making the best of it

The distance of my long rides is making its ascent. Paired with YaYa’s football schedule, I am hard-pressed to find a time slot adequate to fit the required time-in-the-saddle needed to go the scheduled distance. My mind thinks back to how I handled this during peak marathon training when I would break the run across the day. A 3 hour long run pales in comparison to the time needed to cover 60-70 miles on bike. Some days, it seems impossible to do even that – even when given two days to do it. The weekends are simply too short.

You make the best with what you’ve got to work with. Am I right?

Things never go as perfectly as you’d like. When life happens, the biggest challenge is forgiving yourself for falling short of the plan. This, in my opinion, is harder than if the plan had been executed perfectly. As your event nears, there is the added challenge of trusting that overall you are trained enough to line up on the day of your event.

In my 9 years of trying to comply with marathon training schedules life often got in the way of perfectly adhering to “the plan.” I learned to be flexible. Sometimes substituting one work out for another, cross training, cutting a workout short, or skipping it all together was all I could do. And somehow, some way, it all turned out okay.

I tried to keep this all in mind when football scrimmages and birthday celebrations meant that the only way to cover the scheduled 60 miler was to break it across the weekend. Honestly, I’ve no idea if my cycling 30 miles on each day even comes close to preparing me for my upcoming event. It was the best solution I could come up with.

I haven’t been to the yoga studio in 3 weeks. I’ve got the tight muscles to prove it. Additionally, my running and strength training has halted as well. I know that I’d be physically better prepared for Foxy’s if I was to somehow find a way to fit it all in. But we all know that there is a price paid for doing it all be it sleep, time with the family, a house in ill-repair, or other area that suffers.

If I were to put my training first on my list of priorities, that would be wrong. A whole lot of more important things would be neglected. Over the weekend, being at YaYa’s football game, sharing homemade birthday waffles topped with berries, and mixing up a few Pyrexes full of Family F’s special lasagna dinner for the family at large was at the top of the list.

Next week, I’m sure there will be other items to fit into the list of priorities. I’ll just have to make the best of it.