Fathers Day 2011

Happy father’s day to all dads out there.  This year is my first for all first time dads the first is very special. Though my son is still young, I have certain amount of pride on this father’s day.

I have tried to make father’s day a weekend event. On Saturday, I was able run my first race being a dad.  It went okay for being sleep deprived.  I was able to maintain a reasonable pace and did not have any aspirations of winning or even running a great time.  I had a reasonable goal of under 26min and was able accomplish this goal by running 25:50.  The rest of the day, however I just felt out it, my attention span just was not there.  I thought that taking a nap would have been a good idea but even that did not happen.  It was again filled with changing diapers and feeding. If you think that all diapers are the same your mistaken, I have a clear favorite, more on that at a later time.

On the official father’s day, I was able to start it early 5am, with a feeding and diaper change.  Normally I am able to get a small nap in after he is feed and diapered.  I have found this helps with my run during the day.  Well this nap did not happen apparently my son felt it necessary to make sure that I am up and “hanging out” with him trying to get him to calm down and take that all important nap. Needless to say I did not run today, I seem to be more okay with not running this Sunday than last.  I was able to get 40+ miles in this week, which is a high for the last 6 weeks.  I have found that running 8-10 miles daily will become normal.  To me this is okay it is something that I wanted to this summer but was thinking that I might be running a longer midweek run.  For now I am happy with the way things are going both personally and in my running.  

Flexibility

This morning at 1am and then again at 3am we were greeted with my son enhancing his lung capacity.  By about 4:30 in the morning it was my turn to try and calm him down.  I was able to but not till about 5am.  Then it was only for about an hour then it was time to have him eat again.  So my long run that I had planned for today did not happen.  About a year ago this would have bothered me.  I was however able to get a couple of runs in but it does not match the benefits of the long run.

I have begun to learn that my training will come second to my son for this summer.  For me this is a difficult thing to overcome.  For many years I was training to be competitive as a runner and have brought my times down to were I really feel happy about my training.  Last year at this time, I was coming off a small injury that really affected my effectiveness as a runner.  I was planning on this summer to be the full of very focused training. That has obviously taken a detour, I am looking forward to being a Dad but I am not ready to become less competitive. 

I article in RunnersWorld six months to a year ago dealt with moms that are runners and how to deal with the changes to the availability of not really training runs but running in general.  This is fine, but I want to know what to do when the Dad wants to run. 

I keep being told that this time will pass and he will be sleeping more “normally” in a few weeks to months. I not sure if I can handle that, I know that I need to be flexible in my training.  Maybe this father thing and flexibility with my training will be good for me.  Maybe this will make me a better runner in the end but for now it is a challenge for me mentally to deal with.  

A gift on National Running Day. (run not included)

Birth is a life changing event. Most of us are fortunate never to remember the actual process that it took, but our Mothers will remind us if it was bad for them. My mother never said that it was that much of a traumatic experience. My son however will most likely be reminded about how things went by my wife. It was very exciting but also very difficult on my wife. I even had to change the first diapers and do the first feedings because my wife was really put through the ringer. She is walking around as if she had some total body marathon all form a bed. Yikes, I thought training for a marathon and then running it was tuff, what she did was just amazing.

My son was born on National Running Day at 1:49AM, so I was unable to get a run in yesterday. Very little sleep and having to be a dad changed priorities for me. I was all talk about how I would be fine leaving to go back to school and go for runs even while in the hospital. Like I said that was all talk and that I will most likely get my first run in on the weekend but the earliest Friday. After that, I have no idea how to plan or make plans for times like these.

I am looking forward to try to be a good role model for my son. I hope that he ends up being a runner and is better than I was or will ever be. For now, I think that I am going to take all this in, and worry about running later.

runpd