The group is growing.

My daughter Haven has a bad cough, so I left both kids home today and ran solo with the Running Moms clinic. What a strange feeling... But the nice thing is I was able to help out the other Moms by pushing their strollers for awhile. That's right, I said Moms, plural!

Today we welcomed Elise and her Mom Christy. Elise was born very premature and although she is over a year old (around nine months corrected), she still has some medical considerations, so Christy brought along one of her helpers Tori. Wow, three women to run with today! I felt spoiled.

Christy, Tori and Cristal, with Elise and Tegan in the strollers.

An absolutely perfect day for a run: no rain, no wind, mild weather. Add great company and you've pretty much made my day.

We ran east on Richardson, cutting back on Foul Bay and back along Fairfield Road. View a map of our run here. We ran intervals of five minutes running and one minute walking and our total run time (not including walks) was around forty minutes. 

It wasn't until we were running that Cristal admitted that her left knee was giving her trouble. I was initially surprised that she waited until we were running to tell me, but then again, I know how determined and motivated she is. 

We talked about it and it sounds like a classic case of  Runner's Knee, a pain that settles under the kneecap and can be extremely painful. Indeed, it wasn't long before Cristal had a noticeable limp. Not good. Runner's Knee and other overuse injuries like Shin Splints are not at all unusual for folks like Cristal; people who get really excited about being a runner and may do too much, too soon. In the end, Cristal had to walk much of the last couple of kilometres, but she is going to follow my advice about rest, ice and elevation and hopefully her knee will soon feel a lot better.

I'm really looking forward to the Running Moms community growing and I'm excited to welcome more and more Moms. The addition of a Monday run at 1pm is a step in the right direction and I'm so thankful to fellow Running Mom Jaymie McGowan for volunteering to lead that group.

As the weather turns toward summer, I'm sure more and more Moms will be coming out to join us on our runs. I can't wait to meet you all and I hope to accommodate as many Running Moms as possible by adding more groups, more run times and different meeting places. Stay tuned!