the Mother Runner

I had hoped that by a month after Boston I’d be good as new. Well, I hoped that by a week after Boston I’d be good as new, but I realized that wasn’t going to happen by Mile 3 of 26.2. And then I hoped that if I just took it slow, rolled my IT [...]

“There’s nothing worse than a weak-butted runner.” Nothing. A weak-butted runner is the worst. Or so I’m told by the man who hosts the workout video Micah and I dragged ourselves out of bed for at 6:00am on a Monday morning to participate in. And after 20 or so minutes of jumpsquats, plyometric lunges, rotating [...]

It’s here, people! It’s here. February. I know you’ve been looking forward to it because nothing is more exciting, more enjoyable, more fun than . . . the doldrums of winter. You’ve been looking forward to this gray, cold, wetness since August, and now it’s finally here! Hooray . . . ? Okay, maybe not. [...]

We all have our limits. I may (or may not) be able to wake up before the sun three days a week. I may not blink an eye before going out to run in the rain (though sometimes I blink several times in an effort to blink the rain away). I may, occasionally, forgo a [...]

The physical education portion of our homeschool is one of our most consistent classes. Riding bikes around the block 4 times in row counts as phys ed, right? It’s perfect because the boys blow off energy, and all I have to do is tell them how far ahead of me they can ride. To the [...]

Did I tell you about the time, last week, when I played Powder Puff football with some friends? It was pretty intense. And awesome. Mostly, we didn’t know what we were doing. But we pretended we did. And by the end we looked almost like we did know what we were doing. Almost. But even [...]

Katy asks a good question: I’ve been off running for entirely too long, with some back issues. I’m finding myself too scared to start again, because I fear I’ll re-injure myself. Any tips on getting over an injury mental hurdle? I think this isapplicable to so many situations in our lives. There are things that we [...]

Last Friday afternoon I practiced some of my labor “exercises” for the first time this pregnancy. Relaxation exercises, to be specific. The kind in which I lie on the couch and see how close I can get to falling asleep without actually being asleep, visualize my body opening like a flower, and “breathe the baby [...]

With all my talk of keeping up mileage, maintaining speed, cross training, etc., I am afraid I may have made it seem like staying in shape through pregnancy is something that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, tons of energy and motivation, and maybe an audience of blog readers who want to know [...]

My hometown lies at the foot of the mountains. This means there is no running without hills. Lots and lots of hills. Last week Micah and I did the 5-mile run my brothers mapped out. The whole of mile 2 is straight up hill. And the whole of mile 4 is straight down hill. As [...]