Liza Howard. Ultrarunning Mom.

Asa’s 5 year-old crush is coming over after school today.  And I am skipping my run to tidy up the house and buy juice and snacks.  There was a big discussion on irunfar.com a while back about why there aren’t more women running ultras — I think the average was something like 27% — and I didn’t add my two cents to the comment stream because the whole balancing-family-and-running reason seemed pretty well covered and I was having a fairly unbalanced day and didn’t want to sound too unhinged.  But today I would like to unofficially add “the duties of social coordinator”  to the list.  It’s difficult to to get the requisite runs in for an ultra with all these 5 year-old matchmaking responsibilities.  It’s time consuming.  For instance, I spent at least 10 minutes this morning — when I could have been rolling my calf — thinking about what kind of cookies these kids should bake this afternoon.  (I can’t think and calf roll at the same time.)  And now my sprint workout is compromised by toilet scrubbing.  Thank goodness my cleanliness bar has been lowered over the last five years or I might never show up at a race again.

OK, gotta mop and then get to the supermarket for some juice.

PS.  Asa’s buddy T. is spending the night, so if the playdate doesn’t go well, he can console himself in some pillow fighting-sword fighting-wrestling-messing up the house.  (Maybe I can get a run in on the treadmill while they do all that…)

UPDATE: Live from the playdate:

Asa: “Do you want to see how I can lift weights?”

Little girl: Silence.

UPDATE 2: DISASTER!

Asa and A. were battling with light sabers and A. stumbled into a bush in the backyard and tore her shirt and got a long scratch down her back.  Her mom had just arrived and A. left in tears.  Romance over.  Gotta go try to console the little guy who’s crying in his bedroom.  (And things had started out so well with Asa describing Saltines to her.  ”They’re these square crackers.  With salt.  Ever heard of them?  They’re really good.”

PPS.  Guess I should have gone on the run after all and left the toilet to fend for itself against the germs.