@thisismymarathonlife

2 Comments June 25, 2019 drworobec

As most of you know, I’m running in the New York City marathon on November 3rd.

It took me a few tries to qualify for this prestigious event (Then the Wheels Came Off), but I managed to meet the time standard last Spring at the Mississauga half marathon (Race Report and Reflection). This has allowed me to bypass the general lottery system that New York implements to meet the huge demand for their race, and I’m grateful for an automatic entry.

But I haven’t run a full marathon in 12 years.

Two kids, a husband, a business, and a very busy life, are going to make this training plan feel very different than it did for 27-year-old me. I turn 40 this year, and what better way to celebrate than to challenge my limits again and run in one of the biggest races in the world. I have several friends and training partners running in this race too, and I can’t wait to be side by side with my dear friend Michaela, who will be running in her first marathon (21.1kms of Friendship).

Are you interested in seeing what’s involved in marathon training?
Have you ever wondered how someone can run 42.2km?
Would you like to see how I balance it all?

Many of you have asked me questions like this over the years, so I started a shiny new Instagram account to show you exactly how I’m going about this. You’ll see my workouts, my paces, what I eat, when I go to bed, and how I recover. I’ll show you the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, and the highs and lows of the next 19 weeks.

It’s 131 days until I toe the line on Staten Island and cross that finish line in Central Park.

Come along for the ride: follow me @thisismymarathonlife.

Shoot the puck

2 Comments February 19, 2019 drworobec

My daughter is six years old, and for the past two Winters my husband has been her hockey coach. She plays for a local girls hockey league, and this year she’s got one hour of practice and one hour of a half-ice game per week. If there’s anything cuter than a pack of ponytailed Grade 1-ers chasing a puck, well then I’ve never seen it. She’s been on skates since she could walk, like a true Canadian kid, and she’s well-versed in Hockey Night in Canada and the Leaf’s Stanley Cup drought. With sport-obsessed parents, she’s come by it honestly.

The improvement in her skills from the start of the season, at only two hours of ice-time per week, are incredible. She’s gone from wobbly and timid to confident and sure-footed. She can put her gear on entirely by herself, except for skate laces and helmet snaps. She can pull her hockey bag, carry her stick, and she can last the full hour of ice-time. She’s a dependable, capable competitor. And yet, we’re teaching her to pass the puck….

Let me explain.

In a recent hockey meeting that my husband attended, it was pointed out that as our girls are growing into hockey players, they are often taught to pass the puck to their teammates. In amongst the skill-building, they’re being told to give everyone a turn, to share the puck around, to not leave anyone out. All good things, yes. However, this has led to older players scoring less, favouring the pass over the shot. Now, I have a son in hockey too, and I attend most of his practices and games; I see that he too, is told to pass the puck. But not as often. And not in the same situations.

You see, these instructions are heard differently through the ears of a young girl. These words are spoken within a society that teaches girls to be polite and kind and teaches boys to be forthright and determined. And while I’m not going to delve deep into the gender equality conversation on this chilly Tuesday morning, this post is a snapshot of what’s been on my mind. I’ve got Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” and Kirstine Stewart’s “Our Turn” on my bedside table and I’m fresh off a Mexican vacation where women in the workforce was a big topic of conversation.

So I hope that my words make you think.

This small example, using the metaphor of hockey as life, shows me that there’s still work to be done.

Let’s teach our girls to shoot the puck.

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Three years ago, learning to skate.

Ten.

Leave a comment January 22, 2019 drworobec

My son turns ten years old today. Ten. A full decade, two whole hands, double digits.

How does this happen? I think that time speeds up exponentially when you become a parent; that’s the only logical explanation as to why the last ten years have flown by so much more quickly than the ten before them. Each stage of parenthood has been an adjustment, but a very gradual one, full of such small daily changes that they aren’t even noticed until you look back and realize they’ve occurred. He still needs me, yes, but he needs me far differently than he did then.

I wrote a post when he turned five, and now five is a distant memory and we are on the road to the tweens. I read over my original words again yesterday, and I cried at this part:

You are one half of my greatest accomplishment, my biggest treasure, my deepest emotion. My everyday-moment-joy doubles when you smile and raises tenfold when you laugh. I hurt when you hurt, and when you cry on the outside I cry on the inside. Before we had you, I wasn’t even sure I wanted children, or had a maternal instinct inside of me. You changed that, my love. You showed me a side of myself that I didn’t know even existed, and a side of myself that now seems so intuitive, so fateful, so clear, so this-is-what-I-was-meant-to-do obvious.

My biggest treasure, my deepest emotion. All still true.

Happy birthday my sweet boy.