Howard Trio Plus One: 100th Post: Something for Mama

First of all, this is my 100th post! Since at least 95% of my posts are about our trio, it seems fitting that the 100th post is about something I decided to do for myself. This morning I ran my first half marathon since getting pregnant with Alexis, Jack, and Faith.

Running has been a huge part of my life since I was 15, and from age 20 to 30 I ran four marathons, a couple of half marathons, and I completed numerous triathlons. Until today, though, my last race was three years ago when I ran the Run for the Zoo Half Marathon in ABQ, since about 6 months later I got pregnant with our triplets. When I was pregnant I said I wanted to run a half marathon before our trio turned one and I even started training for a race, but then we moved and I stopped training as I was exhausted from taking care of three babes while setting up our new house. I realized that the timing wasn't right and the arbitrary goal I set while I was pregnant was no longer important to me. I had no idea what taking care of three babies would feel like, so I cut myself some slack and put the half marathon goal on the back burner. This past December, though, I realized that life was starting to be a little less tiring and I decided to set a new half marathon goal!

I started training mid-January and I trained for 15 weeks. Since our weekends tend to be really busy, I decided to plan my long runs for Tuesdays and I hired a friend from church to babysit each week. Hiring a sitter for my long runs was the best decision I made for my training as I didn't make excuses for not doing my long run like I might have if it were a weekend and there was a lot going on, or if I just wanted to hang out with Micah and the kids as a family. On average I ran four days a week with my shorter runs on the weekends (usually Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday). Unfortunately, we did all get sick a couple of times in the last month of my training, so I missed a couple of long runs, but I was confident I could finish the half marathon since I've done so many races in the past. I was disappointed to miss two long runs since a large part of doing a half marathon for me is the fact that I get to train for something, but my priorities are different now so I didn't let myself get as stressed about missing those runs as I would have before kids.

When I ran this race three years ago my goal was to be in the top ten female finishers, and I was 8th with a time of 1:39 (7:34 pace). This year my goal was just to run faster than 9-minute pace and I did! I was 27th for female finishers with a time of 1:50 (8:25 pace). Although my time was quite a bit slower today than in the past, I feel like I've overcome the first hurdle of training for and doing a race with kids, so now I know it's possible.

Micah and the kids came to watch, and seeing them all on the sidelines was the highlight of my race. They saw me around miles 9.5, 11.5, and at the finish. I tried to slow down a little and I yelled their names so that they would all see me since there was so much going on around them. Every time Faith saw me she would yell, "Up!" as she wanted me to stop and pick her up. And all of them whined as I ran by as if they were thinking, "Where are you going Mama?!" but they just don't know how to articulate that yet. They were all troopers hanging out in the wagon during and after the race, and then Micah went to church with the kids so I had a rare couple of hours to myself at home to shower and recover after the race.

Now it's time to find my next goal race. I'm thinking a 10K as training for that will help me get some speed back. And I think Micah and I are both wondering how soon our kids can run a (short) race as we saw some pretty little kids out there this morning in the 5k and 10k!