Caravan of Wet Women and Babies

I mentioned in a previous post that I have recommitted to running. I'm happy to report that it's true and going well (for now). For the past five or six weeks, I have once again been a regular at the park early in the mornings, with Gunner in tow, tucked comfortably away in the jogging stroller. What is the secret to your success, you might ask? Well, faithful running partners and a goal, of course! My running partner and I decided that we needed a new goal to kick our bums into gear, so we decided to train for a 10K this coming October. We sent out a general invitation to people we know here, and we are so very pleasantly amazed at the response. Usually when I invite people to run with me, the response I get is "Are you nuts? I only run if I'm being chased. Why would you even consider asking me?" So, amazingly, we have about 15 women now training with us, some experienced runners, and some completely brand spankin' new.

We don't all live close enough together to train as a big group during the week, so we train in small groups during the week, and then get together for Saturday Long Runs. This morning's run was scheduled as a 6-miler, and I was awoken early by a healthy thunderstorm. As I lied in bed, listening to the rain and thunder, my mostly-still-sleeping brain contemplated how on earth I could make my baby "run" with me in the rain. Thanks to the years I lived in Oregon, I enjoy running in the rain, as long as it's warm enough outside. But I can't say that I was all that excited to experience Gunner's opinion of a rainy run...for six whole miles.

But we packed our little selves up, and we met our group. We had nine girls and four running strollers, and we set off in the drizzle that rapidly turned into Rain. You know, the kind of rain that makes you say, "Man, it's really coming down out there." And we ran. We ran through the puddles with rain dripping down our noses into our mouths. We ran past a group of middle-aged men who couldn't help themselves from commenting. Could you help it if nine women caravaned past you in the pouring rain, pushing four babies? After hearing them tell us that we were "torturing those poor babies" and how "those babies are going to hate us for this", I decided that I was proud of us for being tough mommies. And I'm mostly sure that Gunner is going to be happy to have a mommy who not only isn't afraid of the rain, but will be happy to go out and run right through it with him.

The babies all did amazingly well. In fact, two of them slept right through it. Gunner seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. His blankie and feet were completely soaked, but that didn't stop him from singing to himself and (I'd like to think) cheering me on. We did cut the run down to three miles. We figured that we should probably quit while we were ahead. And although my shoes are soaked now, and the stroller is going to take days to dry off, we got our run in for the day, and I'm feeling like I have a bit of a rainy runner's high.