Stop the Madness

When it comes to coaching, I'm all about moderation. When it come to my own running, I'm not so good.

Tonight I popped a caffeine pill, walked away from the Super Bowl, and got on my treadmill with a Coke in my hand. No, seriously, a Coca Cola Classic. On the treadmill. And I flipped on that Sarah Jessica Parker movie about haggard working mothers.

Come on now, who does that?

You know who does that? Me. An overextended mom, wife, employee, and business owner who's training for a marathon.

If I was outside my life looking in, I'd be all, "Ummm, cool it? Because that's too much? And you might have a nervous breakdown?"

So guess what? I'm cooling it. Before tonight, I had 2 running goals for 2012: set a PR in the marathon (my PR is from 2007), and place in the top 3 in the Mountain Epic (I won last year). Running-wise, both make total and complete sense. But you know what? I'm not in the mood for marathon number 6.

I think I could do it, and I actually think I could do it well (I've been doing every-other-week 11-13 mile training runs at my target marathon pace), but I think my head could potentially explode from so many big things happening at the same time.

So here's how it's going down instead:

• Between momming, wifeing, working, training, and running Kennebec Valley Coaching, something's on it's way out. And I can assure you that I'm not leaving my kids at the supermarket a la Punky Brewster's mother.
• I'm running the Airport Challenge in Brunswick in April--a 1 mile race (my FAVORITE!), and a half marathon in the same morning. Blam, blam, so awesome.
• Instead of the Sugarloaf Marathon, I'm running the Sugarloaf 15k. I haven't set a time goal yet. 
• Run a really good time at the 4th of July 5k.
• And then I'll run every 5k I feel like running, and train my pants off for the Mountain Epic because holy nuts, I love that race.

To me, that's a fun racing schedule. I can train hard, I can cross-train hard (because I love plyo as much as I love running), and I can do it all with a whole lot less mileage every week.

I came up with this plan at mile 3 of my long run tonight. James wandered downstairs in his football pajamas and said, "Hey Mom, I can't sleep. Wanna watch the Super Bowl game with me?"

You bet I did.

Treadmill off. Decision made. Shorter races. Sanity restored. Major phew.

Go Patriots!