Can't now, gotta run

Week 13: Tired, bored, and a bit burned out. Excited for 46 days to go, hopeful for a PR, and ready to sleep in on a weekend.

It's here. The late training slump. The race is too far away to dream of the taper period - lots of miles to go yet and the mind games have set in. What's really messing with my mind is the time. Time is so precious. We can't earn more, like money, can't hoard it as we do our possessions, and once it's gone, it's gone. And for everything that training has given me, what it has taken is my time.

Looking back on this summer, I see Friday evening bbqs, bonfires and happy hours turned down, because I was getting up before 5:00 am on Saturday to run. We did not join our dock mates on any Saturday beach days because I couldn't drag myself down to the dock in time to go. I needed time to recover, rest, and get myself together before I could go to the beach. Seriously - my long runs were leaving me too burned out to go to the beach.

Need more of this, please

In reality, my life has turned into chaos and the only thing that is getting done is running. The laundry has become Mt. Washmore and only gets climbed when I can't find socks or underwear. Consequently, there are piles of clean running clothes on the couches and chairs and dirty running clothes in the baskets and bathroom. I try to sneak a top for work into my gym clothes occasionally.

Mike cleans the kitchen when I drag myself to the stove to cook. It's usually far too late to cook - either because I ran after work and I'm starting to make dinner at 7:30 pm or I went to the store and am getting a late start having woken up at 5:00 am to run before work. I'm trying desperately to make use of the produce from our Farmer's Market CSA, but I have lost my will to chop and make new things. There are 3 dozen eggs waiting to be used. So feeling exhausted, I'll boil some noodles, heat sauce and make spaghetti. It doesn't fix anything: there's still produce languishing in the fridge, more dirty dishes, and I'm not full cause I didn't make a "real" meal.

Laundry and cooking/dishes are really the only essentials being touched upon. I've basically let everything else go for the last 3 months, accumulating piles here and there of shoes, mail, just random stuff. My bangs are in my eyes and don't look at my brows - I need to get to the salon and haven't managed an appointment in a month since I noticed this. Hurricane Jamie has hit land. Send in the relief team.

What I don't get is how the rest of you do it. The moms and dads with school aged (or younger) kids. The people with multiple jobs. Heck, those of you who train more than I do! I'm only working out about 5 days a week, max, with at least 2 of those days being less than 90 minutes. The fact that I can't get my house together, get to the grocery store, make decent meals, find time to eat them, fold and put away my clothes and sleep 8 hours a night is tough. I feel like I should have more time in the day. However, once I sit down, I'm done. I can only watch the Netflix with Mike and Crooks and crawl into bed as soon as it gets dark.

FOMO (Fear of missing out). It's real, guys. Mike and I are doing our training, but I feel like I'm just treading water the rest of the time when I should be enjoying my summer. Or past tense... should have enjoyed my summer. I'm glad October 25th is coming soon. I'm excited that I have some fun things scheduled like Irish Festival and MSU football games. I'm nervous that adding any extra activity, even something fun, will be enough to push me over the edge... but I'm hanging in there.

I'm taking the night off from running and will be prepping meals for the rest of the week (goal: use 1 dozen eggs), folding at least one basket of clothes and going to bed by 10 pm. Baby steps.