Half of a what?

This post was written in March 2013 but I never published it. I had been in Boulder for about 6 months and still had only one child. This excerpt, however, illustrates challenges that I think many of us have with parenting, running, and moving to higher ground. I’d be interested to hear in the comments if you find you relate to any of this!

March 2016 - Lucky Laces 5k in Denver

Half of a what?

I have been a distance runner since high school. I had never been particularly interested in or adept at team sports such as soccer or basketball, but envied the team camaraderie enjoyed by my athlete friends. After hearing from some other girls I knew (who were about as athletic as I was) that the track team took pretty much anyone, I went out for it. The very first training run, where they just took you out on the streets in the school’s neighborhood to see how long you’d last, I ran the full three miles led by the captains. Thus, a distance runner was born. I was about 14 at the time. (Wow, that means I’ve been running for 20+ years! Yeouch!) Since then, I have run 7 marathons and more half-marathons, 10-milers, 10k’s 5k’s and other races than I can count. When my husband was deployed to Iraq with the Air Force, I even decided to train for my first sprint triathlon as a distraction, which also got me interested in swimming. I’m still working on becoming interested in cycling.

All this to say that I consider myself a veteran runner who loves spending weekend mornings at races filled with other joyful runners. For the last seven years, I lived in Washington, D.C., which has a surprising number of runners, running groups, and organized races. My almost daily runs included views of the Potomac River, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and the Capitol Building.  I did races at least once a month and sometimes even more often during the fall and spring, when the most races are held. I loved it! I had a great running buddy named Celine, who also happens to be one of my best friends, and together we tackled all sorts of running challenges. Since we both lived downtown, we could usually walk or jog to the starting line and then reward ourselves with a post-race breakfast on the way home. Then I’d nap in the afternoon. Those were the days! (I should also mention that I did not have a child for most of this period, and that my husband was stationed elsewhere for two and a half years of this time, so I was essentially living the single life, minus the dating.)

Now things are different. My husband and I finally live together again, which is great! We have an adorable little toddler, and six months ago we made a big move to Boulder, Colorado. Boulder is known as a mecca for runners, especially elite distance runners who want to train at altitude so that they can breeze on down to sea level and kick butt at national and international competitions. But there is a reason that they want to train at altitude: it is hard! The air is much thinner up here, and it takes some people a long time to get their lungs acclimated. I’m not sure how long for me, but more than six months it turns out*. Plus, unless you want to do a really long run, you’ll likely have to drive to a race or drive to a trailhead to run, and I hate driving to run. I just want to open my door and run! Spoiled, I know. Ah, D.C.

Anyway, a couple of months ago I was feeling a bit blue about not doing races any more, mostly due to the logistical issues associated with getting up and out to an early morning race with a young child in tow, and I signed myself up for a few. It seemed like a really good idea at the time. Now, the half marathon (13.1 miles) I registered and paid for months ago is just two weeks away, and the longest run I’ve done in the last, um, six months, is six miles, and that was only four days ago! And it hurt! So I’m panicking a bit.

Last weekend I did a St Patrick’s Day 7k (approx. 4.2 miles) in downtown Denver, which was great. Unfortunately, we realized when we got out there that it was much too cold for the little one to be outside that whole time, so my husband and son took refuge at a friend’s house while I ran and then drank my celebratory post-run beer alone. Actually I chugged it really fast because by then the boys were waiting to pick me up, so it didn’t feel quite as festive as it might have. In any case, the run was fun, but it was less than a third of what I need to do in two weeks on a much more challenging course. I think I’d better stop typing now and go run.

*Note: Ultimately it took me a good 2 years before I could do a run of 3+ miles without getting winded and having to take walk breaks. 

How it all began

Apparently having a blog is the thing to do these days, so here we go. Welcome to the first entry in the PRKids blog! (Don’t worry, they won’t all be this long!)

My vision is to let parents participate in races worry-free, while kids are safe and have a blast in our camps. And race directors get more participation because fewer runners are thwarted by lack of child care. Everybody wins! Seems like a no-brainer, right?! Well, I thought it might be interesting to begin by giving a bit of background as to how this business got started.

If you’ve ever met me in person and/or talked to me about PRKids, I’ve probably told you something to the effect of: “I’m a runner, my husband is a runner, and once we had kids we found securing childcare for race mornings to be somewhat challenging (i.e. no one wants to come to your house at 6am on a weekend). So, in the absence of another solution, I started this business.” Now, this is all a true story, but there is a lot more to the story that some of you may relate to:

In July 2014, I was at home with a 5-month old and a 2.5-year old, and our regular babysitter had graduated from the University of Colorado and moved on to a full-time job. I was still homesick from having moved to Boulder, Colorado in September 2012 from Washington, D.C., and was suffering from some post-partum depression (I figured out later). Then, I lost my job of 7.5 years. It wasn’t personal, nor was it a surprise, but when my organization RE-organized and decided not to include my department in their new business plan, it signified more than just a loss of income for me, though it took me a while to realize it.

You see, I have always worked. I am a worker, and even when I take “time off”, I still manage to find myself involved in projects, activities, or initiatives of various stripes. Being busy – productively busy – is what has always made me happiest and the most fulfilled. I never considered myself the stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) type (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), and always planned to return to work full time if I were ever blessed with children. When I had my first child a little more than five years ago, however, I found myself in a situation that is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere and other media these days, wherein I couldn’t bear to leave my son in the hands of a stranger full time, nor did I want to exit the job market and essentially toss my years of work experience out the window.  As it happened, the stars aligned, and due to overhead cutbacks at my organization, my manager was all too happy to let me work from home. Score!

About a year after I began working remotely, other factors led my husband and me to decide to move from Washington, D.C. (which I think I will always consider my spiritual home) to his hometown of Boulder, Colorado.  We packed up all of our stuff and our one-year-old in September 2012 and moved to Colorado, and since I was already working remotely, my manager had agreed to let me continue working even after the move, so I got to ride that wave for another year and a half, which was a pretty good run in my opinion. I did my best to settle into life in the West and act like a Boulderite (check out Urban Dictionary’s definition of a Boulderite, it’s pretty spot-on: 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Boulderite), filling my time in between work with toddler activities, hiking and running.  We had another baby in January 2014, and I took a couple of months off from work while learning how to juggle my newborn and (what I remain convinced was) the most active toddler the world has ever seen, and then I was back to it.

When June 30 - the end of the organization’s fiscal year - arrived and I learned that my contract would not be renewed after over seven years of employment with them, it seemed a bit unreal at first. I was convinced – and, incidentally, remain so – that I would be able to find another contract gig at this or another organization with similar goals, so I was not too worried. Anyway, maybe it would be nice not to have to balance work and the kids for a while, right? Well, yes. Sort of.

Fast forward a few weeks, and I found myself a SAHM in Boulder, Colorado. Maybe I’m a bad mom for saying this, but I was a little bored. Not “bored” in the sense that I was struggling to fill my time. If anything, I was busier, physically, than I’ve ever been: Potty training one child, breastfeeding another, running from gymnastics to preschool to play dates. I was not lonely, either, in the sense that I was almost literally NEVER alone. If only!

But, I was sad, homesick, and frankly just not myself. (This was around the time that I realized that I just may have some PPD…)  The only moments during this period where I DID feel like myself were when I was running. I had been a runner for 20+ years at this point, and running had always been my reflection and processing time. Thank goodness for that! I ran as often as I could - which wasn’t too often and usually involved a jogging stroller – and did my best to get back on track for my own sake as well as that of my family. I was tossing around ideas for businesses, based mostly on my years of experience in education and international development, but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else that I was supposed to do. I kept thinking about how great and natural it felt to be running, and wished that I could do it more often, and without a jogging stroller! I was training for a half marathon at the time, tired and still not completely acclimated to the dryness and altitude, when it occurred to me that it would be so nice if there were someone at the race who could watch the kids while my husband and I ran together. Light bulb moment!! Once that thought entered my mind, all other ideas faded into the background.

I spent the next year or so dealing with more bureaucratic red tape and institutional opposition than I ever could have imagined, but finally launched PRKids in September 2015 and have been at nearly 30 events as of November 2016. I truly believe that race time child care is the next innovation in race amenities (remember when we didn’t have bag drop, or chip timing, or disposable chips, or race photos…?).

We hope you join us next season!

(For a bit more of the story, check out the video of my October 2016 talk at Skirt Sports “Women Run The World”)