We’re STREAKING!!!

Unless it’s your first time reading my blog, seeing me tweet , skimming my repetitive ever exciting instagram feed, hanging with me on the book of the face or TALKING TO ME EVER—you know Im not a runner.

I love the promise of the run (it looks BADASS to just snag shoes, canine and GO!) yet Ive never found a mental happy running place.

Which is also reason number ONE many of you were shocked I joined Roni on her Run Streak when we were in Portland:

exactly a mile? EXACTLY enough for me.

Roni invited me, Roni mentioned she was determined to keep up her streak, I was already MizUpAtCrack, I happily tagged along.

She chatted as we ran (I was reminded running uses completely different muscles.  I was a silent, winded misfit) & by the end of our jaunt I realized a mile might be my perfect distance.

A short, non-training for ANYTHING distance and DONE.

Because the thing is the Tornado has become oddly interested in the run as of late.

She’s taken to saying to me in that inimitable seven-year-old offhanded fashion:

Mama I really want to run with you.

To which I always think in my imitable forty-four year old fashion:

Homegirl, if you think I run and youre just not SEEING it you’re a nutball.

Yet what she’d say still stuck in my cranium.

Given my philosophy of “if I think something more than once it’s time to ACT” I felt a pang of mama-obligation to encourage her running curiosity.

Short of begging Roni to move in, I also knew Id had to come up with a way to make it fun for *ME.*

First I shared with her my idea (lets run *together.*  you plan where & how we do it.).

Next we made a chart to keep track of how we did with our streak:

chart & photo credit: Tornado

She then decided we needed rules:

yay number four!

And the very next morning we were off.

We misfits gotta match!

I let her be the expert and she mapped our route/routine.

She announced we’d run to the playground, do push ups, pull ups, run a lap screaming at the top of our lungs, one time across monkey bars and run back home.

In the name of being fully present I left my camera/phone at home–but thats pretty much how it all happened, too.

we left, ran, pushed, dipped, shrieked, bar’ed, stretched (last minute playground addition), & we ran/walked home.

Im fairly certain she was surprised how tired she was afterward (I wont lie—I was tired too), but she re-found her exuberance when it was time to make a tally mark on our chart.

Later that day she spontaneously said to me:

Thank you mama for the running with me. It was like the most fun I ever had.

How long will we maintain our streak? As long as she’s interested and views it as PLAY.

Now, however, Ill at least have an answer when she asks MAMA WHEN YOU GONNA RUN?

Tomorrow.

With you.

Have you participated in a run streak? How long did *you* maintain it?Have you run with a little person? How long did *they* find it entertaining?

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