When a mama has a posse...

... that mama runs fast. Reasons running with the kids (as they bike) is fun:

1. It's so cool to have a pace team. Go, mama! (Seriously: people got out of our way. We were a force of nature. I doubt it was righteous fear on their part as much as healthy self-preservation, but I so rarely get a chance menace the general walking public.)

2. It is finally spring, we can be outside, and there is nothing nicer than the fresh, green outdoors with my delightful, energetic kids.

3. Their slowest bike pace>my fastest foot pace, so I got a workout. Also my endurance>their endurance, so they were usually either well ahead of or well behind me. So they got a workout. (We did a pretty solid three miles.)

4. Peter has a great future as a coach, which I am nurturing by volunteering to be his first, um, subject. He kept encouraging me to sprint, and then when I did, despite my best efforts (and despite the fact that for this brief period I was faster than he was), he was unimpressed. "Mama, you call that a sprint? Your hands are supposed to be like this [hands unclenched] when you sprint!" Sigh. Mama sprint fail. Peter coach win. Mama will attend to her form.

5. The full moon, visible in the late afternoon sky as we walked home up the hill, was simply gorgeous.

6. Rabbits! Birds of prey! Trees! Spring! all on display. Usually I come home from a run with a summary of whom, and what, I've seen, but the kids in tandem notice far more than I do alone.

7. Grace will totally carry your gear if you need to slip off that long-sleeved tech hoodie three minutes in. And, when you do, leaving yourself clad in a long-sleeved purple tech top and a bright blue running skirt, and pink sneakers, her usual colorful ensemble will make you blend in rather than stand out. A keen sartorial sense, has my child.

8. I'd recently loaded "Spirit in the Sky" onto my iPod (I listened with only one earbud, fyi, so that I could also chat with the kids) and it came on as we were finishing, and I played it a few times, so my memory of that song is now indelibly fixed to that series of moments, in the spring air, fresh from running and happily connected with my sweethearts. (Plus the theologian in me is amused by the image of Jesus being one's reference when appealing to the Spirit... I should slip his name onto my CV. Although if Jesus has email, I'm not privvy to the address.)