Lying and Whole New Levels of CRAZY

Back for my semi-monthly blog post. I notice that I lost a follower,  which takes me down to a whopping 38 peeps. Why do I even bother with the blog? Not that I need a GINORMOUS fan base, but at what point is it like talking to yourself?

Anyway....

Let's start with the *LYING* portion of this entry.

Being a parent is HARD.

In one breath, you feed your kid(s) constant rhetoric like, "You can do anything you want!" and "You just have to work hard!" and "Dream big!" and "You just need to believe in yourself!"

In the next breath, you're looking at your 4'5", 62 pound 8-year old and trying to figure out a way to not crap on his dreams. The reality is, however, he doesn't have a chance in hell at winning any events in the state meet. He's up against kids who are 2 years older, bigger, faster, stronger and more experienced.

Case in point... Evan is in Lane 1 (closest to the edge-black trunks with butt sticking up out of the water). He did great during his first 25 in the 50 fly, but he runs out of steam at the end. He just doesn't have it quite yet. He needs more size, strength and stamina.

The picture-the one I didn't get-told it all when he got out of the water and discovered he didn't make it to finals.

COLD. TEARY-EYED. DISAPPOINTED.

So what do you do as a parent? You spout more rhetoric. "You did your best." "You looked great out there." "You have a new PR!" (he did but he didn't care). "I'm so proud of how you swam, Evan."

I think all that they hear is yada, yada, yada, yada. Just like the rest of us adults! Especially us runners when things just don't go the way that we want... (Technically it should be "We runners," as per proper grammar; however, it doesn't sound right because I'm writing in a conversational tone, so I'm sticking with "us." Yes, I am a complete grammar tool/dork.)

What did help tremendously was retail therapy in the nearby swim tent shop thingie after Evan's tears dried. You better believe that he turned that frown upside down when dad went and bought him some new flips flops and a swim backpack that he had been coveting. Hahahaha! What can you do? I'm sure popular parenting books or manuals would poo-poo the retail therapy, but we still had 4 more events and an entire weekend to go! We needed him to keep his head in the game. It cheered him up, and that made everyone feel good. Win/win in my parenting manual!!

After the retail therapy, I checked my Facebook on my iPhone and noticed that Road Runner Sports posted something really applicable to our situation...

I tapped Evan on the shoulder (he was watching another event) and quick showed him. He gave me a half smile, and then he turned around to finish watching the event. We don't know what's going on in their little brains, so we have to keep driving home little points here and there when we can. Maybe some of it sinks in... Who knows? Like I said before, parenting is HARD.

Fast forwarding to the end of this story because let's face it... no one cares about your kid like you do, and I know you guys don't want to hear every stinking detail of the weekend.

It was 6 hours of total driving, 90,000 Hilton points, loads of little brother tantrums and boredom 

...except for the 10 minutes they spent doing this with another bored younger swim brother.

for a grand total of about 5 minutes and 15 seconds of swimming. 

That being said, it was totally worth it, and we hope to be back next year. Evan has a great shot of finals in the 50 breast and 100 breast next year. Those were his top events. He finished 19/43 in 50 br and 22/? (can't remember) in 100 breast. 

Now onto the CRAZY part of this entry.

I had 18 miles to do on Sunday. Ugh. I spent all day Saturday dreading it and trying to figure out the logistics of when/where. I ended up finding a route on MapMyRun that would have me do a big loop around our hotel as simply thinking about doing it on the hotel treadmill made me dry heave. 

I set my alarm for 4:30 am and planned on heading out the door at 5 am. That would enable me to get back just in time to head off for Evan's 8 am warm-up (sans shower for me... something has to give, right?)

As fate or technological malfunction would have it, my iPhone alarm randomly observed daylight savings time. For those of you who don't know, Arizona doesn't do DST. 

I roll out of bed Sunday morning, get dressed in the dark, have a snack and hear my husband say, "Are you leaving now?" Um yeah, it's not *that* early. It's 5 am.

Except it wasn't. It was 3:55 am. 

WTH, you stupid, piece of crap iPhone?!?!?!

You know what though? It worked out perfectly. I ended up having a really good long run, and I got back in time to shower and grab a quick bite on the way out of the hotel. The streets of Chandler (unlike Yuma) are well-lit, so I could see great. The route passed by plenty of Circle Ks (aka-pit stops) and it ended up being a nearly perfect 18-mile circle (rectangle?) with some minor adjustments on my part. I ended up running it at an 8:39P with the last mile at 7:30. Really trying to up the intensity of this cycle's long run without injuring myself. So far, so good.

I will try and get on here a couple more times before my FINAL class starts up in a couple of weeks. Though I may not be posting much, I do read blogs and have been trying to comment on those that I follow. If I have skipped you lately, I'm sorry!!!!