Training Just As Much As I Can

I've read a ton of guides on how to train for a marathon, and even a bunch on how to juggle busy schedules, but none of them really take into consideration the single mom. While I can drop my 6-year-old off at the gym babysitting area for an hour on occasion, that doesn't really do me that much good. So instead of being able to train the recommended days a week for running, I'm lucky to squeeze in two or three days with my hectic life.

 That's not to say that I don't do other exercise on the other days. On the early mornings and nights that my daughter is with her dad, I usually get in a bootcamp class or a training session to help with my overall weight loss goals. A yoga class to help with my sanity. An interval running session with my trainer once a week and then usually a long run and another short run if I'm lucky.

And my daughter and I walk home from school, or all around town to go to the library or the movies, or hiking. So I'm more than active in my non-work/commuting time, even when I do have my child, but I don't have the luxury that most of these training manuals do. They all suggest getting up early to run. Love it! But what am I supposed to do while my kid is asleep? They all say to enlist your spouse to be on baby duty. Not an option and I'm pretty sure that child protective services would have something to say about me leaving my kid and running 4-6 miles in the morning while she's snoozing. Or even leaving her so that I could go down to the gym in my building's lobby.

I have an elliptical trainer in my house that I can use, but that's not the same as the pounding of running, and honestly I can't afford a decent treadmill at this point. So I'm doing my best. I don't know if it will be enough. I'm not a natural runner at all. I still do a lot of walking, as I can really only run for about 5 minutes before I need to slow down.

The interval training is definitely helping, and everyone around me seems pretty confident that I can do this marathon in the allotted 7 hours, even if I have to crawl at a 16 minute mile pace across the finish line. I just worry that between a recent injury to my ankle and my abbreviated training, that I won't be quite at the same level as everyone else come race day. Then again, I did manage to finish my triathlon with the aforementioned tendon issue, in a slower than I wanted, but not totally unrespectable time last month. Maybe I'm just worrying for nothing, but I've got a feeling that I'm not going to get much of a good night's sleep in the weeks before the Philadelphia marathon arrives.