It Is a Tough World Out There

Shame they don’t tell you before you have kids how the first days (weeks? Years?) of school are going to be like, because I would have enrolled on a training camp to toughen up. Or, better still, decide to hibernate, leave the husband deal with it, and wake up when it is time for summer holiday again. I may not have opted for the smartest thing to do when one is so bad at handling the drama involved, namely not to have a kid at all, but that’s only because I am not wise enough. 

To cut a (few days) long story short, things have not gone too well, school-wise, so far.

We did everything right, that is, before school effectively started and everything went pear shape. The list of things to bring had been carefully read, stuff bought and items crossed. Clothes had been tagged (admittedly in the night prior to the first day of school, but tagged anyhow). Cheerful comments about how big a boy N°1 now was and how excited it was that he would now be going to school. Visit to the hairdresser done. We even managed a shot of the four of us by the house, cheerfully leaving home for school on that first day.

and also a shot of the two of us looking relax and happy (I am the queen of faking)

A few minutes later, "cheerful" was a word which had been crossed out of our home dictionary.

I am lying a tiny bit since first school-day was actually OK (ish), but that's not saying much since the first day was actually one hour, half of which I spent at school with n°1.

On day 2, The Dad called me after having dropped Kid n°1 at school, to let me know n°1 was crying his head off when he left, and had said, unprompted, on the way to school that “really, he did not mind being left by himself at school”. If something should have raised the flag, I guess that was it.

On day 3 and 4, I took n°1 to school, and both mornings he tried to dive from the teacher’s assistant’s arms, through the glass door and in my arms, and I could hear him shout from the end of the corridor that he wanted to go home with me.

In between, I’ve had n°1 telling me he did not want me to start working again, as if I did not manage to build up enough guilt on my own.  He’s also been waking us up up to four times a night, something none of our kids has ever done, not even when they were only a few days old, or when n°2 was born, or when we moved home (I knew we would pay for that luck, sooner or later). And if you ever wondered whether sleep deprivation helps seeing things in a brighter light, I can ensure you, it does not. And what to reply to a little boy who is telling you he is “a bit scared” because there are “too many children” at school? “Wait, you’ve only met 28 of them out of 350”?

I know it’ll get better. At least I hope it will. In the meantime, the silver lining of this drama (if I really must come up with one) is that his sister is meanwhile starting day-care, all smiles and cute, funny noises, and I don’t even have time to realise that, starting next week when she’ll go to day-care three days a week, I will miss 42% of those smiles and cute, funny noises.

In the midst of all this, I have decided to sign up for my first 10K in... ages. I may not do too well, but at least, I now have "sleep deprivation" and "unlimited stress" to add to "lack of specific training" on my list of excuses when it is time to justify my appalling performance.

The Flaws of Paradise

We have been living in our new home for three months now, and we love it every bit as much as we thought we would.

Kid n°1, with no uses of a garden and despite our best endeavour to turn him as an outdoor kid, spend the first 2 1/2 years of his life trying to levitate rather than risking touching the grass barefoot. Two days after we had moved in, he was running in the garden not only sans shoes but in the rain. That in itself probably justifies the lifetime mortgage. As for Kid n°2, she is lucky enough she will not need to know the meaning of the word "apartment" for the years to come. 

Another reason for buying a house was that we thought it would be easier to invite scattered friends and family without having them stay squeeze in the office-cum-laundry-cum-ancillary-library-cum-fitness-room-cum-bedroom-for- baby-n°2 and accommodate them in a proper guest-room instead. This has worked beyond our wildest dream, since it has barely been a week without any visits since we moved in, and we may soon need to ask for advance booking. 

Talking about fitness room, we are now the proud owners of a mazot. Mazots are little wooden huts located in the main house’s garden, where people used to store the household's valuables in the event of a fire on the main house. Well, our mazot will definitely carry on serving its initial purpose since we intend, as soon as we have some spare time (famous last words) to refurbish it and house in there our dearest valuables: turbo trainers, bikes, weights and yoga mats and use it as our in-house fitness centre. 

There is no rush though, since the main selling point for our new home, especially that time of the year, is this:

A (beautiful, can I say it again) mountain, steep single trails, direct access to said trails from home. In other words, the perfect training camp literally on our door step. 

If you're fit. 

Because nothing, I repeat, nothing around here is flat. Not a single metre of trail. And this is tough when motivation is high but stamina inexistent, the result of several months of flat pregnant running followed by a couple of months of running-less post-partum (me) or weekends spent working in the house (husband). 

Initially, it was not all that bad. As I started running again, I was only allowed ridiculously short runs, and had managed to design a loop doing figures of eight in the fields which did not involved climbing Mt Blanc twice elevation-wise. It is now that I have been able to increase speed and distance than the issue has risen, since any hour-long run around here involves at least 700 vertical metres of climbing.

I guess the answer is: get fit. FAST.

Then, as I discovered, paradise can also be scary. Why, because every house or farm I run past seem to have at least one big, bad, barking dog which has waited all day that I pass by to start running after me with an unmistakable interest for my calves. Did I tell you I was s***-scared of dogs?  

I then decided the way to go was to go away from the fields and houses and in the forest on the hills. So far, the route I am doing on my hourly evening runs involves some steep, stony trails as well as a stretch of single trail snaking amongst brambles and high grasses. 

In other words, the perfect place for runs, and for snakes, and for me to walk on said snakes. And did I also tell you I was s***-scared of snakes? And here you start thinking that it is a bit rich of me to make fun of Kid n°1 for not being outdoorsy enough, and you'll be right: I am a sissie.

As if my fight against wildlife would be stopping when I by miracle come back alive from my runs. But it isn't so: we also fighting a hopeless battle in our own garden against moles and field mice. Our garden is in a state which reminds of the most vivid descriptions of WWI battle of Verdun. I spend every morning trying to fight molehills and mice’s holes, flatten the former out and fill the later with soil from the former (knowing they'll both be back minutes later), filled with a rage that will soon make me lose all credibility when telling my kids violence is never the way.

Three months here and I have found the secret: paradise is only for the Fit, the Fearless and the Fighter. For the others, there's purgatory first, paved with steep hills, barking dogs, biting snakes and omnipresent moles. The good news is, I think I can deal with purgatory for a few years.

Good People Run

Well, some don’t, and probably not all runners are to be found in the good people category either, but that’s not the topic of this post, in spite of the (therefore misleading) title.

Today was a special day. I went for a run. Any chance for a run is good to take these days, following Adam Smith’s principle that what is rare is dear, but what made this run special was that it was a group run. And not any group run, but my first group run in… 4.5 years!

The last 4.5 years, over which we starting to live in Annecy, were not very conducive to being both a social and a running animal, between an ankle still on the mend (year 1), a baby on the way (year 2), a toddler to take care of and a demanding job (year 3), re-a baby on the way (year 4). On a side note, and for those wondering why no group runs in years 2 and 4, you may have gathered from previous posts that pregnant running is not exactly common here (I am actually still waiting to meet another Frenchie who ran while pregnant). I therefore did not want to push my fellow runners in a corner where they would have felt they had to chose between immediately reporting me to social services for acts of torture on un unborn child, or calling 911 for the inevitable premature labour that my run would induce. Hence the lone running.

Until this week that is. Having “met” another runner-cum-blogger-cum-Annecy-dweller online, she suggested I joined the GoodPeopleRun’s Wednesday night group run. First thought was: “small world”. I had actually come across that website only hours earlier while doing some work related (yes, really) research. Second thought was : “thank you, but no thank you”, since the run started at 7pm, which, in Mum’s land, is pretty much the worse time I can think of for a run, between cooking dinner for kid n°1 (everyday), breastfeeding kid n°2 (everyday), giving baths to both kid n°1 and kid n°2 (should also be everyday but is not)… in a nutshell, pick your choice and the chance is it needs to be done in the 7-7.30pm slot.

In spite (or because?) of this the little voice started working: 

 “Sure, 7pm is not very practical a time, but wouldn’t it be nice to run at a civilised time of the day, and with other people, for a change.”

…

 “Actually, if Martin, just that one day, could leave work a bit earlier that he’s supposed to and take over at home, I could probably just about make it.”

…

“… and if dinner is ready and baths taken (or skipped), this should be pretty stress-free for him and consequently pretty guilt-free for me.”

…

 “Well, it is only for 10kms anyway, so it is not like I am going to be away from home for hours.” 

Here the little voice had become so convinced that my going running at 7pm was the best thing since sliced bread that it had switched from conditional tense to infinitive.

The little voice was sold and so was I.

So here am I, on Wednesday evening, ready to fly. Martin has done his bit by being home at 6.15pm on the dot and Meije has done hers by nursing later than she normally does, meaning that I had a chance to be back on time for “dinner” without worrying too much about her being starved. As for Malo, he has cried a bit but only because he “wanted to go running in Annecy by the lake too”, which was not so convenient but made me pretty happy because any signs he may become a true runner, one day, is good to take. 

As I park and jog to the meeting place I am quite curious to see who will turn up, since a group run organised via a social media is not something I would necessarily associate with the French way of doing things. Clearly I have been away too long or am the only one stuck in the 20^Th century, because the buzz has clearly worked, and a good 20 people are there. 

Tips for always being at the front on group photos : be a girl, or better, be a short girl. I am very good at both.

Introductions, on the other hand, are done the way I remembered introductions to work in France, meaning there are none. As we set off, I resort to silently refer to my new running buddies as Runner 1, Runner 2 and so on. As I will eventually gather all my courage to ask his name to the guy running on my left, he will seem a bit shocked.  First group run, and a 50-something guy thinks I am hitting on him. Way to go and make friends, girl… 

The unbreakable Thou-shall-never-ask-your-fellow-runners’-name-on-a-social-run rule aside, some other things will never change. Like... me, for instance. Me being worried terrified I am either going to be the one lagging behind (bad) or (much worse) the one making the rest of the group slow down because I can’t keep up the pace. And I am wearing a skirt, meaning I am at risk of being mistaken for the-girly-chick-who-jogs-but-cares-more-about-appearance-but-performance. Horror.

  “Which pace should I start at if there are several pace groups”, am I debating with myself. “I mean, there is no point in starting too slow, because I can do slow on my own, and today’s group run may be the only one for a while. On the other hand, which pace am I able to hold for 10 kms, these days?”  There I realise that, 4.5 years after moving back from London, I can still only talk about pace in min/mile. This immediately spices up the debate by having me trying to decide the pace I can hold without incurring death nor shame while simultaneously trying to do the miles-to-kms conversion. 

Bottom line is, as things indeed never change, I end up being in the leading pack. At first, we’re only “leading” at 12km/hr (or, as I calculate while running – thanks Dad for all those hours of mental arithmetic - roughly 8min/mile). That’s slow, slower than my usual runs in fact, but I remind myself this is supposed to be a social run, so I refrain the temptation to start like I am running for my life be a total arse and I stick with the other-runners-whose-names-I-still-don’t-know.

At the turnaround point, we suddenly accelerate. I swear I did not do it but truth be told, I am one happy bunny. A check at my watch tells me we’re now doing 14.5km/hr… Quick mental math again. 6.5min/m? Well, it starts looking like my kind of group run. If group run = social run = chatting while jogging along, then I am not the most social runner, but surely we can do the talking later, can’t we?

Obviously, as we speed up, the little voice comes back. “Hey, it is getting faster, and I’ve not done fast for a while. I am going to look really stupid if I can’t hold the pace until the end or make the others slow down.” By now however, a competing little voice is also saying: “ helloooo! I am pushing! I am sweating! My legs are working! I am getting in the zone! I am feeling strong! I AM HAVING FUN!”

It looks like if I finish red-faced, it won't be because of shame anyway, because we're back to our starting point and I have not caved in nor have I held anybody back. I am elated, not dead.  Sure, I have been faster and for longer, but it now feels like it can all come back if I want it and try hard enough... and go to group runs. Which is fine by me, because I am ready for the next one.

And there I realise I have missed them, the group runs.

I love running. On my own. With my man. Trail running for the scenery, the ever-changing pace, the feeling of wanting to throw up when it gets real steep. Road running for the regularity which allows these “meditation runs” by the lake, lost in my thoughts, or even sometimes free of any. But I also love running trying for sheer speed. That, I have missed over these past few years because the “group factor” was missing, and I never push myself as hard as when I run in a group (and am scared of slowing everybody down or being labelled the-slow-girl-in-the-running-skirt). And isn’t that also “social”, after all, enjoying the company of other runners while using each other to push ourselves? Which is probably what the GoodPeopleRun’s “making running a team sport” motto means…

There was a time

There was a time when I knew it all.

I knew I loved running.

I knew I loved travelling.

I knew kids were fun... ish... At least for a while. Actually, only for a while.

I knew lots of running and lots of travelling did not match too well with kids (even not a lot of kids) so I knew I did not want kids.

After a while, I also knew what to reply to people (read "my mother") telling me that was selfish : wasn't making babies who had clearly not asked for it the true selfish thing?

There was a time when I still loved running but could not do it anymore because love hurts, sometimes, and sometimes it even leads to surgery, and to a 9-month running ban.

There was a time when I met Martin, who, against expectations, was probably a bit *mentally impaired* (or drunk?) since he fell in love with me.

There was a time, less than six months later, when I still did not want kids, still loved running, still could not run, when Martin's mind was still not 100% operational, and when we went on holiday in the Southern Alps Ecrins Massif. Since I could not run nor climbed, we biked, and Martin proposed.

One day, after a gruelling day-ride on the Plateau d'Emparis, we stopped by a lake, starring at the magnificient Meije Peak on the other side of the valley. 

We said that if one day we had a daughter, she would be named after that peak, the symbol of our love for the mountains, for each other, and for mountaing biking, of course.Which, of course, was a joke, since I did not want kids.

There was a time where the having-kids joke had become (a nice fantastic) reality. The reality was a boy, whose name brings pictures of rough waters and blue-grey skies instead of mountains. Meije-the-mountain was still in our life though, and running was back into it. By then, having discovered something magic going by the name of Chariot,  I begged to differ when hearing that running did not mix well with kids. And when even Chariot (or our legs) was defeated by the terrain, we could sometimes count on grand-parents to look after our boy for a few hours while his parents had decided to run and get a close-up at the Meije. 

Bless them for understanding the attraction... or maybe had they just learned the painful way how it feels to be next to me when I am run-deprived and realised it was way more pleasant to be baby-sitting Malo instead.  

There was a time, almost five years to the day after our ride in front of the Meije, when we found out I was expecting our second child. Five months later, we were told it would be a girl. Eight and a half months later - having inherited her mum's limietd patience, or heard so much about mountains she wanted to check for herself what the big deal was about, and nine months seemed to long - Meije was born.

It has been four monts now... 

 ... and our life of adventures with the two Meijes is only starting.

Oh look Maman, it's you and Meije!

... is what Malo said when he opened this, a present from his Granny :

No need to say I took it as a compliment, was chuffed Malo immediately associated a running Playmobil with his mum (note / the key word here is "running") and will make sure this playmobil set will never, ever, get lost.