And now, it gets hard. Really, really hard.

Back to school, back to reality.  But a new twist:  Bug is in kindergarten.  So a whole new level of craziness here as both of us are getting used to the whole idea.  He much better than I, for sure.

My big Kindergarten Bug

The beginning of the school year is crazy, as usual, and this coincides with my workouts getting harder.

I'm just going to say it: I am really scared.

This is hard.

These are the same things I just told my APUSH students last week:  this will be hard, at one point in time you thought it was a good idea, someone else also had to agree that you could handle it (to register for the course), you will want to drop out, but if you just trust me, you can do this.

Trust me.  Don't give up.

It will be a fine balance of working hard but not giving up your life or sanity.  You'll need to put in lots of time, but you'll figure it out.

I told them how our scores are always really, really good.  Well above the national average.  Last year I had 16 fives and 16 fours.  (If you don't speak APUSH, I'll just tell you that those are really, really good scores.) They just need to breathe, remember they can do it, and trust me.  

Already I have some panicked faces coming to see me.  They are wondering what they got themselves into.  And I'm sure as next week's test approaches, I'll see a few more.

I'm seeing workouts that flat out scare me.  Last week I had a really, really rough time getting through them.  I basically didn't, if you take into account that I had to stop and rest a few times because I was dying from the humidity and I had a pretty serious stomach issue that almost landed me in the ER and OMGOMGOMG WHAT HAVE I DONE THIS IS HARD I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN DO IT.

Maybe I need to sit in a chair in room 2028 and listen to the WORDS coming outta my MOUTH.

I'm trying to remember that there will be good runs, and there will be bad ones.  Sometimes I won't hit a pace and life will have to go on.  Sometimes my ankle will get creaky on me and I'm gonna have to just ice it and keep going.

At one point in time, this sounded like a good idea.

I know it's in there.  But it's going to be very, very difficult.  And I'm going to have to work very, very hard.  Like, get up at 5am to run 9 miles before I teach all day hard.  And then have enough in me to function after school hard.

And, ultimately, to remember why I do this in the first place.

Life is too short to take the easy road and be complacent.  And on those good runs, which really do outnumber the bad, when I hit that pace I never thought I could or run a 7:38 mile at mile 13 of a 14 mile run, I am reminded of this.  Reaching for something just out of reach is good for you.  It makes you better at pretty much everything.

And that's worth the five.  Or in my case, the three-forty.