Afternoon all! I’ve signed up to run a 10k in September after a 10-year hiatus (done quite a few sprint tris in the intervening years but been slovenly for the past year). I’m using the runna app which is really great so far, seems achievable - BUT - I am struggling with how to juggle everything and get the workouts done. My problem is that I don’t love exercising first thing and if I run / lift after 8pm, I am unable to sleep until gone midnight. Additional challenges: 100% of the time single parent to nocturnal teenager and needy puppy plus FT WFH job, and it taking about an hour all told to get a 7.5k weekday run done. I need to be asleep by 10 or 1030 if I am waking up at 6 or 630 as perimenopause is kicking my butt in terms of fatigue and low energy. Plus I am 15kg heavier than I was when I did my last race (thank you Covid), so the extra hefting of the flab means I am much slower than I used to be. Maybe I will start to lose weight (not seen any change so far after 10 days) and get faster!
After a few days of trial and error, I have come to the conclusion that I need to be militant about bed time for me and the teen (14) and swap the dog walks from lunch and post dinner to pre-breakfast and post-dinner. No more workouts after that, instead I need to carve out my hour every day and work a bit later if needs be. Luckily, my job is in education so things will be markedly quieter over the next weeks before the race.
Does anyone else struggle to leap straight into their workout gear on waking or have the same Adrenalin spike into the small hours from exercising around 8pm? I think another positive by product of exercising at noon ish is that I will be able to eat dinner with the teenager as the last two weeks have been me eating cold food at 930pm…
writing that down and thinking it through on screen has really helped as it’s abundantly clear now what I need to do whereas this morning at 630 I felt very uncertain about the dog’s 2 walks being at each end of the day. He will get unlimited garden time and I do play with him through the day as my office is in the garden room, so perfect for throwing balls and playing fetch while I am sitting there.