It really did. At least before I started out. I had had a wonky work schedule for a few days and was finally off Thursday morning and the weather was nice. I thought it was a great morning for a run. I’m hard pressed to find a day when it’s not a great day for a run….although I’m not a big fan of temps below zero or greater than 100 or if the wind is blowing trees over. But Thursday would probably qualify in most people’s books as a “great” day, weather in the high 30s-40s, sunshine and no wind.
As it turned out, Caedmon had gymnastics that morning and so I thought I’d just put him in the stroller and run with him to gymnastics. We have a great trail system and the trail went fairly close the area where his gymnastics was. Clint was off, so he planned on staying home and getting Leighton through morning homeschool stuff and then he would drive over in the van and drop Leighton off for the free play time at the gym that occurs after Caedmon’s class. He was then going to run home so he got some exercise in as well. Awesome plan.
And details aside it all worked out. Granted one of the details that I had left out was that it had snowed earlier last week and so as the weather warmed up all week that snow melted, at least the snow in the sun. Which meant that the great trail was full of mud. I’m not bothered by a little mud. But it wasn’t just a little mud…it was a lot. And a jogging stroller with an almost 3 year old in it sinks in the mud. A lot.
The whole trail wasn’t mud though. The parts that weren’t mud were still covered in snow. But not the smooth snow that is easy to run on and not twist an ankle. No, this was the snow that many people/animals/etc had walked on and was full of a gazillion different size/depth holes that had then frozen overnight again and which basically made for a mine field. Which is again SUPER EASY to push a jogging stroller over while running. Or not so much.
Oh and one more thing. Besides the mud and snow there was the fact that it was uphill all the way to gymnastics with two fairly decent hills that on good days without a stroller in tow are a bit of a struggle to make it up. This was of course awesome for my husband who basically got to run downhill the whole way home…and did I mention he didn’t have a toddler or stroller to push????
Caedmon was super encouraging though. He kept saying “faster mommy, faster”. Easy enough for him to say all snug in the stroller with his monster slippers on and a warm blanket and favorite match box car in hand. As the actual person running/pushing/straining “faster” wasn’t so much an option. Just saying.
And then there was the coyote. Oh yeah, the coyote. We rounded a bend and Caedmon said “mommy wook, an Arf Arf” (which is what he calls any dog/puppy). And there on the trail looking at us stood a rather large coyote. I told Caedmon it wasn’t an “Arf Arf” to which being almost 3 he said “yes it is mommy” in his matter-of-fact voice. Not really the most convenient time to argue with a 3 year old when a wild animal is standing there looking at you. Luckily we didn’t look appealing enough to have for mid-morning snack (or Caedmon’s monster slippers scared him off), but he slowly trotted away. Of course before I could get anything that resembled a photo of him. Normally I’d say coyotes don’t attack people, and I don’t think they normally do, but that was before I took care of a guy in the ER last year who had been attack by coyotes while walking to work and had MULTIPLE bites/cuts all over him.
I assumed he was the only coyote around and after he was a ways off the trail we continued on as fast as the mud/snow/stroller would allow. Luckily I was living in ignorance because we started up a big hill not long after that and as we did we heard distant fire sirens sounding. Those fire sirens started a number of coyotes that were down in the field we had just ran buy howling at the top of their lungs in tune with the sirens. We were far enough up the hill that we were safe but it was a little nerve racking to say the least.
Long story short, we made it to gymnastics (and even on time) and we have a story to tell. Granted I was a little muddy but the morning was gorgeous and I will probably do it again, only next time I’ll wait for the trail to dry a little more.
Hiking Mommy 