Horror week of non-training

Last Sunday, I was elated.

I'd run 30km - further than I've ever been on foot before; and I wasn't even particularly sore.

I felt great.

Right up until 9.21pm on Tuesday, when I got a text from my son's father to say that his Russian girlfriend was arriving two days later and would be moving in with him. I've been expecting it of course (we've been separated for over 18mths), but I didn't expect to have just two days notice.

I'm not bothered about him moving on and not jealous about them being together. I wish him well and hope they are happy. But it is complicated when there is a child involved.

William's father thinks I should trust his judgement and release my 2.5 year old son into the care of someone I don't know for weekend visits. I have a lot of well-founded reasons for being concerned about his judgement.

I don't want to go into the details here. Let's just say that we fundamentally disagree on when and how children should be introduced to new partners.

I had my last 5 weeks of training mapped out to the day. I was so pleased with myself for getting this far without needing time off for injuries. I didn't see this coming, although I probably should have. Suddenly, everything was thrown up in the air. It looked like my weekend long runs would be history and potentially I would have to pull out of the event because I would need to be here to look after my son.

Things really did look bleak for a while.

Thankfully, I did not smoke a cigarette. Phew!

But I did no runs last week.

I drank more wine than I'm used to, now that my body's a temple!?!?!

I ate cake, chocolate, biscuits .... anything sweet that I could get my hands on.

All of which just made me feel worse and worse.

I discussed the matter endlessly with friends, professionals, relatives. By Friday afternoon, I really was in a desperate hole. Really not the kind of hole I want to feel myself in again.

And then suddenly, just before bedtime, the final answer came to me and it was like a weight lifted and I could finally get up off the floor, and shake off the virtual kicking I'd been taking for years.

I spent yesterday settling into my new ideas and got up this morning ready for my first run in a week. I only did 8kms, but it was a really really good 8km. Not fast or anything, but strong and confident, and deeply pleasurable.

There's no more wine and no more chocolate in the house. Mum has volunteered to stay and look after my son rather than coming to watch me in Berlin. I'll move work around a bit so that I do my long runs mid week. I'll get a bit of extra help in from friends and family at the weekends in particular.

I will do the best I can for my son. I have lots of options. I won't be backed into a corner and forced into a course of action I am deeply uncomfortable with. I will set and hold boundaries and keep control over my life.

Everything's going to be fine.

The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting by Brené Brown

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She is highly regarded internationally for her research into vulnerability and shame.

In The Gifts of Imperfect Parenting: Raising Children with Courage, Compassion and Connection, Brené outlines how our mistakes actually contribute positively to our kids' development, well-being and sense of place in the world . Brené summarises it like this "It's actually our ability to embrace imperfection that will help us teach our children to have the courage to be authentic, the compassion to love themselves and others, and the sense of connection that gives true purpose and meaning to life." This is the wholehearted life.

According to Brené, it is impossible for us to "give" our children what we do not have ourselves. So if we want our kids to live a wholehearted life, we must first be doing so ourselves. To those of you that are already living the wholehearted dream - "you're amazing" (and you kind of already but humbly probably know it) - to the rest of us "you're amazing" (you just don't feel it yet). Here are Brené's 10 pointers for wholehearted living which are actually taken from her most recent book Daring Greatly:

1) Cultivate authenticity and let go of worrying about what people think

2) Cultivate self-compassion and let go of perfectionism

3) Cultivate resilience and let go of powerlessness

4) Cultivate gratitude and joy and let go of scarcity and fear

5) Cultivate intuition and trusting faith and let go of the need for certainty

6) Cultivate creativity and let go of comparison

7) Cultivate play and rest and let go of exhaustion as a status symbol and productivity as self-worth

8) Cultivate calm and stillness and let go of anxiety as lifestyle

9) Cultivate meaningful work and let go of self-doubt and supposed to

10) Cultivate laughter, song and dance and let go of being cool and always in control

You'll get a much better idea of what she's all about from her TED talks like this one on vulnerability

If you can make the time, I thoroughly recommend reading / listening to any of her work.

What am I thinking?

It often depends on what I've been reading.

So, I've added a new page ... Inspiration ... where you can find quick summaries and useful links to author's blogs, TED talks, book reviews etc.

Over the last couple of years I've read and listened to a lot of books on my quest to understand the workings of the world better. If I enjoyed them, I'll be including them. I  might even throw some of my favorite craft books in for good measure!

It's a bit sparse at the moment, but I'll keep adding to it.

What a difference a baby makes - an apology to my mum friends everywhere

At 40 years of age, I had left it quite late to have my first child. I don't want to say that he wasn't planned, because I happen to think that he was always going to be born, I just didn't know when. I've been surrounded by friends and family with babies all my life and what I realise now is that I was really quite scared of them. Babies that is, not my friends and family.

It was easier to leave the cooing and holding and nappy changing to my sister, who seemed to have a natural talent with both babies and small fury animals. I must have come across as aloof and disinterested, but actually I was terrified of not holding them properly, not changing a nappy properly, not feeding them properly, etc etc ad perfectionist infinitum.

I focused on my career. I got irritated with work colleagues on maternity leave or working less hours to accommodate family life. I partied. I bought a nice house. I had long lunches and danced into the early hours. I worked even harder, often because I was covering for colleagues on maternity leave in a small business, and yes, I'm still a bit annoyed about that.

As more of my friends started to have babies, I found new friends with no interest in having children. I still spoke to old friends, but I wasn't the friend I could have been if I hadn't been so scared and, as a consequence, disinterested and unsympathetic.

So far, W has been a very easy baby. He has had no health problems apart from a little cradle cap, he eats well, he has slept through the night from about 11 weeks and he smiles and laughs a lot. We know how lucky we are. And still, our easy baby is really really really hard work.

I wish now that I had been there as a support for friends whether their babies were easy or tricky. To ask the right questions, invite their ranting and listen properly as they just talked about how hard it really is to have children. I'm not giving myself a really hard time about this by the way, although I do wonder whether I might have really let some new mums down. The fact is, that as human beings, we naturally tend to identify more with those that we have a lot in common with. When friends move into different lifestages at different times, it can be tricky to find the common ground that keeps you close. I notice the same thing happening with mum, whose social time is increasingly spent with her single friends from the gym, rather than the friends she had as a couple with dad. I think it's one of those harsh realities that people can often not identify with a situation and truly empathise until it has happened to them.

So, I am sorry for not being there sometimes when I might have been able to help. Here are 20 things (in no particular order) that I have learned in the last 4 months that I would have already known if I had been there to listen:

1) The never-ending feeling of responsibility
2) It really does take forever to get out of the house and yes you really do need all that stuff
3) Babies are expensive, even when you have lots of second hand stuff
4) It is tempting to stick them in front of the TV for 5 minutes just to get some peace
5) Looking after a baby is the hardest job with the longest hours that I've ever done
6) You need some time off for you every week - that doesn't mean you don't love your child or you're a bad mother
7) It is amazing watching them learn new things, feeling them touch your face or hold your hand
8) Ditch the black wardrobe in favour of milk sick coloured items and just deal with the poo
9) You will not always agree with your other half on how to raise your child
10) Sex can be hard to get back into, may not feel the same, is disrupted by a baby monitor with the sound up, and is really important for maintaining intimacy in your relationship
11) Don't stress too much about your baby's routine when he's having a lovely day out with the grandparents/aunts/uncles/cousins/sisters .... just let them get on with it
12) Give them plenty of cuddles now because the time is gone so quickly and it's really hard (apparently) to spoil a baby up to the age of 6 months
13) On the whole, babies up to 3 months cry for a reason
14) Don't stress it if you don't get on with breast feeding
15) You are the centre of their world; they think you're amazing; enjoy it while you can!
16) Always smile at your baby, no matter how you're feeling
17) Get out and about so they can hang out with other babies
18) Accept all offers of assistance
19) Ask for help when you need it
20) Keep talking to your other half, get some time alone, be kind to each other even when you don't feel like it, agree expectations, make love