Falling off the wagon

I've been athletic for a very long time, although you might not think that to look at me. In third grade I started taking ballet lessons and by the time I was in junior high I was taking classes 6 days a week. In high school it became very apparent that I was too tall and too big (and too fond of eating!) to be a ballerina so I started rowing. I rowed, in one fashion or another, through three years of high school, four years of college and five years of graduate school. To say that daily exercise and competition were important parts of my life is something of an understatement.

Then I moved to the desert and rowing was pretty much out of the question. Ironman was big into cycling, so I took that up. And then decided that instead of just doing one new sport badly, why not do three? And so I became a triathlete. And I discovered that it's a lot harder to motivate to get out and train when you are all by yourself. But I had people to ride with and people to swim with. I was never really interested in running with anyone because I am really slow. Really, really slow. And I hate feeling like I'm holding everyone else up. So I ran by myself and slowly and surely improved.

Fast forward a few years to Houston: initially, lots of training, new group of folks to train with, new routes, etc. But then came Devil. And I found out that it's a lot harder to train consistently when you're Mama and when the alarm goes off in the morning and you've been up every two hours feeding a baby all night, a run is just not going to happen very often. Ditto a bike ride or a swim. I did get some training in and I did do a few races, but the commitment wasn't there.

Then came Boo. And if I thought training with one kid was harder, try to do it with two was even worse. While I was on maternity leave it was OK, since I could throw Boo in the stroller and go for a run during the day. But once I went back to work, things kind of went belly up again. I did one sprint tri earlier this summer, but then did not get back on my bike until two weeks ago. That's two and a half months (!) without riding. And I'm pretty sure that I would have continued on that trend were it not for the fact that several rowing buddies from grad school are coming to town to do a race with me in October. The honest truth is if I workout every day I just feel so much better.

Now here's where the tough part comes in: in order to guarantee that I get some exercise, it has to happen first thing in the morning. Like 5 am first thing in the morning. And I'm the kind of person who really really likes their sleep (although 2.5 years of not sleeping past 7:30 EVER has cured me of the ability to sleep in), and if I had my way, I'd sleep at least 8 hours a night. So I have a quandary - do I go to bed early and miss out on the down time we have once the kids are finally in bed or do I hang out with my husband, watch some TV, knit (spin), and only get 6 hours of sleep? This week I've been choosing the latter option - we'll see how long that lasts though. I've got a schedule of workouts written down and hung on the fridge. And I went and dropped $70 yesterday on this instead of more fiber, so I've got a challenge to train for. I've got a running buddy making sure I get out of bed three days a week to go run. The rest I'll have to work in myself. But it's a start. So far this week, I've gotten a workout in everyday, the last fewat 5 am. It's a start.