Kaitlyn is one of two new guest bloggers who will be writing for 42.2 for the 2016 marathon training season. She will be writing monthly blogs, updating us on the ups and downs of her journey from 0 to 42.2.

By Kaitlyn Fulton 

Seriously, how cute is Kaitlyn's running partner? – Justina
Seriously, how cute is Kaitlyn’s running partner? – Justina

No one said it would be easy, they just said it would be worth it.

This month specifically has been a challenging one for me. I started a new job for the summer (as opposed to being in school at the University of Calgary) in beautiful downtown Calgary. I wasn’t sure what to expect when combining working full time with a taking a spring class, keeping up my training schedule and playing soccer, but in my head it went much differently than what I am currently experiencing.

My run this past Thursday (which was scheduled to be cross training but I wanted to bring my dog so…) brought to light that I am working my way to exhaustion with being too busy and not being able to fit in enough sleep. At the beginning of my run, I was drained and well aware of it. I even crawled into bed after eating dinner to relax before heading out, but that didn’t seem to help very much. And as for the run itself? It was my hardest to date. If I had brought my phone with me, I would have called for a ride at the halfway point. This is the first time I really wanted to quit, and I am NOT a quitter.

Thursday was a wakeup call that I cannot continue with this cycle of running on little sleep and using coffee as a solution (I am not a regular coffee drinker). In order to increase the amount of sleep I get per night I will need to plan better moving forward and set priorities and stick to them. Maybe I need to make all of my lunches for the week on Sunday nights, maybe I need to get my runs in during my lunch hour at work, and/or maybe I need to socialize less with my family and friends. I’m not exactly sure what the solution looks like at this moment, but I know it’s a problem and I need more sleep to function properly.

Training for a marathon is more time consuming than I think I fully realized. I signed up for this challenge and I love the training, friendships and experience, I just need to learn how to be more effective with my time so that I will be able to meet my goal of running the Victoria Marathon.

We have our first race coming up this Sunday and I am nervous but excited!!

Stay tuned…

How do you balance work, life and training? It’s something I haven’t quite figured out yet either and I would love to hear your advice! – Justina