One of the Coping with the kids team manages to keep the household organized and maintain her running program

By Ashley Worobec

March 30th, 2020

BURLINGTON, ON

My family has come up with a big chart system, whereby we have listed 12 items that we think are important to include in each day. Every family member has their own chart and colours in their own squares, the idea being that by the end of this, we will have a brightly-coloured symbol of what we’ve been up to.

Every family member has their own chart and colours in their own squares.

We think the 12 important points are:

1. Outside time
2. Workout time
3. Reading time
4. Build your brain time
5. Alone time
6. Creative time
7. Talk/FaceTime a friend
8. Talk/FaceTime a relative
9. An act of kindness for someone outside your home (ie. raking your neighbour’s yard, mailing a letter to someone)
10. Eating >6 fruits/veg per day
11. Drinking > 6 glasses of water per day.
12. List something that you’re grateful for.

This has been a good way for us to give a bit of structure and routine to our days, while still maintaining each person’s flexibility on how they want to spend their time.

Burlington Marathoner Ashley Worobec does the Around the Bay Run – she didn’t see it as a cancelled event.

One thing we did this morning was really valuable for us all. I’ve been training all Winter for the Around the Bay 30K in Hamilton, which was scheduled to run this morning (March 29). It’s the oldest race in all of North America, and began in 1894- as a long-distance runner in this area, it’s pretty much a staple of Spring training plans.

Of course it was cancelled, but it only occurred to me a few days ago that I could still run it solo! And that’s exactly what I did.

My family dropped me off at Dundurn Castle on York Boulevard (the race typically starts and ends at First Ontario Centre, but Dundurn Castle made it easier for me from a logistics standpoint) and I headed East through downtown Hamilton, along Beach Boulevard and the canal lift bridge, and then across Northshore Boulevard’s rolling hills, to continue onto Plains road and end up back at Dundurn Castle.

My family met me at the 10km mark and at the 20km mark with water and Gatorade and cheers and hugs. It was such a chance for me to reclaim some normalcy in this abnormal world we’re living in, and it gave me SUCH a mental boost.

My kids and husband remarked how happy it made them as well, and I even saw two other runners out there doing the same thing as me, one of them wearing a homemade race bib that said “ATB Anyway”, complete with his wife ringing a cowbell at stoppage points along the route.