Showering After Running: Rise, Run, Rinse (Maybe…), Repeat
You always earn it, but the real question is: Do you have time for it?
Sitting down at dinner after a long day—or maybe just inhaling leftovers over the sink—you wonder where yet another day has gone. You got the kids to school, then soccer; you got fruits and vegetables in them a couple of times; you found the three-month-overdue library books; you did a gazillion other things you can’t recall right now, but you do remember one thing: the 7-miler that at 5:45 a.m. you pounded out in preparation for your upcoming half-marathon.
Did you remember–or have time–to shower after that puppy? Hmm…need a little time to think about that one?
SBS, for example, realized that she had managed to complete three different workouts without once stepping behind the shower curtain. So we asked our other mother runners what their records were. From the multitude of Facebook comments that we received, here are some of the highlights:
The award for most days of no-shower-but-daily-sweat has to be given to a mother runner by the name Sara, who ended up finally taking a shower at the end of day 6. Perhaps never wanting to re-smell that experience, she says, “now it’s more like, ‘how many times can I shower between runs?’”
But like many of us, a majority of mother runners admitted to not showering simply because there was no time in the day. BAMRs like Julie and Paula said that it is a very regular occurrence in their lives to go two or even three days without even a rinse. Now that she’s not on maternity leave, however, Julie found that work has saved her from the addictive non-showering cycle. “I have to be polite to my coworkers and my patients,” she notes.
Others, like Kim, treat her runs like dates, making a point to always shower before she sets out. The idea of giving a workout a little bit of refreshing respect is maybe not what many people would think of doing, but Kim ends up not feeling as ‘dirty’ after each workout.
Some mother runners also had some crafty ways to cheat the system:
Jessica, for one, admitted to going three days without bathing. But instead of going to bed still feeling super sweaty, her ritual includes what she likes to call a “Whore Bath”: taking a wet washcloth to her face and pits before slipping into her clean PJs.
Stacy, who said she usually prefers to shower right after workouts, also admitted to using the same trick when time gets away from her. Following in her mom’s tradition, however, she likes to call it a “PTA bath,” standing for the all too important pits, tits, and ass.
Now that we’ve had a little Ragnar action, we can say with certainty that dry shampoo and full-body wipes (Action Wipes are our current fave) are an adequate substitute for a shower.
Lastly, Emily left us with a hidden silver lining for those times when you feel like your perfume just isn’t doing the trick. She purposely didn’t shower for two days “to ensure a protective bubble at a consignment sale.” She was able to spend an entire day browsing without a single person coming within five feet of her and interrupting her flow.
So, even though showering may have to take the back burner more often than we would want, maybe we can all start using our sweat to our advantage. Either way, we can be sure that whenever we actually do get the time to shower, we’ve definitely earned it.
How’s your showering track record? What’s your record for most days gone without going behind the curtain?
Safety First
All the self-defense you’ll need, courtesy of our guest Susan Schorn, condensed to 3×5 card.
Sarah and Dimity finally found an ideal expert to talk about running safety: Susan Schorn, the author of Smile at Strangers, and Other Lessons in the Art of Living Fearlessly and a second-degree black belt who has been teaching karate and self-defense for almost 15 years. Bonus: Susan, a recreational runner and mom of two, has a sense of humor. Talking about self-defense from an empowerment perspective, Susan shares some small, habitual behaviors that are easy to put into practice. She also instructs runners to aim for the “soft spots” on an attacker’s body, catching, “hold of everything you can.” (Male listeners are sure to squirm at this point in the podcast.) Susan shares wisdom in projecting self-confidence while running, and recognizing the power you already have.
If you’re digging our podcasts, we’d be super-grateful if you’d take a minute (because we *know* you have so many to spare!) to write a review on iTunes.
**Also, the quickest way to get our podcasts is to subscribe to the show via iTunes. Clicking this link will automatically download the shows to your iTunes account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that!
The Most Important Mile of my Life: Kate Harden
Kate and her son Drew in the final stretch of a 1-mile fun run. “He has tears in his eyes and a forced smile on his face.” Thankfully, there was a happy ending to this mother-son run.
St. Louis, MO mother runner Kate Harden, 32, shares a memorable mile she shared with her son Drew.
I’ve logged many significant miles: the joy of my first double-digit run, running through the frustration of a miscarriage, the terribly wonderful first postpartum run. But my most important mile came during a 1-mile fun run with my kindergartener earlier this fall.
We were all smiles and excitement at the starting line, but our enthusiasm quickly diminished. After about .2 miles, he had had enough. He wanted to quit and kept telling me we were going too fast, even though our pace resembled a slug moving through quicksand.
We spent most of the mile walking with intermittent bursts of running. “Just run to that tree,” I begged him. But no amount of cheering from me would get his feet moving faster than a shuffle. I pleaded. I cajoled. For whatever reason, his heart was not into it.
With only .1 of a mile to go, he broke down in tears. I showed him the finish line and promised him bagels and frozen custard after we crossed it, but he couldn’t do it. We sat on the curb crying for a few minutes until he finally regrouped enough to run the last stretch.
It was certainly not the run I had expected, but I learned a great deal about myself as a mother during that (painful, frustrating, slow) mile. I had to set aside my type A desires and really stop to listen to my son. That mile was about spending time with him, being patient with his frustrations, and persevering when we both would have preferred heading to the car and going home.
A few minutes after the race, he gave me a big hug and said, “Mommy, even though I cried a lot, I had fun running with you. Can we do it again?”
Of course, sweetheart. Anytime.
All smiles at the finish!
What was (or will be) the most important mile of your life? We want to know.
We’re going to make this an ongoing feature on the website (and potentially include some important miles in our yet-to-be-named third book, out in spring of 2015). Best way to submit is to email us your story with a picture: runmother {at} gmail {dot} com with “Most Important Mile” in the subject line. Please try to keep your mile stories under 300 words. Thank you!
Tell Me Tuesday: Tricks for Making Track Workouts Feel Easier
Two bada$s mother runners: Molly (right) and I goofing off after a recent workout.
Unless my memory is fading faster than my ability to read the newspaper or a menu without eyeglasses, I can’t recall doing a track workout since spring 2011. The last one I recollect was when I was felled by plantar fasciitis during some final repeats before an upcoming half-marathon. Crumpling to the ground in pain and clutching my right foot: yeah, that memory stands out in my mind. But nothing since then.
Until last week: My running partner, Molly, got a crazy notion in her head that we needed to start training for half-marathons. (She’s signed up for a local race, and chances are very good I’ll be doing a women’s race the same weekend but in another state. Race TBA.) Usurping my usual role as the bossy half of our duo, Molly decreed we’d be add some track sessions to our training plan. So at o’dark-thirty last Monday morning, under a sliver of the moon, I was running in an oval, following Molly’s bouncing ponytail. Halloween-spooky fog crept across one end of the sunken track.
Given that I was 2.5+ years older than my last time around the track, I figured my times would be woefully slower. But thanks to a brand-new, bouncy surface, we hit the 400-meter mark at my previous mark of 1:55, and clocked that first 800-meter repeat (twice around the track) in 3:52. If our jaws weren’t already gaping for air, they would have hit the red, rubberized ground.
Teenage runners, blitzing along faster than Molly and I could ever dream of going, on the new high school track where we run.
After each of the next five 800s, we were as awe-struck as after that first one: We couldn’t believe that two mother runners like us—who have been around the proverbial track of life more than a few dozen times—could nail the times we set out to run on our first track foray. Perhaps more shocking to us is that the fourth, fifth, and even sixth 800-meter repeats felt stronger and less lung-bursting than the first few, yet we still hit our times.
We practically skipped home, high-fiving each other with shouts of, “you’re a rockstar!” tripping off our tongues as we went our separate ways to pack lunches and drive carpools. One week later (yesterday), I think we both worried the magic would have worn off, but as we cranked out five 1000-meter intervals, we marveled as we ran the 1000s at the same pace as the 800s. We started wondering whether the Nuun in our bottles had been replaced with water from the Fountain of Youth.
In case Ponce de Leon hasn’t been filling your H2O bottle lately, here are some tips for track workouts:
-Have a friend join you. Having someone by your side (or behind you) keeps you honest—and pushing hard.
-Trade leads. Yesterday Molly took the lead on repeats 1, 3, and 5, while I went first on the second and fourth 1000-meter repeat. Last week, Molly lead the charge on the first four repeats, whereas I took over on the last two after Mol said she was fading a bit.
Let Flo Rida transport you off the track. At least in your mind.
-Do it in the dark. I swear repeats hurt less when you can’t see more than 50 yards in front of your face. (But bring a Knuckle Light to read splits on your Garmin!)
-Or do it in front of folks. The one time I ran on the track when students were tramping across it to get to school, I busted my hump to maintain some semblance of my sports-ego.
-Crank the tunes. When I don’t have Molly as my wingman, Linkin Park urges me to, “Burn It Down,” Selena Gomez reminds me to run, “Like a Champion,” and Flo Rida asks me, “How I Feel.” In other words: Music gets helps get your (and my!) rear in gear.
-Only hit the track once a week. In an effort to avoid an intersection with injury, run just 10% of your weekly mileage hard or fast. For me, knowing one track workout is followed by six days of no visits to the oval makes the laps feel ever-so-slightly easier.
Now it’s your turn: Tell us your secrets for making track sessions seem less daunting.
10 Things I Wish Weren’t True About Running
Yeah, I’ll never be able to do one of these puppies, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t simulate (or at least sympathsize with) the feeling on really crap runs.
I had one of those break-you-down, am-I-even-a-runner runs on Saturday. A little over 7.5 miles with some speedy pals, and I couldn’t keep up. We’d start together—they’d nicely wait for me at corners and such—and then I would slowly drift to the back, and then continue to fall farther and farther behind. As they sped away, all I could concentrate on is that I couldn’t keep up, which made everything, from my glutes to my ego, just hurt that much more.
Turns out, it was a good run for me—my average pace was about 20 seconds faster than it normally is, thanks to continually trying to catch up—but that doesn’t mean it didn’t inpsire me to think of some things I wish weren’t true about running.
1. You have to move your own body weight by yourself. Granted, running isn’t pull-up (or even push-up) hard, but dang it if it doesn’t feel like that some days.
This is true, but it doesn’t feel like it when you’re been passed. Repeatedly.
2. You feel like you’re flying, then another runner truly flies by you, and you feel like a concrete statue of a runner.
Some might call running an obsession.
3. On the days you don’t or can’t run, all you can think about is when you will run again.
4. The first mile—or three—always feels so horrible, like you’re revving up the engine of a Model-T: all spurts and no hum.
Truth, child, truth.
5. No matter how many pedicures you get, your feet will never look normal again.
Or don’t. And pay the price.
6. The climb up a tough hill seems to go on forever, while it’s downhill counterpart whizzes by. I know life isn’t fair, but this is so.not.fair.
7. You can’t bank runs; if you ran 13.1 six months ago, then took off a nice chunk of time—or, worse yet, were injured—you get to start all over again from mile 1.
Google “chafing” and you get some really gross pics. You’re welcome for not posting them here.
8. Chafing. Actually, not just chafing, but not knowing you’ve chafed, and then getting in a hot shower and discovering you did.
9. No matter how awesome and accomplished you feel after a run, you still have to make—or figure out—dinner for your family.
10. Knowing that a run, no matter how ploddy or ugly or awful it feels while you’re doing it, is always, always worth it. Which means, of course, that there’s no excuse to quit—or to not go.
What do you wish wasn’t true about running?
Fueling for Epic Races Like runDisney
Our guest Jennifer Upton and her family after finishing the 20th Disney Marathon this past January.
Dimity and Sarah, along with registered dietician Jennifer Upton, tell you how to dine and dash. No, not leaving a restaurant without paying your bill, but how to fuel your body before a race that starts super-late (or super-early), like the upcoming runDisney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon, or Rock ‘N’ Roll Las Vegas, or a multi-day series of races like runDisney’s Dopey Challenge. It’s tough enough running 13.1 (or more!) miles, so Jen guides gals through fueling on race day as well as refueling post-race when runners might be surrounded by sumptuous offerings. Sarah and Jen (both moms of twins!) also share their fueling plans during a half-marathon, while Jen talks through her race strategy for the inaugural Dopey. But first, hear Sarah and Dimity debate who should get the Mother of the Year award: Sarah thinks her recent cross-country meet debacle with her twins puts her strongly in the running. (Fair warning: Be prepared to have a few Disney ditties stuck in your head after listening to this podcast!)
If you’re digging our podcasts, we’d be super-grateful if you’d take a minute (because we *know* you have so many to spare!) to write a review on iTunes.
**Also, the quickest way to get our podcasts is to subscribe to the show via iTunes. Clicking this link will automatically download the shows to your iTunes account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that!