School starts Monday!! I can hardly stand it. Seriously. I love my kids and at the end of the school year I am so ready for them to be home and for our schedule to lighten up.

And it was lovely for 3 months. Or at least 2 of the 3 months. And now I’m ready. Ready for structure, and schedules, and kids too tired to fight who don’t tell me they’re bored or call my cell every five minutes to inform me that they are bored or hungry or sick of their brother or the dog pooped on the floor or the toilet overflowed.

It’s a beautiful thing to get back into routines, don’t you think? The start of the school year always feels more like New Year’s to me than January 1! But I know it’s going to get busy and I’m going to need to make sure that my fitness and self care go on the calendar with as much intentionality as the driver’s ed classes and wrestling practice and piano lessons.

So here are my guidelines for myself:

• Run first thing – if I wait and think it will fit in somewhere else, it won’t. It never has. It never will.
• Make sleep a priority. I will officially be in marathon training in 2 weeks. I cannot skimp on sleep. Period. This may mean starting to wind things down no later than 9pm which will be tricky and require lots of family cooperation. I believe we are all up to the task.
• Eat to live. I am terrible at planning out my food. I’m great at feeding my family (OK maybe not great but pretty good) but tend to just make due with my own diet (especially since I’m a vegetarian and they’re not – it’s too easy to just eat an avocado and popcorn. Not terrible but not sufficient either.)
• Say no to everything. Almost. Clearly, I can’t say no to everything (nor would I actually want to) but I will be seriously considering before making any commitments (even the ones that seem awesome!). In other words: no jumping before I think it through. The phrase “let me pray about it” works wonders (and is actually totally authentic)
• When I fail and my training takes a back seat, no self berating. We only have space in this training schedule for moving forward. There will be no crying in our “I overslept and didn’t get my run in” soup. All I can bring to each day is the best I have. Some days I will fail, and that’s gotta be OK. Resilience over perfection wins every time.
• Make time to be with God every day. I desperately need this to center myself and too often it falls off the list. On the days when everything else goes wrong, doing this right tends to give me the perspective I need to get through.

I hope this new school year brings all of us cooler temperatures, sane schedules, and balanced lives. Oh, and a great sense of humor. And if you have kiddos, may this be a great year with teachers who inspire them, friends who encourage them, and more fun memories than you can manage.

Happy Running.

Jen