Saturday, June 25, 2016

Life Without a Village

They say it takes a village to raise a child. 

The title of this post may be slightly misleading. I do have a village. I have an amazing support network of family and friends that are always available by phone, text, FaceTime or email. However, since my village is so far away (approx 4-5hrs by car), some days I feel a little village-less. I suppose you could say I have a remote village, haha. 

Anyway, all this is to say, that life with a baby has been an adjustment. Shane and I are definitely finding our groove, but there are days (weeks even) where I wish I could just phone up my Mom or Dad and say, "hey, could you come over so I can get out of the house for an hour to go for a run, or grab a coffee, and just clear my head."

Since we don't really have an immediate village here in Ukee, sometimes health and fitness takes a back seat to sitting in the couch with Shane after a long day, eating sour keys (or ice cream, or some sort of junk) and watching the boob tube. 

So, as you might expect from the above, half training has not been as easy as I hoped (although, if I'm honest, it is going sort of as I expected. I figured it might a challenge some days/weeks). 

The first couple weeks went great. Runs were short, and therefore, I was able to sneak them in after the little went to bed, or during the day with her in the stroller. But then Shane got sick, and the babe got sick, and we had a couple weekends away, and well, my motivation faltered and there was about a two week stretch where I barely ran. I stated thinking maybe I'd be better off just training to run 5 & 10k races. See if I could work on speed (sometimes that still crosses my mind actually). Anyway, needless to say, my training calendar has a lot of Xs on it. That said, I set this half as a goal, and I'd like to see what I can do to accomplish it. Once it's done, maybe shorter, faster races will be the goal. 

Last weekend, Shane and I had a good chat about making a healthy lifestyle a priority again, and we recommitted ourselves to supporting each other to get out the door and stay active. It means we workout at separate times, and sacrifice a bit of time together, but so far (5-6 days in, haha) it feels good. And sustainable. I know as my runs continue to get longer, they may get a bit more difficult to fit in, but we'll make it work. 

I'm feeling optimistic.