The science of being slightly nuts…

My marathon training has now entered week 6 of 16 weeks – so we have 10 to go before I actually try to run my first 26.2 miles (I did the math just in case you could not šŸ˜‰)

I think I may have become a little deranged. My long run today is 14 miles. I need to complete this before the sun is high enough to strip the skin off my body or reduce me to a pool of water. My running prep is now thus…..

– wake up 5 am (Jesus it’s dark)

– eat a carefully planned oatmeal, with seeds, honey and banana. Complex carbs, simple sugars and protein (check) – as I may just starve on the way round – eating at 5 means. I have 90 mins to get that sucker down and not vomit at mile 6.

– drink a large, fully loaded coffee, a) to wake me up and b) to evacuate the colon and large intestine – so there will be no Paula Radcliffe’s happening mid run. (Google Paula Radcliffe London Marathon shit)

– as I’ll be running at temperatures between 80F and 95F with humidity – I need to drink 7 oz of water 90 mins before I leave. Hydration is key.

– charge headphones – as banging house tunes may be the only way to get through the last couple of miles. Or “We are the champions”, a la Queen. Please do not judge my over 40 year old tastes?!?

– sunglasses – check

– hat – check

– sunscreen – check

– no blister socks – check

– 4 water bottles filled with electrolyte water – check

– running belt – check

– fancy Brooks sneakers – check

– phone charged – check

– Garmin Fenix 5 charged – bugger I need to do that, hold on, – check

– now time to do stretch’s – I am now 41 I need to do this or I may just seize up and fall over. Not cool.

– energy gels for over mile 10, again I need everything I can to do this shit. – check

– oh and the important part, actually pull on shorts and a running top, I’m not sure the world is really ready for me running naked. šŸ˜‚

Phew I think that’s it ….. Start running at exactly 6.30 am .

Who said this was simple ?

A first !?! Bottom Cheese.

Today K1 told me the cream cheese on his toast, was disgusting. ā€œIt tastes like butt!, I am not eating that.ā€

Okaaayyyy. So I am not sure, how he knows it tastes like ā€œbuttā€ or that butt tastes like cream cheese . I’m totally sure I have ever tasted cream cheese that actually tastes like a butt and I have never licked or eaten butt to found out if there lies some similarities between the two. 

So we actually have butt cheese in the fridge, so if you want a taste, come on over,  or go visit your nearest Trader Joe’s and you’ll find it next to the milk and above the sour cream.

I must admit I like this cream cheese. So I gather that means I like the taste of butt. šŸ™‚ But only clean ones. 

He will be eating butt cheese until it’s gone, so maybe he will acquire a taste.

It’s no use crying over “spilt” apple juice.

Every day IĀ run the gauntlet of either being a completeĀ and utter shit show or sporadically I can be freaking awesome, when all those planned, little moments, fall exactly in to place.

EachĀ day I run and run and run at full speed and pretty much achieving “f” all in the grand scheme of my ridiculous, human aspirations and desires. Hair brushed – still looks a mess, kids all out the door to school – only 2 out of the 3 will have underwear on or have brushed their teeth, sweep the floor – Ā but it doesn’t reach the trash, washing done – but gets folded in 2 days time, put washing away, – well you might as well just put the clothes on as there are none left in your drawer; and so the hamster wheels turns and turns, relentless in its progress and never, ever stopping.

Today officially was a shit show.

8.00 am – kids to school – forget snacks and diapers for kid 3 – drive home, mild blaspheme.

8.35 am – leave again – off to swimming. I smile.

9 am – I swim, pick up K3 from childcare and he has pissed his pants (they are weirdly not allowed to change him in the child watch – bloody sucks) now I have urine all over my hands and washed for 50 Th time, I sigh.

10 am- K3 swimming lesson – kid screams a full 20 minutes in the pool, I hide.

10.30 am – my favourite sunglasses break as I chase crazy, escaping kid around the pool edge. I mutter.

11 am – coffee balanced in hand and croissant in kids mouth we brave Costco by singing the whole way round – head down, battle stance, lets do this. I run.

11.50 am – pick up kid 2 from school, K3 falls asleep in car, now I have to transfer him to bed, get out Costco shop and feed K2 lunch, I run.

12 noon – K3 in bed, K2 washing hands, me, I am being buried under a deluge of snack boxes as I pull open the trunk and they proceed to tumble all over the drive way, cooked chicken is ejected and explodes out of its bag and I am covered in meat juice. I swear repeatedly. “Hey, no swearing until you can drive, I warn kid 2”.

12.03 pm – lug shopping into the house and a 2 gallon apple juice falls toĀ the floor. Balancing boxes I pick up the sturdy looking bottle, like a ninja in training. Only to realize its cracked and leaking, all over me, the floor and I now have this wonderful mixture of chicken, apple juice aromaĀ emitting from my personage.

12.05 pm – desperately trying to decantĀ at speed, juice in to drinking bottles and in among the over flowing sink of the morning dishes, I had not managed to clear up yet, Ā I knock a 32 oz filled bottle of rescued apple juice all over the counter. I stretchĀ my arm out quickly to rescue it, I proceed to whack over the drinking glasses next to it and propel them clattering and smashing all over the oven…. I’M SOOOOO DONE!

12.08 pm Ā – I stand upright, I scream, I shout “fucking hell” as loud as I can, I bury my wretched face in to my gloriously sticky, chicken, apple hands and I sob and sob and sob. Wailing “I cannot do this, I just cannot keep up”. Like an absolute lunatic. šŸ™‚

I am clearly prone to being a little dramatic, plus I think I scared the shit out of kid 2 with my emotional display.Ā Seeing his wide eyes looking at me and the juice pooling on the floor, ready for an ant pool party.Ā I begin to pull the frazzled strings of my mind back together and sit on the floor to breathe. I hug my little guy hard and we laugh at crazy mama. “Time for lunch”, I say!

There isĀ no use crying over spilt apple juice……