TL;DR: This update (if you’re still following along!) is coming a day late because I was really tired out by last week, which was probably due to Husband having a legal retreat and leaving early and coming home late almost every day and still having to work (poor Husband). It’s different from when he’s actually on work travel, because he doesn’t come back at odd hours, and we are not suddenly awoken by the light being on in the living room or the study, which is all quite not conducive for sleep.
It’s probably also thanks in no small part to Daniel’s eczema flaring up – there is nothing more galling, I can assure you, than a 2.5 year old coming to your bed whining, scratching, and refusing to speak coherently at 3am in the morning. At least he stopped vomiting after Wednesday, but there are patches of dried blood on all the bedsheets in the house which I have accepted are not coming out.
Having decided to blog every week about this nonsense has made me realise that I’m much better off being an employee and having a stable income, instead of working from home and finding some freelance writing to do (which was something I seriously considered after I had Daniel). I don’t have enough confidence in my non-legal writing anyway, so I think I’ll stick to assessing sticky situations and drafting contracts. Am also coming closer to deciding to close shop because how to have a third child and no live-in helper and still have a full-time office job?
I was also informed by someone close to me that my writing is neither amusing, nor irritating – it’s boring, because it’s more or less always about the same thing. I mean, seriously, how exciting were you expecting parenthood and long-distance running to be?!
Because I’m tired, my confidence is at an all-time low despite my having gotten in some good work-outs the past week. I’m praying for a good taper week and some good nights of sleep, although Husband is in the Philippines again from Monday to Wednesday. But what to do? Nobody said it was easy… And nobody said it would be this hard. Will I be there at the start?
Monday, 17 April
5 minute warm-up, 8km in 45minutes
Tuesday, 18 April
30 minute swim
Wednesday, 19 April
Last big work-out for this training cycle, and I hope I didn’t over-exhaust myself doing it. I posted about this on Instagram already, but here it is again:
5min warm-up at 6:15/km
6km x 2, average 5:42/km with 5min rest in between sets at 6:30/km
3min+++ cool down, for a total of 14km in about 1h 22min.
As mentioned, this was done on a treadmill so I’m not sure how this translates when running outdoors. But really no choice, and it was a good last effort I think. It will have to do.
This was one of those days where you’re mentally drained and so ready for the day to be over even before you leave the house, so I’m not sure, on retrospect, that it was a good idea to push through with this last work-out because I definitely wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. From the time we woke up to the time we left the house, there were poos from each of the boys, a vomit and a tantrum from Daniel (the tantrum being more exhausting than cleaning up the poos and the vomit combined). I can’t remember what it was about anymore, but I think it had something to do with wanting to wear a t-shirt underneath his school uniform and/ or wanting to take Duplo into the shower when I washed his bum. Or putting plasters over his eczema sores (I know it’s best to let them air-dry but that is unfortunately where we’re at now). Or something. As you can see, I have already blocked out the awfulness of it all from my memory.
The workout did leave me in a better mood for the rest of the day, so I suppose if I crash and burn on the 30th, this run would not have been in vain.
Thursday, 20 April
Easy running drills and lots of stretching and rolling thereafter with my PT.
Friday, 21 April
Yoga with G, who was covering Joyce. This was fun, because he doesn’t take yoga too seriously (setting intentions, being kind to your body and all that “spiritual” mumbo-jumbo blah, blah – okay I know for lots of people that’s the point but I just want to burst out laughing whenever the instructor says things like that).
Saturday, 22 April
It would have been nice if I could have spent the whole day sleeping, but Husband had IPPT in the morning (Silver, so sad – if we didn’t get food poisoning last week we’re quite sure he could have pushed for Gold, he was only a couple of seconds off in the 2.4) and Daniel kept asking to “Take the bus train with Mummy”, so after Husband came back we braved going to JEM on a weekend because I wanted to get my watch strap fixed. It wasn’t too bad, and thankfully we had the foresight to plan it such that Husband drove there with Andrew whilst I took Daniel there on the bus and train. And we took a long detour on our drive home and caught a glimpse of the port and the cranes, another of Daniel’s favourite things to do.
Sunday, 23 April
Easy run, about 7km. I read somewhere that people find it difficult to slow down during their easy runs, so I consciously made myself do so (honestly, running slowly may actually be harder than running hard) and walked and stopped for a bit whenever I felt tired. It was really humid, which helped in the slowing down process, but also created lots of room for self-doubt. Paced random dude at the end, when it had cooled down considerably and was a lot less humid, so ended the run feeling a bit better about things.
***
And that’s a wrap. There will be some easy runs and RPM in race week, but no more hard workouts (thank God. Can’t wait to go for more yoga again, slack in one corner, and look forward to falling asleep in shavasana… Until it’s time to train for the next race). Given my current physical and emotional state, despite the work I’ve put in, I think I’d be really lucky (is blessed a more correct word?) to hit the timing I want on Sunday, so I’m preparing myself to let it go and enjoy being out in the cold morning air. Running in Singapore at unearthly hours is quite pleasant, if you can get over the mental barriers and out of bed. And if you aren’t woken up 2 hours before you were due to wake up for the run by your children.
See you at the finish line (unless I am forced to DNS or DNF).
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