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Hello everyone! I’m Cynthia, Jared’s wife. This blog is a joint venture, but if you don’t remember hearing from me before, that’s because you haven’t. Here’s why. I’m the type of person who jumps into things, goes hard for two-three weeks, then loses interest or gets frustrated by lack of progress. I have a hundred different interests that I cycle through and get a little better at each time. This week I’m trying to learn to make gumpaste flowers for my baby’s first birthday cake. It’s fun to know a little about everything, but I am pretty mediocre at most of it. My husband is much, much better at being consistent and finishing things. I’ve seen him go from starting Couch to 5k to running marathons, just by running even when he didn’t want to. I’ve seen him in a relativly short time go from barely being able to swim to swimming thousands of yards a week, just by consistently going to Masters twice a week (and watching a lot of swim technique videos). It’s inspiring, it really is; and it has shown me what can be accomplished when you stick with things. So I’m working on that.

Here’s reality for me. I have six children. Three are currently home during the day with me. Kids bring a certain amount of, shall we say, unpredictibility to the day. From not sleeping through the night to random messes, disasters, and emergencies, kids make sticking to a schedule difficult. Here are my tips for being flexibly consistent when your schedule (and maybe your personality) is unpredictable:

1. Get up early

This is the most straightforward one. Early morning is usually a time when you can do something without being interrupted. I’m a huge believer in getting enough sleep, so I don’t do this while I have a baby not sleeping through the night but the rest of the time I try to do an early morning run or gym class once a week. I find that doing something active early makes me feel good the rest of the day, and that having accomplished something early motivates me to accomplish more throughout the day- even if I take a nap at 2 PM.

2. Have 2-3 day flexibility

I’m training for a half-marathon right now, so my goal is to run three times a week. When I made my schedule, I have a goal for Monday or Tuesday, for Wednesday or Thursday, and for Friday or Saturday. I try to plan the week for when I’m likely to have the most time, but I keep it flexible.

3. Join a gym with child care

There are some issues here. Our gym charges per head for childcare, which can turn a “free” aerobics class into a pretty spendy proposition. But the promise of an hour or so of uninterrupted time is nice, and it helps me schedule workouts more consistently.

4. Take a class

My gym time is more effective if I’m in a class. This is especially true for swimming, where it can be hard to really push myself without a coach. You can meet some fun people, too. My water aerobics class threw me a baby shower when I had my first baby. Consistency can have the side benefit of letting you consistently hang with the same people, which doesn’t always happen if you stay with the kids or work from home.

5. Sign up for a race

Having a goal and a deadline is motivating, and it can get you off the couch on days you’re not feeling it. Planning out our race year has been really fun this year because we are anticipating being able to do some cool races and hopefully some longer distances. Having those goals in mind is definitely making it easier for me to get out the door (and lay off the cookies, incidentally, although there is still work to be done there)

I ended up with so many ideas, I’m going to break this into two posts, but before part two, we’re going to have a review about a new book about barefoot running that I’m really excited about. So, so long for now, and happy training!