Today is Monday, two days after running my first 20-miler of the year. The run went great, and so did managing the rest of my life so I could focus on the run and have an easy-going weekend after. I wouldn’t exactly call Saturday easy-going: making a home-made meal of chicken parmigiana took nearly two hours of prep and got a bit overwhelming in a hot kitchen on a hot day. However, the result–a happy wife and a good meal for us both– was worth it!
Friday and Saturday I was in beast mode, getting things done continually. My wife even commented on how much I kept doing on Saturday despite my morning long run. I even spent several hours that night finishing up my composition and daily blog post. Somehow, in getting ready for the weekend, I got into hyper-focused action mode. I don’t recall ever doing this on a long-run weekend during marathon training last year. Usually, I tried to minimize doing anything besides running.* This as a sign that I am improving my marathon/life balance, by being able to do other things on long-run weekends 🙂
My preparations paid off nicely yesterday (Sunday) when, as planned, I chilled all the live long day. My wife laughed when I came out of the bedroom mid-day wearing sunglasses. I was feeling sensitive to sunlight and wanted to reduce the stimuli, so I spent numerous hours in the bedroom with the lights off just enjoying resting and not moving in the dark.
This morning I took a 55 minute run. Admittedly, I was tired. It was an effort to run. It was also already over 70 degrees, though it was before 7am. It may have been a physical challenge, but my mood couldn’t have been better.
There were many Mondays last year when I was similarly tired after a weekend long run. Those Monday efforts could be dismaying, as I was impatient to feel normal again.
I was not dismayed today.
And I feel close to normal.
*Notable exceptions to this being two trips to the recording studio in Berkeley last Fall to record my piano album. On those weekends, I changed my run days to accommodate the recording sessions.
