on. It's like saying, oh you just ran a marathon? Here, do it again, but this one lasts until 8p. 

Running with kids makes pretty much every run less than ideal. There's the pink eye run debacle (because seriously that would only happen to a mother) that I will hold for another time, or like my run last weekend...

I hadn't run anything substantial in 2 weeks because my work day runs are short for obvious reasons, and my husband had been working through the 2 weekends before that, so running was rendered impossible with 3 booger factories staring at me all weekend (and by staring I mean running, screaming, gardening, fighting, you name it). So here I was faced with an 11 mile run, which I totally did not want to do. Naturally all 3 kids woke up with the grace of lions and their screams could only be cured by pancakes. No, not a nice, easy bowl of cereal, pancakes, that Mama makes, from scratch. So I pancaked, I nursed, I drank my coffee, and then I realized it was almost 9a. Crap. At this point, it was already 80 degrees and felt like the sun was a fireball moving rapidly towards the earth, but I had to go. As I walked out the door with death rays in front of me and 2 arguing kids and one tired and crying baby behind me, I gave my husband a kiss and said, see ya later! And the first thing I did as I stepped out my front gate was twist my ankle on a step. After hobbling back in and taking my shoe off to make sure it wasn't swelling, I was finally off. On the recommendation of a friend (whose opinion is no longer welcome), I ran the arroyo river trail to get to the Rosebowl. Sure the scenery and temperature were amazing, but the dodging rocks, horse poop, death traps and lose mastiff, were not. I did make it there, to start my 6 miles in the by now absolutely blistering heat. And since I was at the Rosebowl, and since Kidspace is right there, wouldn't you know the kids just HAD to go! (This seemed like a REALLY good idea before I started running) I met up with Bear and the kids, and they were naturally overjoyed to see me, so much so that they raced off so I had to chase them. And Tre was just looking for the closest boob to latch onto. Once in Kidspace, there was running and screaming and jumping and chaos, and it was really just too much of me to ask to sit and drink the water my amazing husband brought for me. So, with my calves on permaflex, off we went. I realized at one point during an attempt to rest, that it actually hurt more to stop moving...sweet. 

But then there are the very rare days and runs that are like magic. The kids were in a good mood this morning, the weather was a cool 60 and overcast, I was wearing the awesome new water pack the family got me for Mother's Day and running felt great. But since a mother's run never ends, I finished my run at the girls' ballet class, and will be continuing this run until bedtime.

And I haven't even mentioned that running as a mother of a baby means doing this after getting little to no sleep. But, I ran over 12 miles today. I did it. And I know my girls were proud, because they asked me about my run and even said they want to run with me sometime. Doesn't really get any better than that.