A Day in the Life

Sometimes at work, when people find out that I run anywhere from 80-120 miles a week, they ask something along the lines of “how do you do it?” Well of course I usually give some sort of glib answer like “left foot, right foot, repeat”, but here is the more practical (and detailed answer):

5:30am: Wake up, get dressed, etc.
5:40am: Out the door
5:40am - 7:05am: Run run run # 1
7:05am - 7:40am: Shower, dressed for work, grab some food
7:40am: Off to work
8am - 5:45pm: Work work work
6:10pm: Home again
6:30pm: Out the door for run #2
7:10pm: DONE!
7:45pm: Dinner with my lovely wife, play with dogs, relax, etc.
9:30pm: Bedtime

So that’s pretty much the gist of it. The thing that occurs to me is that this schedule would not really be practical if Emily were not also a runner. Even beyond just tolerating this absurd amount of time exercising, she also joins me on a lot of my easy runs, which means an extra hour and a half per day together to enjoy each others’ company. And who else but a runner would tolerate 9:30 bedtimes? The crazy thing is, there are plenty of runners out there with even more difficult/hard to manage schedules (not to mention kids!), so I try to never think “oh man, this is so tough.” I enjoy running, and I’d say on about 90% of my runs I have a pretty good time, so doing little things like going to bed early isn’t so much a sacrifice as an adaptation. And speaking of, Emily informs me that it’s getting a little late right now...