I’m tired today. I ran a brutal marathon last night… in my sleep.

• the weather was awful in this race. It was cold and rainy…
• then we ran through a 5 mile segment that had suddenly turned to snow and dropped about a foot of snow in this stretch that we had to shuffle through.
• There were tunnels that were pitch black because there was no power to illuminate them. All the runners were shuffling along dragging their hands along a wall to keep some kind of an idea as to where they were.
• Further the rains were even harder and roads were flooded. We had to run an underpass that was flooded. There was a gate and a race volunteer instructed us we could stick to the race course and swim the underpass or cut a mile off and go through her gate, but we’d take a penalty. There was a line of us there waiting to take the penalty, but she was all scattered and rude and would only let one runner through the gate at a time while she searched through her notebook to check off with a pencil the runners who would be penalized while balancing her umbrella.
• We got through the gate and ran up a huge hill, only to have strong gusts of wind once cresting the summit literally blow runners off their feet.
• I keep saying “We” in this… I was running with a group of gals I had no idea who they were, but I think we just banded together because we were all in this same situation.

I was over 6 hours into this race and not near the finish yet when my alarm finally went off, saving me from this hellish experience that was leaving me to question, “Why did they not cancel the race?” My husband said I was tossing and turning all night long.

Irony… considering I was planning on posting about ALL THE WORKOUTS I wish I had time to do. Just thinking about that after the horrible midnight marathon exhausted me further! BUT in a perfect world, these are some of the workouts I would love to have time to do… you know, in my dreams. 😉

Running

I want to run 4 days a week. I usually make time to do that. I would love to have at least an hour for that each day, except for one day that needs to be long run day.

Zero Runner

So…. I haven’t actually tried the Octane Zero Runner. But I have decided this NEEDS to be my life. I have been meaning to incorporate more cross-training, but there’s the whole specificity of sport thing too… This looks perfect because it’s a way to keep building endurance and cardio health without the pounding! Plus, it’s quiet so I could do it in the early morning hours or late hours when the kid is asleep and I can’t go out to run due to heat/no backup parent/etc. Acquiring one of these machines is high on my to-do list. I wonder if they would give me a discount if I promised to blog/Tweet/Facebook/Pin/Instagram/Medium about it. (Wait… I just did blog about it for free! And I’m serious about this!)

Barre

I think doing a barre workout 4 or 5 days a week would be good for isolating and toning all those little muscles that are so important for balance. And I really like these workouts, they make me bust a sweat and they make me sore, letting me know they’re working areas that I neglect otherwise.

Surfset Classes

Easily the most fun I’ve had in a group fitness class. Also, not exactly the thing that one would do at home. The surfboard is big and not the most home-friendly option and I don’t think the class would be as much fun if you were coaching yourself through it. But these were fun classes and killer core workouts.

Yoga

Every day… every single day… I’d love to do some yoga each day. I did a daily practice in February and it was hard to fit in, some days it was literally just 5 minutes. But it also greatly improved how I felt; physically and mentally. Yesterday I did 20 minutes of yoga after my run and it was great, except for the moment that I lay down for savasana and heard “Mommy…. I need to go POTTY!!!!!!” from my daughter’s bedroom. I have a subscription to Fitstar Yoga, it’s really convenient to be able to get a variety of practices in as long as I have the time!

Strength Training

I have friends who have shown amazing gains and improvements by incorporating strength training. I have ZERO desire to do one of those “stand on a stage in a sparkly bikini flexing my muscles” competitions (Trust me, it would be a very bad choice for me to embark on that path with my eating disorder history.) but it would be cool to be able to knock out a few chin-ups/pull-ups. So maybe 2 days a week of this?

Hooping

I have a hula hoop and I am good at spinning it around my waist and hips… I can do that for a long time. It would be fun to figure out how to actually do tricks, like spinning it up and down my body and along my arms artfully. Then again, I’m very ungraceful so this is probably a pretty laughable proposition, but one I’d like to do purely for the fun of it. And to get to the point of doing tricks, you probably need to keep trying consistently, huh?

But incorporating all of these workouts means lots of two-a-days… which means more minutes and hours dedicated to working out. And all these workouts is going to lead to an increased need to shower. I always thought people were joking when they said on teh interwebs they had a hard time fitting in a shower once they had kids. But it really does get harder! Yesterday I took a shower after my run and as I was getting out of the shower I had a little girl run into the bathroom crying, but then she started laughing when she saw me and she said, “You have no clothes on!” Then she remembered she was upset and started to cry again and said, “Put your clothes on! I need you downstairs!”

Oh… and the sleep issue. I’m already sleep deprived a good majority of the time. I consistently get about 6.5 hours of sleep (sometimes fragmented when I have to go soothe a 2-year-old who is awake and saying, “I’m scared of the ladybugs!”) each night. And I would think that if I’m getting in this many workouts, I’d probably need more recovery time. A couple more hours of sleep… maybe a nap every now and then. Doesn’t a nap sound glorious? I’m so jealous of people who have kids that nap. The only way I could get my kid to nap is to strap her to me the first year of her life or to go on a drive around town at nap time. But if she would take a nap, maybe I could take a nap!

And there are other things that I haven’t explored as much but sound great. Pilates, PiYo, Orange Theory Fitness, SoulCycle (I don’t think these are even in Vegas yet)…

Are you like me, do you hear about all the different workouts out there and want to try them all?