The Thanksgiving holiday started a wee bit early in my house. The 5- and 3-year-old were off of school Wednesday, and our nanny was driving to visit extended family several states away. My husband was on his way back from Europe and experiencing various travel and weather delays. So I was manning the fort solo.
I got the 7-year-old on the bus and then tried to convince the little ones to go to the YMCA pool. They always have a good time once they get there, and it’s something we can do in the sleeting rain. Plus it burns off energy, which increases the chance of a decent nap (for the 3-year-old at least) in the afternoon. But they are stubborn little things and just weren’t that interested in going. So after getting everyone dressed and packing up our gym bag…I gave up. I just didn’t feel like fighting. Dreading the cabin fever that I assumed would set in, I told the kids I was going out in the backyard to walk and run around a bit.
At the time, it was cold but just raining a little. I put on my rain jacket — the one that once kept me dry in an unexpected snow squall on top of a Norwegian mountain (long story) — and my gloves and running shoes. I started jogging, and it felt pretty good. So I just kept going.
According to my Fitbit, I wound up doing a full 5k in my yard. It took a long time, because the rain quickly turned into a wintry mix of sleet and snow. Plus, while I have a reasonable-sized backyard, the ground was so soggy I needed to stay on the paved parts. So I was turning every 10 feet or so. I did some loops up the driveway and on the front walk and back around the path in the back. I stuck my head inside every half mile to check on the kids, and they were mostly fine (though they did try my gum at some point, and discarded it — I have yet to find it — and another time when I came in my daughter was shirtless. I never quite figured out why).
The run itself was just fun. There is something so crazy about running in the sleet, and running in random patterns that I never felt particularly tired. Indeed, it was the best run I’ve had in a while. It was my own personal Turkey Trot, undertaken out of necessity, but enjoyed immensely nonetheless. Happy Thanksgiving!
Photo: The wintry mix soon became 100% snow, and turned into several inches of accumulation. Here we go again…
That’s kind of amazing that you could do a 5K in your yard and not be completely bored! Very cool.
@ARC – I’m not saying there was no boredom… just that this was my only option for exercise and it turned out to be OK 🙂 I may need to do it again tomorrow!