Running and eating

I've been doing too little of one and too much of the other. Care to guess which is which? Alrighty, then!

I managed to go almost 2 weeks with close to no running, no cross training, no core work, no strength work. Any excuses I can come up with are exactly that, excuses. I was tired, I had a visitor, I was busy, wah wah wah. Shoulda run no matter what.

To make up for lost time I thought running 10 miles on Saturday would be an excellent idea. Thought that right up until my alarm went off Saturday morning. The reason I need friends to run with me is that I will not, unless sick as a dog, cancel out on them. I was supposed to meet Bree and Sandy (yes! she's in town for a short visit!) for this 10 miler so meet them I did. I'd like to say that once out of bed I was much livelier but that wouldn't be true.

The 10 miler turned into an 8 miler, which I considered a success since I really only wanted to run 6. It was a beautiful day running through the leaves on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail. I don't like running on leaves since they're slippery and hide pavement faults, but I kept an eye on the ground and only tripped once. I felt quite righteous once we finished. And quite tired too. I'm glad we didn't push those extra 2 miles because that would have been asking for injury or a tumble. Next week! Er, next week on the extra miles, not the tumbling.

I was pretty horrified at how badly I was wiped out from the run. I'm hoping that memories of that will keep me more honest with my workouts. Since I fully intend to keep my weekend runs at the 10-15 mile range I need to keep up with the the daily ones too. I'm pretty sure that when they say you should do an average of 40 minutes activity each day, they don't mean to do it all at one time and slack off the other 6 days.

Today my bro and I took my mom out for lunch. We had a fun, wacky, silly time (not to mention some great food). Because she dislikes the food at the Place, my mom looks forward to the weekend meals out. Also, before all this started she frequently went to restaurants and she misses that. My bro and I are always on the lookout for my mom's newest favorite place (it changes each time she has a great meal somewhere). When my mom went to the ladies room my bro and I remarked on how we had thought the days of my mom being bright and intentionally funny were gone. It's remarkable and great to have her back.

Of course, that also means that I only have 1 day on the weekend to get my regular chores out of the way. And that means that mostly they don't get done. A little laundry, and little grocery shopping, a bill or two paid. The rest of it I put aside and hope I have enough energy during the week to do everything else after work. Normally I don't, but somehow the essentials are getting done. The biggest essential, taking care of my mom, gets first priority. Cleaning house or gardening just don't seem quite so important any longer.