Daily Chatter

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Offset Factor

My work life has been crazy stressful lately.
Wait. 
Who am I kidding?  Big girl work life is always stressful.
It just been super-size stressful. 
This has left me grouchy.
Yes.
I know it's a shocker for those who real-life know me.
But it's true.  I have been grouchy.
With no concrete racing plan at the current moment I am free to run basically whatever mileage and workout I feel inclined to run each day.
If you also follow me on Daily Mile you know that this week my mileage is uncharacteristically low.

and why wouldn't you?  click here
No wonder I am grouchy!
As of Thursday evening I have only run 34.5 miles.
For the stress I am producing that is way under the Stress Offset Factor for me.
But after my 6.5 mile run last evening, which was 20 seconds faster than the 6.5 mile tempo run I had done the night before, I was feeling too tired to finish out my planned 10 miles.
I was happy for the strong run but concerned that my lack of mileage would begin to mentally bring me down.
So when I walked into the house and saw this:
Today is Day # 376
My concerns were immediately gone and my heart was filled!
My two boys were sitting together on the couch both 'working on their computers.'
Stress off-set factor achieved!

11 comments:

  1. When you are bummed about your mileage, just think of me and the big fat zero on my dailymile page ...

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  2. I love that your super low mileage week is still higher thatn my super high mileage week. :)

    LOVE the pic of your boys...

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  3. Oh that is so sweet!

    Hope you can get your run on this weekend!

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  4. It is wonderful that your boys are close, despite your army son being gone a lot! And, no I don't follow on Daily Mile (I'm not on there at all) so it is good to blog about it too. Hang in there, stressful weeks don't last forever and you'll get your mileage back up soon enough.

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  5. LOVE that picture. I count on moments like those. Hope the stress factor goes down soon. And you are still kicking my mileage booty!

    PS - Been voting for you =)

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  6. That is so cute! I love that the big brother has time for the little brother. That's what families are all about.

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  7. Your mileage is still amazing. It's hard without anything on the agenda. I'm not really sure where I'm headed next either. With a few more weeks (or days), I'm sure we'll both have lots of plans.

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  8. My friend's husband is a computer guy, and as soon as they got pregnant, he bought on of these little play computers. They get the best pictures of the two of them "working" together :)

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  9. You still have great mileage! You will feel stronger for next week with less miles this week! Sometimes we have to cut ourselves a little slack.

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