Saturday, January 19, 2013

Peer Pressure

The people I run with are sure good at peer pressure.  They and their peer pressure are the reasons I have signed up for many races, did my first half ironman, and every single one of the overnight relay races I've done.  Recently, they've been talking about doing another half ironman as a group this summer/fall.  They're talk quickly turned into action and many of them signed up including Dave.  Honestly, they've gotten into my head too.  There's a large part of me that wants to do it.  But then there's reality and it almost makes me a little sad.

I promised myself that I would not sign up for any post baby races while I was pregnant.  I have no idea how quickly I'll bounce back or if I'll even have time to train or want to train, so I'm not spending money that I may not get back.  And then there's the obvious stuff.  Like, why do I want to do another triathlon?  I don't even like triathlon.  I made so many strides in my running last year, why would I not want to continue to pursue my running further?  Plus, I haven't been on a bike on almost a year and a half.  And right now I not even sure I can physically get on my bike, which leaves me about 4 months to go from zero to racing on the bike.  Yeah, I don't know.  Finally, there's that whole, I'll have a baby, thing.  If I sign up for the same race as Dave then someone has to watch the kiddo.  My parents are already going to be watching the baby a lot in early summer because of our photo booth schedule.  While I appreciate it and I know that they don't mind and would love time with the baby, I promised myself when I got pregnant that I would be the parent and not someone else.

The good news is, I'm not falling into peer pressure.  I'm not signing up at this time.  I can entertain the thought all I want, but I can't and won't be making any decisions now.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

This makes me smile... you've come a long way! :) Stick with your guns. The race isn't going anywhere (I'm assuming... crazier things have happened) and if the time comes closer and you WANT to do it, take the plunge back into tri world. And it's totally cool if you don't. You'll be kicking ass running anyway. :)

TriMOEngr said...

Every infant is different and how you cope with it is different for everyone. After a difficult pg (10 weeks bedrest), my first baby came out screaming and didn't stop for 4 months. It was a traumatic time for me and I was in therapy shortly after the end of his first year (when the added stress of building a house became too much and he was sick all of the time b/c we had changed to a bigger daycare). Conversely, my pg with #2 was comparatively uneventful, her infancy was comparatively easy (though still tough b/c I was alone and also caring for a 3 year old). I bounced back physically way faster with #2 (probably b/c I wasn't on bedrest). So hard to know and best not to commit to much of anything until you see how it is for YOU. Best advice I ever got was to not worry about what others thought or did - to do what works for YOU as a parent. That includes activities that pre-parenthood seemed easy to say yes to.