Realistic expectations.

I’ve been trying to run and to keep myself in shape for roughly 10 years now.  You know, slowing the hands of time and all that and its pretty obvious to me that I’m getting older.  I can go through all my times in my tracking software and can see the times getting slower and slower the older I get even though i was never all that fast to begin with and it still hurts just as bad as it did a decade ago (and stays hurting a lot longer afterward).  A couple months ago on my 40th birthday I made the bold proclamation that I was going to run my first marathon and then my first 50k right after that a month later.  Well in the several months since I’ve been diligent about my training, working out 6 days week and it’s just gotten to the point where I’ve got to be realistic about things.  I just don’t have the time or energy to do the training that it takes to do an ultramarathon at this point in my life.  Early in the process it was ok, I could fit it all in but as time went on it became harder and harder to get those longer runs and workouts in and still keep up with taking care of the other things that I had to do.  When I was single and had no littles to take care of it wasn’t a big deal to go out and get that run in at 2 in the morning when it was cooler outside.  Can’t do that anymore though because now I’ve got a baby shrieking every morning so someone comes and get him out of his crib and another that demands first and second breakfast like a hobbit every morning and work on the days when I’m not doing that.  No sleeping in until noon for this daddy like the old days.  Plus, I don’t like that those long long workouts take away from doing the things that are important to me like being with my family.

So yea, shitcan the ultra.  I’ll just stick with the shorter stuff because I can fit that into my life at this point.  Plus, it’s actually more fun anyway.  I did a Warrior Dash last weekend that was a blast.  I’ve signed up for a nighttime 5k in a couple weeks and Jessica, Alexander and I are going to do a mud run in Lincoln next month.  Jessica and X are doing the 1 mile one together and I’m doing the 3 mile one along with some guys from work.  It will be Alexander’s second race and he’s excited about it.  I’ll do 2 or 3 half marathons this fall, one of them during a trip to Minneapolis when we go see the Pens play the Minnesota Wild and see an old friend from when I was in the military who just moved to the area.  It doesn’t have to be torturous, life is what you make of it and you have to get your priorities right.