Why Did I Run 10 Miles Straight Again?

Been pretty absent on here…when I work at the hospital, I just don’t seem to have time to do anything else. I get home after 7:30, and then it’s dinner and a mad rush to clean up and get small children into bed.

It feels like sometimes, I am reacting to life instead of living it. I read this great post by Early Mama (I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love this site…?) and I just wanted to shout YES! YES! I want that. I want to choose my life instead of just react to it.

Part of that, like I talked about a little bit ago, is choosing deliberate motherhood. Recognizing that motherhood is a job and taking the time to prepare each and every day for it, just like any other job.

Another part, for me, is setting goals and trying to reach them. Like my current goal of getting published in a print magazine. Or this summer, when I finally reached my goal of running the 10-mile race I’ve been attempting for years.

If running that race taught me anything, it’s that what you accomplish in life seriously is about 90% mental. Running for me is a mental thing–and doing that race was all about keeping a positive attitude, believing I could do it, and as the saying goes, just doing it. It was about proving to myself, that really, anything is possible. 

So much of life holds true to just those lessons, but I feel I have lost hold of them a little bit. It seems insane that I was able to run 10 miles straight just two short months ago. I’m feeling sluggish, I can’t even run 2 miles straight on my treadmill anymore, and I am at the heaviest weight I have ever been (non-pregnant, of course). I am frustrated with myself physically, and emotionally, I am struggling, because I want so badly to have a career in writing, and I can’t see a way to make it happen.

I need to recapture  my attitude of the summer, when I believed in myself, when I took action to achieve my goals, when I re-shifted priorities and worked with my family to focus on what was important to me.

When I was able to dig in and run, just a little bit harder at the finish line.