It Doesn't Get Any Easier

"It doesn't get any easier, you just get faster." - Greg Lemond (cyclist)

I found myself reflecting on this sentiment while out running through local single track this morning. I was alone and I had time to think. I was running the exact same course that I ran on the eve of my 28th birthday. Come Friday, I will be 29. It was that solitary run one year ago that inspired me to write my first ever blog post. Really, it was that run one year ago that inspired me to change the way I was looking at the world and handling my life. I was frustrated, spending my days, long days, with pent up anger and frustration about not being able to run. It was my first year with three kids. Ages 3.5, 2 and 5 months and my stroller could only hold 2. I considered most days bad days. Each night was ended with a newborn asleep on my chest and a head full of doubt. How could I get through another day of this? Another year? I hate ending the day with regrets, feeling upset with myself, wishing I handled my two-year-old's tantrums better, wishing I had more patience during the nightly bed-time routine. Something had to change.

I had spent months debating with my husband and myself on whether or not to purchase a triple stroller. Crazy, right? Who pushes a triple stroller? Who runs with a triple stroller? My friend Jean convinced me that I could run with a triple stroller. "You may not run fast, but you can definitely run with it," she said so matter-of-factly. She believed in me. She made myself believe in me. "Maybe she's right," I remember thinking, "maybe I could actually run with a triple stroller."

Summer 2013 Triple Run.

One year later and I realize that triple stroller was the change. It made the change. And it whipped my body into shape faster than I ever could have imagined. I remember the pain I felt last year running that hilly loop, begging my quads to get me to the top of each climb, praying that my lungs don't bleed out at that moment. I also remember the bliss and the peacefulness that I felt. I remember realizing for the first time that "Running makes me a better mother."

Running does make me a better mother. It is my anti-depressant, my daily dose of feel good, life is good, I can do this. Without this triple stroller and without running, who knows what the past year would have brought. Would we have survived? Yes. Would it have been the best year of my life? Certainly not.

Last year I suffered on the trail. Today it was a peaceful, leg-opening jaunt. But still, it wasn't easy. It's never easy. And "It never gets any easier, you just get faster." So it is with child-rearing, it never gets any easier, you just get better (at handling the emotions, at keeping your cool, at being patient, at knowing what they need, at wiping bottoms, at wiping tears, at loving, at being you). What are you getting better at?

Nearly five years of being a mother and still learning and improving every day.