Balancing

I ran for about 25 minutes in between lessons yesterday - that was all I could afford, I'm afraid. I waited until the students had gone to their classes during my "free", then headed out for an out-and-back by the river before the next lesson started. I had a huge tailwind behind me on the "out" - "Woo hoo, I'm flying!" - and ran a lot further than I would normally have done. On the "back" it was more a case of "Heck, this much more to run back, and with a headwind too?"

I like being a closet runner at work. I prefer it if few people know about it. Running, in a weird sort of way, is a kind of personal joy, and I’d like to keep it to myself. So while I’m at work I try to run when pupils are having lessons or assemblies, so I can remain fairly unnoticed. One colleague, however, did discover why I’ve never appeared at the dining hall for the free school lunches – not hard when you’re getting ready and have a sock on one foot and a Nike on the other. Somehow we got briefly talking about marathons as she herself was training to run one. I explained that marathons, to me, seemed somewhat romanticized in public opinion, and said I couldn’t really understand why people viewed them as the epitome of distance running, when there are triathlons, 100-milers, 24-hour races, where people have to keep moving for longer. In light of these more gruelling races, a marathon doesn’t seem like much to crow about. (I think I might have unintentionally poured cold water on her burning ambition.) I also explained that I preferred half-marathons, as I can run that distance on a free morning or afternoon, and I didn’t really want to commit any more time to running than I already am, because, well, I have to work, and I also want to spend time with family. And some days I just don’t want to run, even though I have the time, because I want to do other things.

The balance between work, family, and personal wants/wishes is a tricky one. Time is a limited commodity that has to be spread among many areas, but how do we use it satisfactorily? If I have a busier time at work, and need to put in more hours there to get tasks over and done with, so I can spend time with family and on my own interests, how do I reconcile it with the fact that I will, in the first place, have to spend less time on my interests and sacrifice family time so I can get the work over and done with? If I’ve had a busy week at work, and have had to sacrifice family time, and also feel miserable because I haven’t run, would it seem selfish, if I unexpectedly had two hours free, to go running instead of spending time with family? If I opt not to run in order to spend time with my family, how do I deal with thoughts of "How can you expect to make others happy, if you yourself aren't happy?"

I try to keep my priorities in the order of family, work and exercise, which means when things get busy around here, running gets shelved. I know some people would consider that making excuses – “If you were really committed you’d get up at 4:30 in the morning to run” – but if that means feeling tired in the evenings and compromising family time then I’m willing to put running on the back burner for a little while. And sometimes I think it is worthwhile remembering that if you do have time to run, sometimes it is because that your family is pulling a bit more of the load to enable you to do the things you want to do.

Balancing is hard. I hope everyone finds their own balance. Don’t just live strong, live happy too.