Sophy's Amazing Answer to the Question: "Why do I run?"

Why do I call myself a running mom?  Well, seems I’ve always been running, mostly away from things.  As a middle child in a very competitive set of six kids, I often felt left out or forgotten.  So I’d temporarily runaway.  OK, I hid away from everybody else and took off to daydream.  As a result, I developed a drive to be independent and different from everyone else in my family.

I hated the used bike my sister had to share with me, so one Christmas, I saved up all my money to buy my own bike.  It was way too little.  But I found out that I could buy a unicycle with what I had, so I did.  I learned to ride it and became a fixture in my inner city neighborhood as that “kid on a unicycle” running errands.

Being the third girl attending parochial school, I often had the misfortune of being “another one” from that family.  So when it came time to pick out a high school, I chose a local one that I could walk to and break away from the sigma of my older sisters.  Running again, up the hill to school, and down again every day.  I made it through four years without a single tardy slip.

The continuous competition at home drove me to distraction.  So during my high school years I ran away from it through school activities, volunteer work and Junior Achievement. I was running away from my life at home.

I tried to run as a sport on my own during high school, but with no instruction, no school team, and neighborhoods I didn’t even like to walk through around me, it didn’t last long.  I had injured myself chasing after a bus and pulled my groin muscle badly.  At the local junior college I decided to take up weight lifting as a way to rehab it.  The coach suggested I try cross-country, so I did.  At the time I didn’t know the women’s cross country team needed more members.  I just signed up and ran!

I learned how to pick a shoe.  I learned about form.  I learned to run a seven-minute-mile.  OK, I couldn’t run more than five miles, but I learned to run as a sport.  I loved it.  It didn’t last.  When the season was over, I did some paid runs.  But in the early 80’s it was all about the competition.  I wasn’t fast enough to be competitive.  Then again taking two or three busses to and from runs wasn’t easy.  Nor was running with my sweats in a pack very comfortable.  I never checked my gear out of fear it would disappear.  So I ran away from running too.

At age 21, I moved away from home.  Just a few blocks for my first apartment, but I was out!  I had a job and was independent.  Ten years later, I married my long-time boyfriend.  Ten years after that and in our third apartment, we finally had our son.  To give him a better life than what we could afford in the big city, we moved to Elk Grove.  The ultimate runaway!  I became a home-mom.  Shortly after moving here, I discovered an ad for an inaugural 4th of July run that celebrated the incorporation of my new hometown.  I signed up and was instantly reconnected with running.

I joined a running group and got introduced to relay running.  Got hooked and continued that for six years.  Next I got hooked on distance running.   Now I’ve got half a dozen half marathons completed and have my goal set on a full 26.2 mile marathon.  I assist with my son’s track team at his school and chase the kids around the field shouting encouragement.  I’ve running friends who inspire and motivate me.  I run for “me” time where I don’t have to answer to anyone or make any decisions except how far and where I am running.

And my 11-year-old son…he wants to run a half marathon with me before he turns 13.  I am a running mom.

The Running Mom's Dilemma - please contribute

The Running Mom’s Dilemma

Today while running with two other super mothers we started chatting about the relative highs and lows of mothering and running in our current land of the strong and free. Each one of us has to wrestle with how to balance all the roles we play with an inner sense of self value and worth. The Running Mom’s Dilemma is an essay, blog, that might become a book highlight how and why we fight for this time, for ourselves to run. How it then makes us better mothers and wives and daughters and perhaps also employees or even bosses. Now the three of us are just three mothers in our corner of America, in sunny Elk Grove, California, but we know that in truth the numbers of us are growing across America. According to the magazine every Running Mom loves to glance at right after a good night to the kids, and romance with the husband, and before the night lights go off, women now make up 51% of all those marathon running in races in 2011! We are out there in droves. Running together and processing together (if we have wind in our lungs to talk while running) and thus this book is an attempt to share that run with you all.

You will join our running group by just reading this blog/essay/book, but first you must get to know the players and what are our passions. What drives us to get up early and run? Now this should also be your own question for there are many mothers who never do such a crazy act. My mother never did (except for that aerobics class back in college) and neither did my dairy farming great grand mothers, or immigrant grand mother. Sarah, that’s me, is 34 and has been running since she was 4^th string on the high school basketball time and always felt like the wanna-be athlete on the team. Coming from a family that had struggled (perhaps due to that longing for dairy products) with obesity I often got competitive as a child but in my family that really meant who could eat the most slices of pizza for dinner. After my father died at age 49 of cancer (that could have been masked by his obesity) my passion for running was renewed at age 21. But running has ALWAYS been there for me as an outlet. As I run I can go to a zone that is much like holding a yoga pose, or stating the Nicene Creed in church, or saying a simple prayer. Now that I’ve mothered 3 children in 5 years I need running more than ever but am now firmly facing the Running Mom’s dilemma: when to find the time to run, where is my balance?

Sophy's bio...

Shannon's bio...

In this text, besides helpful running tips and resources we also want share with you some of our other passions and knowledge on how live a balanced life in this crazy culture that is post-modern America. Sophie knows how to shop simply, cook simply, and thus create amazingly chemical-free food on a tight budget. Shannon is the queen of staying fit with two young kids by hiking, creative cardio cleaning, giving, and using children for weight resistence. Sarah is a suburban homesteader whose chicken flock has now supplied her family and friends, raises organic meat and fruits and veggies on her ½ acre lot at the end of the cult-de-sac, and finds solace in Christian prayer and meditation that she hopes will also lead you to intimacy with God and your loved ones. In a way isn’t a running mother a bit of a revolutionary against this American couch potato culture? In our quest for wholesome living we have given up the couch for the trail, the soda pop for an occasional glass of red wine, and the stress for a feeling of contentment and joy. We hope our little book will inspire you to get out there and join the Mommy running party – you are about to join ours.Please contribute if you want to join the discussion.