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! 

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.

A definite highlight: Running the Philadelphia Zoo 5k with my 15-year-old (who is almost 16 — that is happening very soon…). The weather was absolutely perfect, sunny and warm enough not to wear jackets (which we had brought…) but not hot. I wound up carrying both of our jackets through the race. But we did it — three loops – one inside the zoo, then one outside, then back in. As we raced through the zoo paths a pair of zebras was running in loops in their exhibit, getting into the spirit. A few monkeys and some of the llamas were staring at all of us. Definitely a new twist on the usual running spectators! We finished, got to Starbucks, and I still made it to church at 10. This is the upside of 5ks as a race length.

I went to the local library on Saturday and got a few coffee table type books on garden and design. These are good to get from the library as they are bulky and expensive! I spent a nice hour yesterday reading through one on Virginia Woolf’s garden. Apparently Leonard Woolf got quite into gardening at their Monk House and her diaries have various entries on what she saw out her writing studio window. It is now preserved and open to the public on occasion. Maybe another place to visit.

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo a little late by going out Sunday night with the two older boys for dinner at our local Mexican restaurant. We were able to sit outside, which is just always a treat. I am looking forward to many more meals outside this summer.

In the spirit of Tranquility by Tuesday Rule #8: Batch the little things, I also did what I called a “Stuffy clinic.” Some children’s special stuffed animals had various rips on the seams so I sat down and sewed four of them in one fell swoop. Good as new!

What I’ve wound up doing the last two weekends is splitting my long run into two parts. This past Saturday, for instance, I ran in my neighborhood from 7 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. I then took my 7-year-old to his 9 a.m. karate class. After getting him situated, I ran around that neighborhood for another 20 minutes. The weekend before I had run an hour with a friend in the morning, and then ran 30 minutes later in the morning with my 15-year-old.

Is it as good as running 90 minutes or 105 minutes consecutively? Possibly not. But in terms of training I assume it’s better than not adding on the second run.

I’ve been doing the same as I practice my new speech. With a new book out this fall, it’s time to switch up my material. Running through the whole speech requires 40 uninterrupted minutes when my voice isn’t tired. I’ve done that a few times, but I’ve increased the volume of my practicing by viewing the six chunks of the speech as separate entities. I practiced two before bed the other night (which was about all I could muster). I did another section in the car on the way to my audiobook recording yesterday. And so on.

Long, uninterrupted chunks of time are great when we can get them. Unfortunately, for various reasons, those chunks might not always be available. When that’s the case, it’s tempting to think that we can’t get anything done. But life is seldom either/or, and perfect doesn’t need to be the enemy of the good. It might be possible to get things done in little pieces. Little pieces, over time, add up.

Since I seem to wake with the sun in the summer, this new schedule opens up possibilities. This morning I was home alone with the four younger kids (the oldest of whom is almost 13). I decided it would be OK, if I woke up long before them, to go run laps around the yard and up and down our driveway (which is quite long).

So that is what I told the older kids I would do (so they’d know where I was if they woke up and I wasn’t there). I only ran for 20 minutes because if the toddler did wake up I didn’t want to leave him in his crib too long. But all went smoothly. I managed to run before the heat of the day hit. I came back, made myself some coffee, took a shower, and then managed to read my Shakespeare for the day (Much Ado About Nothing) before anyone stirred.

We have been in the little kid phase for a long long time. But slowly that phase is ending. The 2-year-old woke up dry and successfully tried the potty (!). The kids helped me with making dinner and with taking the trash out last night. The older two have been making their own lunches for camp without me reminding them. It’s interesting to see how time changes as children grow up. I may be able to build a morning routine yet! (Well, until the school year starts and we have to be up at 6:30…)

In other news: A few weeks ago, I mentioned my friend Katherine Chen’s new historical novel, Joan (about Joan of Arc). She got a nice write-up in the New York Times about it — please check that out!

My flight from Des Moines to Chicago left at 6:25 p.m. Thursday, after my speech. I saw there was an earlier one, 4:55 p.m., and I thought about trying to switch, but I would have had to rush after my talk, and I was chatting with people and listening to the last speaker, and I couldn’t have gotten on an earlier flight to Philly from Chicago anyway, so it wouldn’t have gotten me home any earlier. So I stuck with the 6:25. I had a 48-minute layover in O’Hare. Not my favorite option, but that was what there was to make the last Philly flight (8:45 p.m.).

Despite the rain, we took off on time. We landed early! I was thrilled how well this was going. And then we taxied and taxied and…circled all of O’Hare, finally parking somewhere on the tarmac to wait for a gate that did not become available until 8:35 p.m. About 10 of us ran to the Philly flight, and all “missed” it. As in, the plane was still there at the gate, and was for several more minutes, but they’d shut the door so that was that. While everyone was yelling about that I went online and grabbed a seat on the 6:20 a.m. flight (the 9:30 a.m. one disappeared before my eyes) and booked a room at the nearby Marriott. Alas, I wound up getting only about 4 hours of disjointed sleep because I was a bit worked up by the evening sprint through O’Hare. After writing a blog post about not running every day, I wound up running twice in one day! Only once by choice.

The speech itself went well. Alas, this was the first trip where my new dietary issues wound up being something of a bummer. Longtime readers have heard my lament of suffering from sore throats and congestion. It appears to be a combo of “silent reflux” and certain food sensitivities. Dairy is a big one.

Anyway, I spent a lot of time in airports over the last three days and it turns out to be a lot harder to avoid dairy than I’d realized when you’re eating at the sorts of places that pop up in airports. Everything has cheese on it. Almost any salad has a layer of cheese. Sandwiches all have cheese. Pizza is of course covered with it. Many random other entrees are served with, say, a cream-based topping. I wound up eating a sandwich with cheese on the flight out because I was hungry and I am pretty sure the “special sauce” on a burger I got later was dairy-based (I’m not experienced enough in this to ask…and maybe it’s denial. I want to be a person who can eat anything and it looked good.) Sure enough, throat trouble.

(I now realize that some of my older episodes of Before Breakfast sound a lot more gravelly because of my chronic congestion. While I am bummed about the dairy issue, my singing voice is more clear in its absence!)

I am back home now. I think things will calm down next week. I turned in the Tranquility by Tuesday manuscript. My four speeches this week are all done and I only have one event next week (virtual). We listed the house, and while keeping it clean for showings won’t be easy, at least the ground work is done. There is still a move to orchestrate at some point soon but not quite yet. So time to pause and breathe. Well, and take the kids trick-or-treating….

Photo: 5 a.m. airport selfie. Good times. 

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! 

This weekend went roughly according to plan, which is always good. On Friday, I helped the 11-year-old pack for his weekend scout camping trip. They were supposed to meet locally, then drive to the site about 45 minutes away, check in, and have the non-camping parents come home. I anticipated this might take more than the 2 hours that sounds like it should take, but I did think my husband would be home in time to pick up the 9-year-old and 6-year-old at a karate Friday night party at 9 p.m. Alas, he didn’t make it home until 10 p.m. (he had to help set up the tent and so forth…) Fortunately, I have a 14-year-old, who could stay with the sleeping baby while I went to get the other kids. The logistics of five kids are tough enough as it is. I am really glad they do not all need parental supervision at all times, and some are old enough to supervise others.

Saturday morning featured pancakes, a karate class, and a Target run because while my husband had purchased the wedding presents for the couple we were celebrating later in the day, he had not considered the wrapping paper question, as evidenced by a comment that went something like “Hey, could we just use the Christmas paper?” Fortunately, Target is close to karate, so I could go during class. There was a soccer game and then getting into the only black tie dress I own that still sort of fit (sigh). We drove to New Jersey for a very nice wedding in the couple’s backyard. They had gone all out with a huge stage and dancing platform and gold-foil wrapped palm trees. We drank mocktails only and hightailed it out at 8:45 p.m. because my husband and I had…

…the half-marathon in the morning! The Philadelphia Distance Run is the replacement for the old Rock ‘n Roll Philly half-marathon. I had been a bit worried about the logistics, but they had limited the field (we never saw a bib number over 4500) and so we could take Uber almost to the start and, having left the house at 6:56, we had already used the port-a-potties and were waiting in our corral at 7:21. The wave start went swiftly and we were never in crowds for the entire time. Indeed, there were a few moments in the last few miles where we couldn’t actually see more than another runner or two. The day was beautiful, but 13.1 miles is still a long way to run. We made it, but I was feeling it the rest of the day (and today, to be honest).

The rest of Sunday was a bit more relaxing. Our Sun AM sitter had taken our younger kids to go pick up the 11-year-old at camp. Fortunately, this went far better than the drop off, and we all came back to the house around the same time. I played with the baby for an hour and put him down for his nap around 12:20 and then just vegged. I started work on one of my autumn-themed puzzles (I bought three…it’s on the Fall Fun List! Don’t judge!). My husband went to Costco, which is his form of relaxation.

Then it was on to the kid activities. One child had a tennis lesson at 5. Another had a baseball game with practice starting at 4:30. There was a Cub Scout season start-up BBQ at a park. I took the 9-year-old and 6-year-old with me to the tennis lesson and we hit TJ Maxx to entertain ourselves. I recall being fascinated by that store at various points in my life, but this particular branch of it seemed quite…random. We wound up with a contraption that shoots tennis balls for the dog to catch. The Cub Scouts comped the kids with tickets for the ice cream truck, which means that we didn’t wind up eating dinner until close to 8 p.m. Sunday night.

The next weekend looks a little less logistically complex, so we might get some of our fall trips in. We shall see…

In other news: BOBW listeners may recall the episode with Lisa Canning from 2020. She is hosting an online event on entrepreneurship and motherhood called “The Possibility Mom Summit” from Sept 24-26, and I’ll be one of the people she’s interviewing. You can register here. We had a great conversation and…she is now expecting her 9th child. Wow!

Long-time readers know that I have both a monthly and weekly newsletter. I’m always looking for folks who are doing newsletters well that I can learn from. I’ve been enjoying Mary Laura Philpott’s newsletter, where she highlights a book, a link, a song, and a picture each time. You can sign up here.

As the time stacks up, the place becomes its own draw. We go there because we always go there. And it is a good place to spend a week as a family, particularly the house we have been renting these past few years. It is right by the ocean, with views of the water from the gigantic front porch and almost every bedroom. We went to Days’ Ice Cream every night. I ran on the boardwalk several times. I took the big kids to the Silverball Museum in Asbury, where we played on all manner of pinball machines, and it appears that my daughter’s Under 13 Girls record on one machine still stands. My husband and I went to the Asbury beer garden — so I could cross that one off my summer fun list. The kids jumped a great many waves and built a great many sandcastles.

And a highlight unique to this year: I scored a 1982 copy of Martha Stewart’s Entertaining from the free beach book bin. I’ve been reading through that and learning about Martha before she was Martha. In her catering life, she once produced a 1000-person outdoor party where she hired young actors to create fairy scenes. When she once found herself short on working burners she boiled pasta in an oven. The woman is resourceful to say the least.

The weather was amazingly cooperative. It was warm, but not blazingly hot. We only had rain for half a day toward the end (Hurricane Henri came through after). Travel with a toddler isn’t exactly easy but between my husband and me and my mother-in-law and a family friend who visited for a few days, we had a lot of hands.

The day before we left, my husband’s phone popped up a picture from Ocean Grove in 2014. The kids were 7, 4, and 2 — and there were only three of them! They were so little. Time keeps passing. But it’s nice to come back to the same place as time passes. We like to travel other places too, which is one reason we’ve never really looked into buying a beach place even though we go to the same town every summer. But for a week or so, we settle into the rhythm of shore life, noting the tides, watching the waves and the moon as it glints on the water. I just put in my request for next year’s dates, so it looks like the tradition will continue.

In other news: I took the big kids apple picking on Saturday at the same place we went for peaches a little over a month ago. The peaches were still in season, but so were the early apples, so we got both! We always buy Honeycrisp apples at the grocery store, but I miss the window to pick them every year because — it turns out — it is a mid-August/early September apple, and NOT a fall apple, at least in this growing region. So, if you happen to be a fan of Honeycrisps and similar style apples, and you’re interested in picking them, you might want to look into that soon.

In other, other news: My husband and I are both training for a half marathon here in Philadelphia in mid/late September. I don’t follow a formal plan for half training, though I generally try to do 1-2 10-milers. I’ve done one this summer and plan to do another next weekend. This weekend I did about 9 miles. I focus on trying to accumulate minutes over 60 minutes spent running, with a particular focus on minutes over 90 minutes. I was slow this weekend, so my 9 miles definitely accumulated some of those.

I’m also fascinated by a WSJ article (paywall, but just search around and you’ll see people talking about it) about people working two full-time remote jobs at once. The point several people made is that they were only doing about 10-15 hours of real work in the office and were just wasting time. Once they could work remotely, they simply filled the time with other things. Some people spend time with family or take up hobbies. These people found second jobs. While any time you have to hide something, that suggests some ethical issues, I think this should best be viewed as a wake-up call for managers to really think about how to use employees productively. Time is a valuable resource, and even if you feel you are paying for a certain amount of it, in much white collar work, you’re paying more for tasks than time. So it seems a shame to waste time for no good reason.

We had extended family visiting, and cousins always kick up the fun levels. They came late Friday, so we had make-your-own-pizza night before then, and I made progress on my next puzzle (a hot air balloon festival scene from White Mountain) while we waited. There was much rejoicing and bouncing on air mattresses when they showed up around 10:30 p.m.

I got up Saturday morning and went for a run with my friend Jane. Since I’m signed up for a half marathon in September, I wanted to aim for 10 miles (also, it’s on my Summer Fun List!). The day dawned cool, so we went for it. We maintained a pace of 10:36, and finished in approximately 1:47. I have to say, I was glad I was not running another 3 miles after that, but if I can run 10, I can probably run 13.1, so hopefully the next few weeks of training will make me feel more confident.

Then it was home to the house full of relatives and home-made cinnamon rolls! I took the toddler to his care arrangement and then the rest of us headed north to Easton, PA to go tubing on the Delaware River. I had never done this before, but it’s a great activity for big kids (minimum age 6). All of our crew, ages 6-15, enjoyed it. We took a bus up the river a few miles, and then paddled out to the current, all tethered together. Due to recent rains, the current was swift, which was a net plus in my book. I enjoyed tubing but probably would not have liked 4 hours of lazing on the river. A little less than 90 minutes of floating seemed just about perfect for our crew. We drifted back to Easton where they fished us out of the river and took us back to the parking garage.

Tubing down a pretty river with lots of cute kids is the sort of thing I might take a lot of photos of, but we were strongly advised to leave our phones in the car. I suspect the tubing company has gotten a lot of complaints from people who drop their phones in the Delaware and wonder if anything can be done to retrieve them (nope). So the memories are all in my mind (and just as well — as we were exiting the river we passed a couple hunting around in the murky water for a dropped phone…)

The big kids all went over to the new house to play in the yard and do a bonfire but I stayed home with the toddler. He went to bed pretty easily, though, so I was able to do some work on the back porch — getting a little ahead for the week while enjoying the summer sunset. And then more puzzle! I am making progress, slowly but surely.

After the cousins left early on Sunday, we relaxed at the house — even a full weekend has some downtime, a point I find often gets missed in any discussion of the virtues of doing “nothing” — and then went to Chanticleer Gardens.

Despite this establishment being a mere 15 minutes from my house, I had never been before. It seemed like a good “little adventure” — and a nice option for the post nap slot.

And mostly it was, although 5 minutes after we arrived, it began raining. The drizzle continued for most of our time there. So we just saw a lot of pretty flowers and woods…in the rain. There was a fair amount of complaining about the weather, but there were koi in the ponds, and that partly made up for it. I’d like to go back when it’s nicer. A fun side note: As I was paying our admission fee, someone asked “hey, are you Laura Vanderkam?” Turns out she recognized me from Instagram* — maybe I’ll post the Chanticleer photos there if I don’t have tubing ones…

*@lvanderkam. Almost at 10k followers, so would appreciate a few more to put me over.