Help With Your Mother's Rule

Help With Your Mother's Rule is a forum for women who want trouble-shooting help with their Mother's Rules or about any aspect of the 5 Ps of the married vocation.

Ask Holly: This blog is composed of your questions. Contact me at the address listed on Holly's Helpers page and I will respond. Please share your unique ideas as well. The more ideas and experience we share, the more successful every mother will be in designing her own unique Mother's Rule.

Friday, May 7, 2010

2nd P, 3rd P, 4th P - The Ps are for "Priorities"

Dear Holly, I am a young mother of very young children. I am training for a half marathon and have to fit running somewhere into my schedule. The mileage increases which means the time does as well. I have been running in the morning before my husband goes to work or in the evening. When I go in the morning right now I am up at 5:30 and just make it home for my husband to leave for work and then I get breakfast going about 6:45. All good an well until the mileage increases. The flip side of this is that when I go at night it's usually after at least the baby is to bed (I put her to bed) and then my hubby puts the older two to bed. It gets late and that means it gets dark, it cuts into marriage time and well, I am not one of those night owls. I wish I were. When it's evening it's hard to fit the 3rd P in. UGH. This only happens 3 times during the week and then on the weekends for a long run. I've been going on Sunday whenever I can fit it in the day. I love the running and it's awesome for the 2nd P but it can be hard to schedule. I purposely signed up for a 1/2 marathon so I would keep committed to the running schedule.
This, among other important projects I have in mind, I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day. I've made my schedule kind of loose because I'm a little scared to make it any tighter. I'm afraid that I won't be able to get these key things done. But really, it leaves little time for scheduling marriage time. And I know how important that is to my husband and to me. Sometimes it seems as if our kids are so little that we are in the 4th P most all of the time.
Posted by at 12:09 PM
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4 comments:

  1. You mention very lofty goals such as running a half marathon. You mention that there are not enough hours in the day, especially in trying to find 3rd P husband time. I agree.

    You may need to re-examine what the 5 Ps mean - they are 'priorities'. In trying to put the marathon first and then arrange hubby and family time around that, you are placing the marathon in top place. I see other priorities replacing the 5 Ps, as if the 5 Ps of your married & family life are not really priorities, but things to 'work in' around your own lifestyle. I believe this is the heart of the issue, the heart of what will become a 'problem'.

    Obviously I would recommend you start with working out your family responsibilities first, and only then, based on the time remaining, determining whether or not you really ARE called by God to run a half marathon, if there is little time to deal with the increasing running hours. Is this a call from God, a good idea, or a personal preference? The latter two may need to be sacrificed if you simply cannot create the time it takes.

    Your personal, married and family priorities are supposed to come 'first' and these are to be used to 'discern' whether or not you have time for all the 'other' things you want to do or get done. To me, you may have put the cart before the horse. If you end up with two free hours a day after family time, arrange to run within that time - if it can't be done, then perhaps it is not God's will for you right at this time, but can be reserved for later when the kids are less dependent.

    Keep in mind - there is no peace outside of God's Will, and that Will is reflected in your responsibilities. Your commitments outside the family must be reasonable and in line with your circumstances, or you will end up neglecting your duties and your relationships in the family. The people in our lives really do come first, over our desired projects.
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  2. Wow, Holly, thanks! I also am great at setting "lofty goals." There is SO MUCH to do. But as I have been busy about things that just "have" to be done, I'm not doing very well at being mother. Yes, there are things that must be done, and unfortunately, a baby can't be held and loved on constantly because of it. But I just realized that even if these other, necessary tasks, were to suddenly go away, I would just move on to another task that "has to" be done. Being mother doesn't always give the rewarding sense of accomplishment that other tasks do, so it's easy to get sidetracked. Gotta work harder at finding the right balance!
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  3. I have a few just nuts-and-bolts ideas about fitting in exercise to your schedule and time with your husband, too. Do you have any "gear" like a double jogging stroller or a bike and bike trailer? You can get things like this really cheap on craigslist.com--and then resell them later for nearly the same price, if you like. Maybe you could fit in a long weekend run if your husband stayed home with one child (special one-on-one time with Daddy! a treat) and the other two came out with you in a double jogging stroller. My toddler loves to watch for dogs, trucks, and other items of interest while coasting along in the stroller :)

    Pushing the stroller is also harder work than running by yourself, which means that you are actually fitting in more training in a shorter period of time :) After getting used to that, running the same distance on your own will be a breeze.

    Or if your oldest child is old enough to ride a tricycle, he or she could bike alongside you while you run and push the double stroller. That could work during the week while your husband is away. That would be a way to fit in exercise at the same time that you are spending a fun time with your children. If you could do that, you wouldn't have to get up so early--ug, I am not a morning person, so that sounds like a real bonus to me!--and then you would be able to stay up later and hang out with your husband.

    If your husband enjoys exercise, you could all do something like this together on the weekends or evenings after work--he could bike next to you with the kids in a bike trailer (I've seen people fit three small children into these, don't know if that's safe or not haha), or you could both jog while the oldest child is on the trike, or whatever. Walking and biking are both great cross-training for running--you could all go for a long walk with the baby in a Baby Bjorn or something (craigslist...$25 max!). Again, walking while carrying the baby will get you stronger, faster than walking by yourself would because of the weight. And babies just love that!

    So whether you decide that the 1/2-marathon fits into your life right now or not I just thought I'd throw out a few ideas for addressing multiple priorities at once this way! My husband and I too feel like it's all 4th P all the time sometimes right now, but we have been refreshed this spring by getting outside where they can play (or the baby can nap in the fresh air) and we can have a longer uninterrupted conversation while we are all walking together or my toddler is digging happily in the sand or whatever. Blessings!
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  4. I've been there, Mama. Here's how I adapted my training to meet the needs of my family.

    My two cents would be to tweak your training schedule. Throw out the idea of getting a PR, and maybe train for a shorter race (10K perhaps). As others have said, you might need to adjust your expectations a bit for now. Try running three times a week for one hour, maximum. Go by time, not by mileage. As you become more conditioned, your mileage will naturally increase. Do a long run on Saturdays in the early morning if possible so that your husband can spend time with the children. For the long run, go by mileage. I did run a full marathon (26.2 miles!) by training this way for only four months, and it went very well...no injuries because I paced my training:)

    Forget the jogging strollers if you are serious about training. They can really alter the mechanics of running, which will lead to injuries down the road.

    Happy Running!
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