It has been a really strange few weeks. Never in my adult life have I had so much freedom. I'm transitioning to a start-up venture (hopefully soon!) and in the meantime still advising and helping at the farm, but I have a lot of free hours to fill. In April, my focus was getting my house in order. I scheduled an appointment with Vietnam Veterans of America to come pick up donations for the end of the month and started cleaning out every room of the house and tackling my attic. Got rid of a significant amount of stuff, mostly kids' clothing and it felt really great to get rid of some of the clutter in the house.
With my 17 year old going off to college in the fall, it's also been great to spend time with him before he leaves. Mother's Day felt extra special this past weekend. He made me a cake and the other kids made me breakfast in bed. We went for a long bike ride on a gloriously beautiful sunny day and I was pampered with kisses, hugs and hand drawn cards. Being able to be fully present as a Mom has been the best part of being in between jobs.
Given my desire to present for the kids, my run training has been nothing to write home about. I've been puttering along at around 30 miles per week, even though I knew I had this 6 hour race looming in the background. I just couldn't motivate myself to run more than 30 miles a week. To be honest, it has been freeing, because we were able to enjoy traveling out west to Nevada and Arizona over spring break without me worrying about getting in long training runs while on vacation.
Strangely enough, somehow, I was able to pull my body through a 6 hour event this past weekend, even in less than ideal weather conditions. The day started off at 60F, but quickly heated up to close to 80F. My reasoning for signing up for this event was curiosity for a new format of racing. There were people who had been moving for 5 days prior to me arriving at the event. The goal was different for everyone. Some were just walking the entire time for a target number of miles. Others, like me were running until we could and walking when we had to. Others seemed to be there to just get in a long training run of a marathon or 50K. Folks had tents set up so that they could nap when they needed to. The event was run very well, with plenty of ultra type food, but also real food. I was happy that I brought ice and did ice bandanas the entire day because of the heat and very little shade on the 1 mile loop. In the end, my average heart rate stayed below 140 bpm and I was able to eek out almost 26 miles in the 6 hour time period and a total of close to 27 miles with all of the extra mileage to and from my personal aid station at the car and bathroom breaks. I guess it counted as an ultra?
This morning, I was able to get an early run in and my legs didn't feel great, but I could still move at a decent pace. So I guess the big question is, what do I do for training now? With some big family travel coming up, I can't see myself committing to any ultras anytime soon. Overall, I feel pretty good. I've also been climbing a lot and consistently strength-training. I was pleased that my core never broke down during the 6 hour race. I don't want to lose any fitness and I also would love to keep building my aerobic fitness and some speed if possible. Most likely, I will check out Some Work All Play for a training plan that makes sense. Of course, we're about to go into summer and hellish humidity, so I'm sure that will discourage training. I'll have to poke around and see if there's an event closer to the end of the year that I might do. I've also way exceeded my travel budget for the year, so it'll have to be somewhere local.
I'm basically feeling in limbo for every aspect of my life- family, work and training. It's a different kind of stress. It's a feeling of knowing that things might get really hectic soon and so I need to appreciate the free time I have now.
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