Thursday, May 9, 2013

Running at Jensen Park and Running With a Friend

The last two days I have run for a total of 81.5 minutes while pushing my daughter in the jogger.  I am not sure exactly how many miles I have covered.  My FitBit has it at around 7-8 miles.  I did some walking afterward, and since I can't look down my shirt at my bra in public, I don't know for sure what the distance is.  I am leaning much closer to 7 than 8 though.  I know I am not doing a 10 minute mile pushing my daughter in the jogger.

Jensen Park is where I ran my first race after having my baby.  The race was last year in April or May.  My children, my husband and I have been back there a few times.  There are ducks to feed, which the children enjoy.  My two older children, my husband also did the 4 miles.  I was very proud of them.

I went back there yesterday to do a run.  Since I have no idea where the mile markers start and which directions I am supposed to do, I decided to just run.  The first time I looked down, I had been running for almost 23 minutes.  I told myself that I would run for 30 minutes.  When I hit 30 minutes, I figured I could run for 36 minutes, which would put me near 3 miles.  At 36 minutes, I thought, why not push it to 50 minutes so I would have run right around 4 miles, give or take a little. 

The run was beautiful.  It was a little cool to start out the run.  My daughter enjoyed seeing the ducks as we walked to where I was going to start.  As I was running, she started talking.  I can't understand a lot of what she says yet, but I knew that she would say "bird" when she saw one.  She also started saying "bye" at random points.  I don't know if she was saying "bye" to grass or birds or me.  She may have just been enjoying hearing herself talk.  I was surprised she didn't fall to sleep. 

After the run, I took a little walk and then went back to the van where I had some Cheerios.  We got them out and started to throw it for the ducks.  There was one duck, in particular, that wanted to stare my daughter in her eyes.  It was invading her personal space, so she would back up.  The duck would then take a few steps forward.  The duck was literally eye-to-eye with her.  My daughter would back up a little and it would step forward.  When my daughter started to shake, I decided it was time to finish feeding them.  I would throw the Cheerios as far as they would go to try to get the ducks to move back.  There were probably 20 of them.  The one that liked my daughter a lot would only go for the ones close by.  I threw some a few feet from it and then my daughter and I walked back to the van.

Today I went running with a friend and her daughter.  Her baby will be one next week.  She was pushing her daughter in a jogger and I was pushing mine.  The children seemed to enjoy seeing each other during the run. This is the first time I have run with her.  She is a friend from church.  We were supposed to run last week but it had gotten cold and I didn't want our children to get sick being in the cold for a while. We ran one of the trails for 15 minutes and some odd seconds in one direction and then back, for a total of about 31.5 minutes.  She is faster than me.  I am still trying to get used to running with a jogger.  I did enjoy the run though. 

The only other people I have ever run with is my sister and my brother.  It is nice to have found a friend to run with.  Since my sister moved away, I think it is important to try to find friends, because it would be really easy for me to just stay at home and to myself.  I think that it will also help me to become a better runner.  I have always believed that if you run with someone better than you, it will help you to get better.  I hope that I will get faster.  I am starting to enjoy running again.  I guess it takes a while to get back to that point where you look forward to a run. 

It is fun to hear my daughter talking about/to the nature that is around her.  She is definitely an outdoors person.  I am happy that I am running with the jogger.  It gives her and I time to soak in some Vitamin D together.  I think she will remember these times as she gets older, if I keep it up.  I always hope to have my children run with me someday. 

2 comments:

  1. I can just imagine CE's dislike of being face to face with a duck. I'm glad you are being social... I may give it a try sometime. I find that being alone can sometimes be the most relaxing thing, but that may just be my anxiety disorder talking ;)

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    1. I absolutely here you there! I was perfectly happy staying at home when you were here. I guess I just want to feel like there are other women I can relate to since you and Susan are no longer around. I also figure I am probably going to spend the rest of, or most of, my life here so I should see about getting some friends. I miss you!

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