The week didn’t start off so swell, with a fall on the run. But it ended up okay. On Friday I had the day off work and I went for a wonderful 8 miler. (Island Boost continues to work well for me!) I think the run went so well because I wasn’t stressed about having to rush home to baby care or taking time off work to try to get it accomplished. Long runs have really become stressful for me; where they used to be a nice relaxation and ME time, now I feel like I have too many demands on me.

My hand wounds seemed to be mostly healed after the fall now. But my leg looks pretty!

This week, my plan is to get in a few short runs and then… ready or not, here I come HALF MARATHON. Nerves… I’m worried how the baby will sleep that night when she’s in a hotel room with my mom and me, thus worried about how I’ll sleep. Worried about pumping for her and getting to my shuttle bus on time. Worried about covering the distance.

But I really liked how a new friend phrased it. He was asking about my goal for the race and I said I was just going out to prove I can do it postpartum, not shooting for a time goal. He replied to me “Get your miles and smiles in.” So I’m going to get my miles and smiles in!

Addendum: This was the RW Quote of the Day. I liked it, I think it’s applicable to the race too.

Focus on what it’s like to be outdoors, to feeling your body move, to the relationships you may have built through running. These are experiences that can be reproduced with every run—you don’t need a good finish time to produce them. By shifting the focus from results to running itself you’ll feel empowered.

Jim Taylor, Ph.D., a sports psychologist and author of Prime Sport: Triumph of the Athlete Mind, The Bliss List, Runner’s World.com