Who Begged For the Downpour???????

So after a bad week, I would have given my left arm (Who truly needs an arm to run? Look at the Boston time for the guy with two artificial legs. I'll be lucky if I ever do a marathon in twice his time!)to have a good run. First interval, not so bad. The second wasn't amazing but it wasn't horrible. Just to set the record straight, E was in front of me in the stroller. By number three, Ellis was by the side of the trail while A and I ran in big circles.

Time to digress about jogging strollers. It is truly important to have a good one. I will admit that when we started this whole crazy adventure that I thought I would be quitting within a month or two. I found a stroller on Craigslist for $30. That was a price I could justify to my husband when I quit (welcome to my world of positive thinking).

It is an older In Step model with a fixed wheel. I will never forget the woman that I picked it up from. They still had their Pennsylvania plates on the car and the rust on the rims of the stroller belied it's Northern exposure. She told me that she had just had another baby 4 months ago (her oldest was too big to be in a stroller now) and decided she deserved an upgrade. I couldn't really concentrate on the stroller as all I could do was look at her rail thin body and think to myself, "you just had a baby 4 months ago?" E was 11 months at that point and still looked like my pre-baby self had swallowed one of her whole. I asked a few basic questions about opening and closing it. She volunteered as I left, "It really has been a great stroller. You just need to know that it gets almost impossible to push after about two to two and half hours." BWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really would like to think that she peered into the depths of my soul and believed that, one day, I could run over two hours. At that point of our training, I would have taken over two minutes as we were still running one minute and walking five.

Anywho, I have been grateful to have a stoller. That being said, this one was crafted in the bowels of hell. It is possible to make do with a fixed front wheel stroller. If you have the luxury and the extra means, I highly recommend a free-wheel model. I know not everyone will be able to run with a partner. One of the methods that A and I have devised is parking E by the side of the park trail and running in circles around him. For safety's sake it is necessary that you both run opposite directions. Do not run so far that you can not turn your head around and see the stroller or be back to the baby nearly immediately. If another person starts heading towards the stroller, whomever is going that direction will turn back and run in tight circles until that person has passed back out of the circle. Sometimes this will be just enough to keep you going in an interval. There have been days when the stroller has parked for almost all intervals. All the stroller is is extra effort. There's no shame in not doing EXTRA work!

So we are back to little E sitting by the side of the trail just around a curve. A group of mountain bikers came around the curve and one of them growls and points at E, "What is that?!" As he said that, his bike was directly between Ellis and I (a distance of about 3 feet). I immediately said, "MINE!" Wow---both A and I were SO impressed that this guy was so upset that someone would be such an idiot to "abandon" their child by the side of the trail. Way to go guy! We think you're awesome :)

OK, so this energized the end of number three. Four and five were up the hill from hell. Number six was sponsored by "Henry VIII". If you read A's blog, you will know that she occasionally gets through her runs by singing this wonderful song. What I realized halfway through was that I was counting the number of verses I was doing (seventh verse same as the first!) and would never be able to use this song again as I now know how many Henry VII's go into 4 and half minutes! lol

After six, the trouble began. Thank goodness we were in the trees because I was BURNING up and we were down to sportsbras. The rain had been threatening all afternoon and little drops were finally coming from the sky. E was hanging out of his stroller with his little hands turned up to the sky trying to figure it all out. A was a little concerned about my temp and thought maybe I should quit. The compromise was to walk seven. Of course, that lasted about a minute forty and we were off again. We finished it up and I said "o.k., it can start to pour anytime now." I didn't really want the run. I just wanted to be cool!!

As requested, right as number eight started up, the deluge began. We found a relatively dry space for Ellis under the trees and kept going. A lightening bolt lit up the sky and I grabbed the stroller and we started heading for the car. Yeah, I like running but I don't want a bbq baby. Somehow we managed finish the interval, walk (RAPIDLY) another two minutes, then run the minute forty we had missed on number seven back to the car. I had been sweating so much during the run that all of the rain coming from the sky was pushing it into my eyes. By the time we got to the cars, I was officially blind. Poor E was sopping wet. We stripped him down to his diaper, mopped him off and put him in his car seat. Another lightening bolt and loud clap of thunder sent us racing to our driver's seats.

This obviously wasn't a love story. It wasn't a run that made me feel like I could conquer the world. It was, however, a finished run. I just know that I couldn't possibly be this entertained staying on my butt at home :)