No Highlights Without the Lowlights – Parallels of Running and Mom Life

Musings from a ski hill…

The deeper I get into running and working  with other running moms, the more certain I become that motherhood and running are meant to go together. I constantly see ties between momming and running and how the lessons we learn as a mother and runner so often mirror and reinforce each other. Taking note of and appreciating these lessons molds us into a stronger and more resilient version of ourselves as not just a runner but a mom too. 

A couple of weeks ago we took the girls (6 and 4) skiing (in Iowa) for the first time. Yes, we have skiing in Iowa though the lift ride is usually longer than the run down. We’re flatlanders that love the mountains and see eventual ski trips in our future and thought it best to give it a whirl close to home this year. From an instagram point of view it would look like a day full of highlights – cute pictures of kids on skis and cozy moments in the lodge drinking coffee and cocoa. If you’ve done things like this with kids you probably know these beautiful moments are sandwiched by moments that make you wonder what the heck you were thinking and things that are just plain tedious – a heavy nose bleed at the top of the bunny hill, surf board carrying a toddler and multiple sets of skis down the hill, and the lost count of how many times we adjusted mittens and got kids clipped back into skis.

One truth of motherhood and running: You can’t have the highlights without some lowlights. Every highlight, whether a big milestone or race finish, is going to come with at least one stretch where you wonder what you were thinking and countless monotonous moments.The key in both motherhood and running is embracing some of the monotony and not letting those lowlights dictate the entire experience. If we’d let that first run down the bunny hill decide the day we were going to have, we would have just loaded the car (truth be told it certainly crossed our mines) and had a very short day. Then we would have missed the full body giggles from our 4 year old on the rope tow and the pride of our 6 year old going down part of the bunny hill on her own. Same thing for a race or a long run, at some point there will likely be a stretch that feels terrible, but it doesn’t have to take over the entire run. 

This doesn’t always come easy and some days it feels really hard to take that deep breath and settle in; either into the run or whatever you’ve gotten yourself into. But If we want those moments and experiences that feel like highlights, we have to learn to accept the lowlights that come along with them.

Hopefully, remembering this will be helpful next time a run feels hard or you’re trying to keep your cool on top of a bunny hill and when all else fails, there isn’t much a handful of sour patch kids can’t help.

If this connected with you in any way, I’d love to hear it. What are some things you’ve seen the connection with motherhood and running? Let me know in an email [email protected]. 

Keep Running Yourself Resilient!

Katlyn