My First Triple!

If you run long enough or read enough about running you might have heard of runners doing doubles. No..not double doubles, like a Tim Horton's coffee, but running twice in one day. I've done it often enough but yesterday I had to do my first triple! Trust me, other working, runner Moms will relate.

This was my scenario. My husband, Richard, is going to a high school reunion back in his home town in Cape Breton, so I'm going to be having a girls weekend with my daughter, which means I won't have any time to just run off for a few hours. Sooo I realized I had to get my long runs in before the weekend hits since two 10 milers on the treadmill is torture for both my daughter and me (I get "Are you still running Mommy?!" every 5 minutes after half an hour which kills my motivation to keep going!). I'm also having trouble getting back into the morning runner mentality, especially now that I know how much lack of sleep affects me for the rest of the day..so when the alarm goes off for 5 am I often press snooze for another hour. Yesterday though my alarm didn't go off at all and I missed my biggest window of time to get in one of my two long runs. Frustrated but not deterred I packed two running outfits and headed to work.

My first run was a five miler on the indoor track (it was raining at lunch). Feeling like a bit of a hamster on a wheel, I ran round and round until my Nike app finally declared 5 miles complete. I managed a pretty even pace throughout all of my miles so I was happy to see that. I cleaned up a bit, made sure to put my first running outfit at the bottom of my backpack and headed back to work.

Run #2 was back on the track since I only had about 30 minutes to try and get as many miles in before I picked up my daughter at day camp. I pushed the pace and really enjoyed the atmosphere as the track was now full of other runners and cross-fitters all doing their own thing. I managed three miles a minute faster per mile than my run at lunch. Then I picked up my daughter who wanted to go back to the track with me to run a few laps. Knowing she is going to defend her 2 mile title in a couple of weeks at the annual Natal Day road race, I complied. Not to brag, but my kid can run! She flew around the track in her sock feet, taking short little steps as she went. I was still making my way up the first side as she flew down the second straight-away. I'm pretty sure she managed under a 6 minute kilometer (she's 6)! I encouraged her to take a rest, so she sat and watched hockey as I finished up another mile.

My last run was back at home after having made a nice taco supper (yum tacos!) for the family. I grabbed the dog and off we went, with Spencer practically dragging me down the streets until I reached my goal of 10 miles total for the day. Then it was back home to stretch and get my family ready for the next day.

I wouldn't recommend that a runner do that kind of thing every day, or even every week, but it is reassuring to know that I can handle it mentally and physically if my schedule dictates I need to. Today is another 10 miler but this time I'm going to do it in one shot...albeit a bit slower than yesterday!