I have been looking for a used inexpensive jogging stroller for a while now.  I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it as I don’t know how long I would really use it.  The boys are older and they won’t be a stroller forever.  I understand that there are wonderful strollers out there that are worth the hundreds of dollars spent on them.  But I am cheap, and just didn’t want to spend $100+ on a used stroller.  Hell, I didn’t want to spend more than fifty bucks.

And when I say I was looking, I mean I was waiting for a cheap stroller to find me.

It finally did.

I was driving home from work one day and I saw it on the sidewalk with a for sale sign.  I called and talked the guy down in price.

Friday night Ian spent the night at my mom’s so Saturday morning I thought was the perfect time to break the stroller in.

I got some snacks for Sid, his blanket, his toy and water for me and we hit the road.

It was my slowest pace since I started running again.

I didn’t think there would be a difference in running and running while pushing a stroller.  But there is.  It is harder.

One thing that helps with your pace is the movement of your arms.  When you push a stroller you either don’t move your arms or you only move one arm.  Plus it’s heavy and Sid is no light weight, so I have that extra weight.

But we made it, we did four miles that morning.  Plus I had a place for all my water.  I drink a lot of water while running and while I have a hand bottle, it isn’t enough.

The next morning I had a running date with my cousin.  She and I have not done any long runs in well over a month and we have a half marathon coming up.  Every week from now until then we will be doing at least one long run, and Sunday we started with 7 miles.

I hadn’t planned on bringing Sid, but he woke up just as I was getting ready to leave.  Not to worry, I can just bring him.

Which in all honesty, I was happy about, because I was concerned about my water intake on a 7 mile run.  I had finished about 40 ounces the day before on a 4 mile run, so how would I make it through 7 with only 16….But since I had my stroller it wasn’t an issue.  Plus we could bring our snacks and my cousin didn’t need to wear her running belt.

Again it was hard, but we did it.  We were slower than snails in peanut butter, but we did all 7 miles.  After, we were all “I could have done another mile or two.”

And that slow pace allowed us to talk.  Because for long distances you should run at a pace where you can maintain a conversation.  Right?  So it was good for us.

I don’t plan on taking a kid with me on all my runs, but having a jogging stroller gives me a little more flexibility.  It will allow me to go running during the times that I have only one kid, instead of always having to wait till they go to bed.  Plus the more I train with a stroller, the easier it will be when I don’t have one.

Sid doesn’t seem to mind riding in the stroller, even if it did put him to sleep.

Just. Keep. Running.

C25K interval information can be found here