Scary Mom

I just finished a very hilarious book for any mom entitled, 'Confessions of a Scary Mom' by mother of three, Jill Smokler.  She started out writing a blog about her kids and the realities of being a mom, and she soon had a major following of other mom's just like her; real, honest, funny, raw.  She decided to start a new blog that would allow mom's to annonmously confess things and the results were funny, sad, and very real.  The book itself is an easy fun read where each chapter begins with some confessions she has recieved, followed by her own stories of motherhood on a particular subject. 

Anything goes in this book, from confessing your laziness as a mom, to the poor diet you default to when your kids are being a pain.  She tells it like it is and it's very refreshing.  The first chapter had me giggling so much I had to read it when I was alone to keep Greg from saying, 'what? what's so funny?'. 

I think one of the reasons I like this book is that it takes the pressure off of us to look like we have it all together and we know what we're doing.  The confessions she gets are similar to what I feel anyone I know would write, but in a world like ours with Pinterest and DIY cute things everywhere it's hard not to feel pressure to be SuperMom. One mom confesses her kids haven't had a veggie in 3 years, while another confesses her kids have had grilled cheese for lunch everyday for weeks.  I feel oddly refreshed by that and it makes me feel better about my own parenting skills. 

It's a great fun little read, but I would warn against some language in the book and her chapter on "Husbands, the biggest baby of them all" is a little feminist and demeaning to men.  I get what she's saying about men being sick and wives taking care of them like we care for our kids, but she does write like she's the superior being in that home.  Funny but not to be taken too seriously for me, thanks. 

So if you feel like an ego boost on your parenting skills, or a nice down-to-earth look at what's really going on in other people's lives, then check out this book or her blog. 

Still going...

Today I'm going running for the first time since my race.  I feel a little crazy for electing to do physical exercise when I could just sit here and eat chips, but I know I'll feel good after I do it, and I'm kind of looking forward to getting out there and just enjoying it, instead of worrying about my pace or time.  I have some new good tunes to listen to and I'm going to re-visit my old 5K stomping ground that I'm oh so familiar with.

Since the race, my mind's been on many other things...which we will discuss at a later date.  But I've been reflecting back on it and finding that so many areas of my life are like a metaphorical marathon.  Namely, my spiritual walk.  I, like many others, have miles where I sail along with little effort, feeling good, reading the word and staying strong.  Then there are miles where every step takes all your energy and effort, and you feel like a thousand pounds of dead weight dragging along the ground.  Opening your Bible is like pulling a tooth out and praying feels like a chore.  Those miles count the most.  Learning to push through and get past those hard miles will make your next hard mile go faster and easier.

Sometimes during my training, I would get outside and start running only to find that every fiber of my body wanted to STOP.  I was dying to walk, dying to just go home and sit down...but I would tell myself, "if this were race day I would have to push through these feelings, so keep on going".  And most of the time those runs got easier after a few horrible miles, but sometimes they didn't and I just got home and tried to recover from a horrible run.  But the point was, finishing those hard times made the next hard time easier.  The next time I felt horrible I knew I could push through because I had done it before.  When my spiritual life feels dry and heavy, forcing myself to push through and be uncomfortable is rewarding and I seem to find the hard times fewer and far between.

A marathon also has miles full of distractions much like a spiritual walk, and sometimes the most dangerous distractions are the positive ones.  When Disney set up the race course to have bands and cheerleaders along the route, I'm sure they just wanted to encourage and spur people on.  However if you're not careful, you can really waste a lot of your precious energy giving away high-fives willy nilly, and yelling 'way to go' and 'thanks for volunteering' to all the water station workers.  If you stop to admire all the support, you could be too tired to finish or too slow to complete the race in time.  I saw people standing in a 12 person deep line in the middle of the race, just to get a picture with Ariel.  WHAT? Although the standing and not-running part looked tempting, I would never waste any time doing that...precious time.  Why draw the race out any longer than it needs to be.  And in my spiritual life, I can also be easily distracted by cool Theology books, or self-help books, or being a Mommy books until I realize it's been a while since I read THE book.  Distraction meant to be encouraging but ending up hurting in the end.  Beware.

Then later, when you get to the last few miles and you're adrenaline finally kicks in and you feel you have a somewhat supernatural energy source you can tap into you're somehow able to finish what you once thought to be an impossible task.  Only in a spritual sense, the adrenaline to tap into is really the Holy Spirit who is always so great to keep us going and encouraged when we hit mile 13 and feel depleated.  He is our supernatural energy source.  He allows me to clean the house and have people over for the 100th time this week.  He keeps my patients supplied when my kids are nuts and crying and throwing things.  He knows when my human supply of joy or love for others is almost depleated and he always manages to come to the rescue with a fresh supply that could only be from Him.

So although I promised not to mention my marathon again, I'm amazed at how it has paralleled my life in other areas and wanted to share that.  So although I'm finished my race, I want to keep on running...both physically and spiritually. 

I DID IT!

 I'm alive! That's really the best news of all, considering the amount of times I thought I might die.  Not only was Cali hot but our Disneyland-park-filled days really got me tired and the race was on our last morning there...at 4am. 

 We made a few pre-race errors that could have been avoided; we stayed up until 10pm the night before enjoying every last ride and slushy drink we could soak in, and for dinner we shared a burger.  Not enough carbs and not enough food.  The night was really short and our alarms went off at 4am.  We had a quick shower to wake ourselves up and geared up.  We quickly downed some OJ, a boiled egg, and a cliff bar and took off for the race.  We got to our corral (start group) at 5am and stood around waiting.  There was music and DJ's and lots of stimulating pre-race pep, but I was still too tired to care.  We sat on the dark cold pavement and waited for our start time.  The only interesting pre-race thing was seeing Sean Astin there and being slightly excited to race Samwise Gamgee.  So once 6:14am came and it was our turn to cross the start line I was cold and tired but my adrenaline quickly kicked in.  Within minutes it was light out and I was swept away in a sea or people flowing down the road almost effortlessly like a fish in a current...until Greg said he had to use the bathroom.

So we hit mile 2 and saw a line-up for the port-a-potty and spent about 10 minutes wasted waiting to pee.  But better to pee than slosh around a full bladder for the next 2 hours.  Once we peed we thought we better step up the pace to keep our time down.  So we took off running hard and ran miles 2-7 or 8 pretty well.

Around mile 8 my electrolyte gummy felt gross in my stomach and we were walking more than running (although our walk was fast enough to pass some 'runners').  So yet another mistake I knew not to do had failed me.  I must have read a million times not to take or wear anything you hadn't tried before but alas, I thought myself invinsible.  But we pushed on past countless princesses, marching bands, hot rod cars, cheer squads and Disney characters until we saw the beautiful mile 13 sign.  I knew the finish line was around the corner and I couldn't wait to be done so we booked it to the end and never have I seen anything so beautiful as that finish line.

I must have told Greg a few times during the race that I would never do this again, but finishing was so much more rewarding than I thought it would be.  Knowing that I worked so hard since January, I had a baby only 9 months ago, I couldn't run 0.2 miles when I started and here I was...running 13.1 miles and proving to myself that I really can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!  It was awesome.

The race itself wasn't exactly what I expected in a few regards but now that I've tasted racing, I kind of liked it.  When you run by yourself you can focus on your pace, your heart rate, your thoughts and your music.  You can listen to your body and push yourself.  But in a race you're so distracted and over-stimulated that your pace is almost impossible to keep (especially navigating around 17,000 people), your body isn't telling you anything because of the adrenaline and your focus all over the place.  My mind was constantly like, "where's Greg, oh there he is, that's a fun running skirt, who would run in those shoes, what kind of water belt is that...it's cool, where is mile 6? what mile are we on? I need a water station...etc.".  It was like runner's A.D.D.

But now it's over.  I'm done and I'm so glad I did it.  Without the pressure of this huge race I never would have pushed myself to be a runner.  I never would have lost 27 pounds and I never would have thought I was even capable of being much of an athlete at all.  But now I feel like I could take on exercise with confidence and continue my quest for a healthy weight and body with assuredness.  I'm more confident in what I'm capable of and excited to see what's next for me. 

And what's next for me is a big question on my mind now.  Why work so hard to be able to run without dying only to quit.  I want to avoid the post-marathon plunge into binge eating and non-exercise.  I feel both free from training obligations but also lost in an empty calendar that has no work-outs on it.  I don't know what to do next.  Sign up for another race? Do some 10k's?  Try a new sport?  We shall see, but for now I'll just enjoy walking around the house with this big medal around my neck!