Reasons vs. Excuses

I've thought a lot about the motivations behind doing or not doing something. I put those motivations into two buckets: Reason and Excuse. This kind of thinking is beneficial for me, especially during those times when I'm not sure what to do.  This mainly applies to working out and sometimes, parenting.
Reason: something beyond your control that prevents you from doing what you want.
Excuse: something that you've convinced yourself is beyond your control and therefore preventing you from doing what you want. These are lies we tell ourselves in order to validate a decision that we know isn't right. 



-Training has been pretty uneventful, which is good. 
-Running with friends is a new thing for me and I love it!
-Monday night speed sessions are paying off- I feel the speed coming back!
-I'm dealing with a lot of tightness in my shoulders which is most likely a direct result of getting out of my yoga routine. No bueno. 

Upcoming races:
Irish 10k
Bentonville Half
Square to Square Marathon

The 5 Things You Need To Know About The 10 Things I Learned From The 7 Most Common Mistakes About The Top 5 Parents In The 12 Best Places to Live Before You Die

Oh. Were you actually expecting some sort of essay here? Or advice? You were?! Then do yourself a favor and quit reading blogs, Facebook, and the Huffington Post.
You're welcome.

Back on the blogging bandwagon!

My last update was about 8 months ago. A few things have happened since then. 


My last run before the baby was the Cancer Challenge 5k in June. The goal to keep preggo-running until this race and then turn my attention to yoga for the last 3 months of baby-baking. It's funny to see what a difference a year makes......
2013 race- 23:41 7:38/mile. I ran by myself, for myself.
2014 race- 32:26 10:28/mile. I ran 6 months pregnant pushing 2 kiddos in a stroller. It was epic. 



Then I did a lot of yoga and a lot of walking to work. 

Then I birthed a child on Sept 10, 2014. Her name is Mara and her sisters adore her. Mara's name is a nod to the stage of life the husband and I are in right now. We've been doing a lot of running and marathoning. So we took inspiration from the word "marathon" and decided Mara would be an appropriately awesome name. 

I'm back on the running wagon now and (mostly) loving it! I get questions about starting running again after baby #3 and how it's going. I have two answers:

1. Being in pretty good shape when we got preggo and staying active throughout made a huge difference. It was pretty easy to go out and run 3 miles my first time out, which was about 7 weeks after Mara showed up.

2. On the flip side of #1, I had worked really hard for quite a while to get my body to where I wanted it to be physically. Nine months of baby-cooking pretty much throws all of that out the window. I'm left with a more difficult mental battle than I was prepared for. Toning and tightening takes a long time to accomplish and I need to be patient with it. I have remind myself of that everyday.

I signed up for the Bentonville Half Marathon training program and I love it! It's great to have something to work for and an accountability aspect since you meet every week.  And man, those folks at Rush Running and all the volunteers they've recruited to show up every Saturday are just unreal. Such supportive, amazing, inspiring, and awesome runners. Even though they may not know who I am, I love them. You know what else is great? Having a spouse whose motivation for you to do well is (almost) greater than your own motivation. I love that he willingly and happily takes all three girls and kicks my butt out the door for a run, or yoga, or barre. He is also supportive, amazing, inspiring, and awesome. And cute.