Consistency

Hooray for warmer SD weather and DRY roads! 

Six years ago our lives changed. For forever. I began running. Ha ha. Just kidding. Actually, six years ago this coming Tuesday, March 11, we transformed from a two-person household with a dog-as-a-child to a three-person household with a dog. (Seriously--the second we brought a baby home, the moment we crossed the threshold, the dog turned into, a dog.)

Oddly enough, our seven-pound addition didn't eat food from the fridge or require her own room (at the time), but she turned our world upside down. I remember crying. Lots of crying.

And that happened even when the baby slept.

Those were dark days in my personal past, but parenthood has made our lives nothing but better. It has made us nothing but better. It has done nothing but strengthen our marriage, communication, and overall teamwork skills. And it's fun.

I had one of those philosophical triathlon moments this week as I finished up my weekly lunch date with our almost-six-year-old at the school cafeteria. I've tried from day one of kindergarten to know her classmates' and friends' names. I just like people. And I really like these little people. As a result, I call them by name now, and they know who I am. But this rapport did not happen in the first week of school or even the fourth week. It took time. Week after week of saying hello, asking them how they're doing, and just making conversation with the kindergartners. I never expected results immediately. Nor did I expect the positive results I'm seeing now.

This made me think of our race (and even our training).

I want results. Now. I want to see some weight fall off. I want to see higher numbers on my bike computer and lower numbers on my Timex GPS watch. But this will only happen with consistency. Repeated session after session of working out. And each workout is like one more visit with the kindergartner, building a relationship one conversation at a time. Building endurance one workout at a time. I guess it's like our buddy Jason always says, "Consistency leads to success."

So we plug away right now. JT had his best training week yet, and arguably, I did too, but I didn't hit the numbers that he did. He nailed every workout he intended to tackle, with a bike, swim, or run all but one day (that wonderful day off) and sometimes twice a day, and he even (drum roll please) started strength training. This is a huge change in the regimen. Oh yes, and he started eating breakfast. Little but critical tweaks like this, we're hoping, will make a big difference down the road.

And so I'm riding his coattails for now. I did not complete the same quantity of workouts as he did (one swim and one bike short), but I did do something everyday, and I incorporated strength this week as well.

Moreover, we had fun. We are learning to behave more intentionally with our time. Jim Elliot wrote, "Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God." Family life has been like that this week as well as training overall. And once again, I find myself so blessed to have a great partner to share this well with. We are so SO blessed.

Pushing the "Reset" Button

This view lessened the pain of our runs. 

The Polar Vortex has worn on all of us this winter. All of us. My students who live in Alabama and Florida tell me about their “freezing” temperatures. And I reserve all judgment because, after all, they’re experiencing their coldest temperatures too. Even we thick-blooded northerners are feeling the pain of colder-than-average temperatures. As a result, dozens of the local yocals have sought a respite.

So did we this weekend.

Only the Troxells go further north during the coldest months of the year for vacation.

  

On Friday shortly after 5am we roused the blessings and headed north to Duluth for a little respite from the norm. We basked in the beauty of the north woods as we caught up with friends and engaged in some great training sessions with fitter-than-us friends and played with the kids. All in all, it was a great weekend. Here are a few of the highlights:

• A great start: we anchored the weekend with an excellent week of training—some of the best we’ve put in so far thanks to a bit looser schedule (hooray for Nikki’s Winter Break from classes!)
• Fastest trip ever to Duluth: the blessings did wonderful as we booked it to Duluth and made the best time we’ve ever made on this trip as a family.
• Sadie: This has nothing to do with training but much to do with last week. Sadie is our one-year-old who has decided to keep us on our toes more than any of the other children. She doesn’t make the blog lots because, well, she’s one. She does what one-year-olds do. But after this week I’m going to give her a new name: Houdini. This week she did things none of our other kids have ever done. Tuesday: she stuck a pea so far up her nose I had to use a tweezers to extract it. Thursday night: she took off her own diaper. I found her bottom-side up asleep in her crib when I checked on her before turning in myself. Friday and then Sunday again: she worked her way out of two points in the five-point harness in her carseat. Seriously, how does a kid do that? And then she opened her own window. You think she wanted out? The stinker. We love her.
• Caribou Coffee: it anchors our stops. Mr. T. plans this particular trip according to the Bou locations along the way. We drive until we arrive at a Caribou OR someone demonstrates a dire need for a potty stop.
• Supper at Grandma’s Restaurant. Mr. T. found a spacious hotel room near Canal Park, walking distance from both Grandma’s Restaurant and Caribou Coffee. So Friday night after some time in the hotel pool with the kids, we caught up with friends over some of the best food that Duluth has to offer in an historic building. 
• Five people in one hotel room. Family vacation with three little blessings doesn’t mean lots of sleep, but it does mean lots of memories. Our kids found ways to make the most of the hotel room, pretending they were hotel security and making “keys” out of the notepad and pen in the hotel room. They also discovered a cupboard in the room that the two biggest ones could fit in at the same time.
• GREAT workouts. We managed to put in two fantastic workouts Saturday with some friends of ours. While the dads took the kids swimming at the hotel pool, the moms did laps at EssentiaHealth’s lap pool. Then while the moms took the kids to lunch, the dads put their laps in. The runs in the afternoon worked in a similar fashion with dads and moms taking turns watching kids and running.
• Long run in subzero temps: our friends have a screw loose, to put it nicely. They live in one of the colder areas of the lower 48, and yet they insist on running outside. So, when in Rome . . . we comply. With several layers on, we both took our turns at approximately 1-hour runs in subzero temperatures (windchills hovered around -20F). My eyelashes froze and started to stick together. My running buddy’s pants accumulated some condensation and literally had a layer of ice on the front. Oh, and our running companions, they both had faster paces than our regular pace. All in all, we put in great workouts we did not enjoy in the midst but felt great about at the end.

  

  There's a LeSabre under there somewhere.

• Snow. LOTS of snow. We thought we had winter. These people have winter. Saturday afternoon we found ourselves wandering through a residential part of Duluth thanks to a malfunctioning GPS. The snow piles and drifts dwarfed our SUV. I just wish our kids could’ve seen whatever snow removal equipment pushed this snow. Really, this quantity of snow was insane. 
• Jacob’s Ladder: After we finished the swim and survived the run, the dads ran off to pick up some Papa Murphy’s while the moms recovered and took care of kids. Our buddy Jason showed Mr. T. the Anytime Fitness where he works and trains. He gave Mr. T. a brief introduction to Jacob’s Ladder, which left Mr. T. breathless after a minute. Yep, a minute. I guess it’s an effective training tool. 

More than anything, this little break from regular life, despite the subzero temperatures, offered us the chance to push the re-set button. Life has felt somewhat like a never-ending routine, and this particular break gave us the chance to just breathe a little and think about what we want to accomplish in the next 30 weeks. Because we have just that amount of time before we IMChoo. Bring it. We’ll be ready.