I felt slow and plodding. The course was hilly. And despite being in autumnal Maine, only about 2-3 miles of the course were truly scenic. Most was along the main road. The logistics were complicated, as they always are with races — where you leave your car, what bathroom facilities are available, where you wait before it starts, how you get back to the beginning, plus since races are on a certain day at a certain time you get the weather you get. The “terrible weather” phenomenon was why I did not wind up running the Thanksgiving 5k I’d signed up for.

All this is more complicated than just putting on your shoes and running. So I was not thinking I would seek out more races.

But…As I looked back over my time logs from 2024, I saw that I truly did not run long or regularly without a race to motivate me. I mean, even with the race I topped out at 23 miles/week but without it I was running a lot fewer miles. And fewer times. Despite allegedly being an “upholder” I may just be an obliger in my middle age when it comes to running.

And then a series of events nudged me in the race direction. First, the Philadelphia Distance Run, the smaller one in September (not the Philly marathon/half-marathon, which is huge) sent around an email with a discount for the Eagles winning the Super Bowl. Late September tends to be a good time (it’s easier to train for distance runs over the summer than, say, in the snow and slush of February/March). So I decided to sign up.

The Broad Street Race also sent around its lottery entry. This is a 10-mile race in early May. While I don’t like the crowds, I do like the distance (it’s the last 3 miles of a half marathon that always get me…). I knew my husband would be running it since his employer buys a corporate entry every year. But I have not gotten in from the lottery in the past and figured I probably wouldn’t this time. Then, lo and behold, I did win a spot.

And then my running buddy Jane texted this week to remind me that she was running a local 5-miler this weekend. This race is sponsored by her local running club that she’s involved in (she normally runs in costume). We usually run together on the last Saturday of the month but she couldn’t this weekend because of the race…and then we realized that, well, I could run this race too. Not in costume. But we can just do our normal run in a different place. So now I’ll be running that.

So that’s three races on the calendar! And sure enough, I nudged myself to go a little harder on the treadmill yesterday than I probably would have. I will likely run a few more times and run a little farther this summer than I would have otherwise too. I have no time goals for anything, and I reserve the right to not run if it’s sleeting or 95 degrees for any of these races. But I guess I’m back to getting those race T-shirts…

If you run, do you sign up for races? Do you find them motivating?

Photo: From a race that was almost 9 years ago now! 

The past few days, though, I’ve been experimenting with a treadmill workout that is slightly less boring — and gets me to do some strength training too. What I do is run for 3 minute stretches on the treadmill, then pop off and go do some sort of resistance exercises or weights (we have a dumbbell set, bands, and an old weight machine near the treadmill). I run about 2 miles, total, spread out over these three minute stretches. I set the pace a little higher than I might because, hey, it’s only 3 minutes at a time. And since I’m doing something different every few minutes it doesn’t feel quite so tedious.

If you hit the treadmill in winter, how do you make it less boring?

On Wednesday, I put on my plan for Thursday that I would get up early(ish) and run on the treadmill. No one had to be up before 7 a.m., so I was going to set my alarm for 6:20 a.m., a time that allows me to be up and running by 6:30-6:35 or so, giving me a 25-minute workout, more or less. I have done this a few times since our new morning schedule started with the new school year. (I used to have to be up around 6:30 so this isn’t even any earlier than what I was doing all last year!)

However, as I was getting into bed on Wednesday night, I realized that I absolutely did not want to wake up at 6:20 a.m. I did not want to get into my exercise clothes and force myself to run. I wanted to have a more soft start to the day — something I’ve been wanting most days. I don’t really want to be up and running.

So…maybe running early is not the right plan for me right now. The good news is that I work at home and have a pretty flexible schedule. Most days I need a mental break by mid-afternoon. So I’m planning on blocking out an hour (1-2? 1:30-2:30?) at least a few days a week to go for a run when it’s light and when it’s the warmest it will be in winter. Or I can go on the treadmill and since that’s in the same room as my weights, do a strength workout too. That’s what I wound up doing Thursday afternoon. Maybe I’ll be a little smelly after but…hey, working from home. If I have anywhere important to go later I can clean myself up.

I have written a lot about morning routines (and I host a podcast called Before Breakfast!) but I am on record noting that there’s no reason to get up early to do stuff just to do so. The reason morning exercise works for a lot of people is that this is the only time when it fits. They can’t just stop working from 1-2 p.m. and exercise. They need to get home after work and can’t stop somewhere for an hour to exercise. And by late at night very few people want to exercise. But if I can exercise in the middle of the day, I don’t actually need to get up early. So there’s no real reason to force myself.

In other news: Content round-up! This week, over at Before Breakfast, the longer episode was an interview with Lisa Woodruff. She’s the founder of Organize 365, a company that teaches people how to get their life and stuff in order. She is running a business and getting her PhD simultaneously, so she’s not only got organization tips, she’s got a lot of personal time management tips too. Please check that out!

Other Before Breakfast episodes included “Make hay while the sun shines” (it’s often wise to change things slightly to take advantage of a temporary opportunity) and “If you want to run more, sign up for a race.” While I don’t plan to run any more half marathons any time soon, my Thanksgiving 5k is motivating me to do some speed work…

My new Substack newsletter is called “Vanderhacks” and it features an every-weekday-morning tip. This week I suggested ideas so people “Don’t get lost in transition” (are you more like a tiny boat or a big oil tanker when it comes to turning yourself around?) and behind the paywall I suggested “Little ways to level up your career” — ten things you can do today to make your career more resilient. The current cadence is 3 free and 2 paid posts per week. Please check it out and consider subscribing!

Over at the Best of Both Worlds Patreon community, we had a great discussion of all things meal planning during our monthly Zoom meet-up. The video is available to members. This week we’ve also been discussing teen jobs (our own and our kids’) and music lessons (a surprising source of mental load around here…)

And here’s a sonnet, called “Portland 7:45a.m.” — when I was out running (but NOT at 6:20 a.m….)

By day the heat is gentle, here the sun
has tilted, rising lower in the sky.
October feels like summer, just for fun,
comes visit for a bit before goodbye.

I run between the bricks, the city leaves
have yellowed, and the wind blows off the sound.
A hulking ship pulls in, the port receives
its guest, and I can see its bulk around

the bend, where little sails are speckled, bright
just like the clouds. A dog runs on the sand.
This morning, like all mornings, brings new light,
and all the past’s a shadow, where the hand

of time has left it. See, the bar’s old hose
will splash away the night, which — swirling — goes.

However, the concept of exercising twice a day has some merit — especially if you approach it right. Sometimes people assume they need to exercise for a long time or it’s not worth it. Or they think they only have time for one kind of exercise in life — but then that gets boring.

Two-a-days can switch things up.

So, for instance, maybe you go for a 25-minute run in the morning and then do a 15-minute strength training session at night after your kids go to bed. That’s 40 minutes of activity, but you didn’t need a 40-minute chunk of time to do it.

Or maybe you can do a 15-minute yoga video over your lunch break, and then you swim laps for 20 minutes during your kid’s 30-minute swim lesson at night. The lesson isn’t long enough to cover a long workout, but it can cover something, and you can do something different at a different point to get yourself up over 30 minutes a day.

Any exercise is better than no exercise. That said, I know some people find it hard to believe that 20 minutes will do much. And yes, if you’re training for a marathon, you’ll need to find longer stretches. But my experience is that people have a lot more 20-minute chunks during the day than they have hour-long chunks. If you think exercise requires an hour, there may be a lot of days when you don’t exercise.

If you start trying to use bits of time though, you might exercise more days. And by trying different things, you keep from getting bored. Running 40 minutes on a treadmill can feel tedious. Twenty might feel like it’s not that long — and then you do something else for another 20 minutes. Or maybe you even run for 20 minutes on that treadmill in the morning, go about your day, and run for another 20 minutes at night. Neither felt so long but it still totaled 40.

In any case, I’ve been doing this some days this summer. I will sometimes run in the mornings, but I really don’t want to get up that early. So I run for about 30 minutes and then often do something later: a bike ride, kicking back and forth in the pool, a strength training session. Occasionally I even run, bike, and swim in one day! It’s not a real triathlon by any means but there are a lot of days when it all fits.

In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Washington DC-based lawyer Sonja Ralston discusses her family’s car-light lifestyle. By transporting her kids in a cargo bike, Sonja can avoid parking woes, get some exercise, and build in outdoor time everyday (to say nothing of lowering the family’s carbon footprint). After listening to this episode, you just might be reconsidering what is possible.

In the Q&A, Sarah and I discuss a common parenting challenge: getting kids to take medicine (e.g. antibiotics) without a battle.

Please give the episode a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews!

I love the concept of streaks, and I do think it was good to show myself that I could choose to do something like that. I could make time to run while traveling. I could make time to run even when life was busy. I could run every single day of a pregnancy! (Not very fast at the end at all…but I did do it). The streak nudged me to take some runs I might not have, like a gorgeous Vancouver harbor sunrise run after some rough travel. I even felt pumped up for life during some ridiculous runs, like one I did at 4 a.m. or so in Oregon before a 6-ish flight (it felt more reasonable since I hadn’t adjusted from eastern time…on the other hand, that was in the first trimester!)

That said, I have not felt tempted to re-start the streak. I’m not sure what the official streak rules are, but I could have given myself a 6-week “streak freeze” (a la Duolingo) and gotten going again. I did not.

There are reasons. I know from my time diary study for I Know How She Does It that women with children under the age of 2 have significantly less time for major leisure categories (exercise, reading, TV) than those with older children. I started my streak when my fourth child was almost two. For the past 22 months, I have had a kid under age 2, with all that entails. I’m needing to find ways to fit a lot into each day, and not needing to find space for a run every single day dials the pressure down a bit. I am absolutely sure I could do it. I’m doing my “rituals” (chapter in W&P, write 100 words, some strength training) daily. But I don’t want to run daily anymore.

So instead I’m making sure running falls in my “three times a week is a habit” rubric. I definitely run at least 3 times per week every week. Usually it’s more like 4 times. (I also have a rule to “create a back-up slot” so if I want to run three times per week, I need to have at least four potential times). This allows me to be a bit more choosy about my runs. I avoid bad weather. I go when I can go run on the trails near my house, which I definitely prefer to the treadmill or even loops around the neighborhood. I ran on a hotel treadmill this morning (I’m traveling to give a speech) and it was fine, especially since I have quite a bit of time this morning (hello time change and mid-day speech). But it’s not exactly something to write home about. It’s nice not to automatically need to find hotel treadmills.

The one downside is that one of exercise’s best benefits is mood elevation. I definitely am in a better mood when I run than when I don’t. But to get at least some of the upsides of activity, I’m trying to “move by 3 p.m.” (another TBT rule!) every day in some way, shape, or form. It can be far easier to walk briskly for 10 minutes at some point in the day than to run for 10-12 minutes (my usual pace). Park a little farther from the store. Walk around the new house yard when I’m visiting for construction supervision. It’s not quite the same, but it is something. And right now, that’s fine.

Photo: From a sunrise, on-the-beach run in Cape May last week. That was a run worth doing! 

As I look at how we spent this past weekend, I saw that this was our approach. On Friday night, my husband took our four kids (and a friend) to a showing of The Polar Express at our church. I used this time with no one else in the house making noise to record 10 episodes of Before Breakfast. I recognize that this is not technically me-time (it’s part of my job) but I identified this as a time when none of my neighbors would be making noise with construction or leaf blowing, and I got some me-time during the work day during the week (a pre-natal massage on Monday, runs during the work day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday). So it seemed like a good trade-off to extend my work day to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, given my ability to move time around.

On Saturday morning, I took the kids because my husband ran the Philadelphia half-marathon. He left the house around 7 a.m. and returned at noon. During this time, I took the two littler kids to karate (The older ones stayed home — a benefit of older kids! My 12-year-old now dutifully texts me every hour or so to report on the situation. We had to hash this out as a policy, but it works.) We had family lunch, all sitting down together for a meal, and then my husband took the four kids to a ski shop to rent skis for the winter season. I used this time to run, read, and practice playing Linus and Lucy on the piano. (Listening to the recording, I’m realizing I should probably enlist the 10-year-old to play percussion to accompany me if I’m going to get this right).

Upon my husband’s return, we traded off again, with him going to Costco. As with my Friday evening recording session, this might not sound like me-time but…trust me, in our household, going shopping all by yourself with no children falls in this category. He really seems to love bulk buying peanut butter and tortillas and he started on some of our Christmas shopping too.

We had family dinner when he came back, then did our family activity of going to the Philadelphia Zoo’s LumiNature light show. (Ok, not entirely the whole family — the 12-year-old decided to go to a friend’s party instead — but most of the family!). Somewhat oddly, the animal exhibits were all closed, which was kind of disappointing, but the lights were pretty, and it’s always nice to have a reason to be outside together at night.

I didn’t sleep well Saturday night (hopefully only about 7 weeks or so to go of this…). Waking at 3:45 a.m. and being unable to go back to sleep resulted in some me-time, which I used to run on the treadmill and work, but it’s not my favorite form of it. In any case, after church my husband took the four kids to Frozen 2. I used the time to nap. Later in the afternoon, I stayed with the kids and he went to the gym to lift weights (well, with the 12-year-old, but he works out on his own).

Then we had another family dinner (Costco finds: surf and turf, corn…) and had a calendar meeting to figure out how we can continue to make our schedules work!

That said, though, I’ve been thinking about transitions lately. One of the places we do lose time is when it gets away from us between activities. Add small children to the mix and things can get a little crazier. Just ask my husband about this. On Saturday, I had a conference, so I elected to just leave in the morning (he was planning to take the kids to the zoo and a birthday party in Westchester). We don’t own a car, so he was going to rent one. Of course, we later realized that normally when we go pick up a car from Hertz, there are two of us, so someone can stay with the kids and the car seats, or we can divvy these up, while the other person gets the car. Since I’d left, he had to haul two kids and two car seats down the street to the car rental place. It’s no surprise they forgot the present (and came back for it, thus stretching out the transition to an even more excruciating length). It’s a lot to think through, especially if you are not the party who often thinks through these things on other days.

One good approach for logistics is to arrange your life so you don’t have to think through transitions every single time. For instance, if you have to remember every single morning what you need to walk out the door, you’ll invariably forget things. So move it from a conscious choice to a habit: keys in purse (or in tray by your wallet), cell phone in charger right by the door, kids’ shoes in cubbies in a similar spot. Do not switch purses or computer bags under some misguided notion that fashion dictates it. That’s just asking for trouble.

Likewise, if you’re trying to exercise more, it’s probably worth having bags with exercise clothes/shoes anywhere you might possibly feel like exercising: in your car, in your desk, in a special spot right by your bed so you can roll out and put them on. You never want to let yourself think “Oh, I’d exercise if only I had my shoes!”

We are no longer packing lunches, mercifully. Jasper (almost 4) decided he was willing to eat his preschool lunch, or enough of it to make it to snack time. But when we were, this was the same thing every day: tortilla, fruit cup, box of raisins and cheese stick. Throw one of each in 5 Ziploc bags on Sunday night and pull a lunch out every morning. No thought required. (Yes, I realize it’s incredibly boring to eat the same thing every day, but I was fine with boredom inducing him to eat the school’s hot lunch).

What transitions have you managed to streamline? How much time does that save? The goal is that, if it takes everyone less time to get ready in the morning, you can spend some of that time doing fun stuff: lingering over breakfast, reading or playing together, instead of rushing around like chickens with your heads cut off, or parents whose spouses have walked blithely out the door for their conferences.

ShareThis

Yet, recently, when it comes to running, I’d been bumping up against a form of perfectionism. Life is particularly busy at the moment, between cranking out chapters of the new book (possible working titles: For What It’s Worth: How to Buy Happiness, or maybe Plenty: How to Buy Happiness), starting my BNET column, supporting 168 Hours, etc. Winter always adds in the joys of snow and sick kids and, in a not unanticipated result, sick me. My choir has three concerts in the next two months. I know better than to say “I don’t have time to run,” so instead, I’ll just say that running outside in the cold for 5 miles every day isn’t a priority for me right now. So I thought about just writing off the next month or two.

Then I realized that I was framing this the wrong way. I run because I need the exercise — for health and for my sanity. But running outside for 5 miles isn’t the only way to get some of the benefits of exercise. I work at home and my apartment building has a gym. I hate treadmill running, but if I can’t run outside for 5 miles, it’s the rare day that I can’t throw on my gym clothes, hop on the elevator, and get down to the gym for 20 minutes. Because the treadmill is so boring, I run as fast as possible for those 20 minutes. Then I race back up and get back to whatever I was doing.

Net result? I’m not accumulating the miles. But I am getting faster. And while running for 20 minutes is not as good as running for 50, it’s certainly better than running for 0. Sometimes the perfect can be the enemy of the good enough. Better to settle for good enough than to never get started.

In other news:

• Liz Danforth does an interesting write-up of what she discovered by logging her time. She works part-time in a library, and mentioned that she heard about the book when another library patron started gushing about it. So thank you, anonymous library patron!
• I spoke at the New York Chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers on Monday of last week. The feedback from the 41 people who turned in forms? 38 found me interesting, 2 somewhat, and 1 “no.” Let me know if your organization needs a speaker that 90% of the attendees will find interesting…

ShareThis