This week was so hard, you guys. D was gone for the entire week leaving me on sole parental patrol with a toddler who's having sleep regression issues and throws tantrums for no reason and every reason. I think he may be having some issues with his daddy not being around during the week because I can't even count how many times a day he looks up at me with his big blue eyes and asks, "Daddy be back soon?" He's definitely to the stage where he's experiencing some separation anxiety and knows when someone isn't around. 

Having a spouse who travels when you have young kids and also work yourself is so mentally and physically taxing without the sleep issues. Add those into the mix and I'm just toast. I'm not the kind of person who functions well on little to no sleep. Never have been, probably never will be. 

This past week rivaled the months (10 months, to be exact) of brain fog-inducing, workout foiling, race spoiling sleep deprivation that we went through when B was 8 months until about 18 months old. Good freaking times. I'm hoping this isn't setting off months and months of sleep deprivation again and that this is just a small blip because I haven't even recovered from the last round of that mess. 

Aside from sleep deprivation, in general, I feel pulled in a million different directions and I experience tremendous guilt when I focus on one thing and don't pay attention to the others, even if it's just for an hour. I'm either working or taking care of my son, and squeezing in my workouts where they fit in so I don't completely lose my mind. But no matter what I'm doing, I think I should be doing one of the other things and I feel like I'm absolutely drowning under the pressure right now of trying to do everything. 

Privilege check: I realize these are problems I'm privileged to have. I have good job choices that allow me to continue to work in spite of our schedule, my husband has a good job, we have a wonderful son. But man, I am still so tired. And that sucks. 

In addition to the mental stress of this week, I also started the week feeling completely spent physically - my legs were aching, especially my hip flexors and my lower legs from the knees down and I was tired. The pain wasn't an injured type of pain or even delayed onset muscle soreness or hard workout pain. It was just a lot of fatigue in a full-body ache kind of way. Gross. 

I spent some time with a frozen washcloth on my knees and lower legs which helped quite a bit. As did a nice, long hot shower, yoga, and a few days away from running. I think I need to schedule a sports massage soon, though. Those are amazing. 

There isn't a ton to talk about specifically with workouts this week. Basically, I survived them. Some weeks that's all that matters. And my goals went out the window, partially because of being exhausted and partially because we got hit with a tropical storm on the weekend that made running a little dangerous. I got in my Saturday run, but Sunday's long run didn't happen half because of the weather and half because B was up partying until 4:30 AM and I got no sleep. 

I did manage to start feeling semi-human by Sunday evening, thanks largely to massive amounts of caffeine, so I went out on a short 3-miler. I love evening running in the summer. Love it. Even though it was really humid, my easy pace came in around 8:15 for that run. I was also tired, but I didn't have the sore fatigued feeling that I had earlier in the week, so that's probably why my pace was a bit faster. 

At least I got to a yoga class earlier in the week. One goal hit! Yes. 

Workout recap

Last week's goals

Last week's workouts

• Monday: REST
• Tuesday:  Hot vinyasa yoga
• Wednesday: Barre class
• Thursday: Easy run - 6.12 miles (9:04 pace)
• Friday: REST
• Saturday: Easy run - 6.04 miles (9:09 pace)
• Sunday: Easy run - 3.11 (8:15 pace) 

Another good thing this week - I got in some art time, which is key for me for stress relief. I painted a few quick (very imperfect, very messy, very not great) iterations of one of my beagles at the beach using a few different mediums, and I did a watercolor and ink sand dollar pattern that I plan to use in some products sometime soonish. And I'd like to paint the beagle again in a little more deliberate fashion so I can sell prints of it and hang the original in my house.

Next week's goals

This coming week is an intentional cutback week, unlike last week's mess. I'm running the Floppin' Flounder 5K on Saturday with no goals other than to survive the humidity sans an asthma attack. But I still want to make sure my legs are relatively fresh so I don't feel sluggish during the race - at least as much as I can not feel sluggish in the Charleston heat and humidity.

So, I'll be cutting back on leg workouts this week, including barre classes and speed sessions. Just want to keep things loose for Saturday. Hopefully, B will sleep better this week and I'll be able to get in my regularly scheduled workouts.  

And that's a wrap for this week. I hope you all have a great Memorial Day and enjoy spending time with family and friends!

PS - I'm linking up again with HoHoRuns and MissSippi Piddlin'  for their Weekly Wrap post. You can check out all of this week's posts here.