Lakeshore Path run. Day #1 of 2,500 mile challenge.

Today was a great day for a run. We got up early, packed up the babies and headed to the lakeshore with an 8 mile run as our goal for the 2, 500 mile challenge. Perfect weather, 70's and a slight breeze off of the lake. People were sparse, but the one's that were out that early in the morning on a Saturday were the type to say "good morning". We decided to just take our time with the run and pace ourselves comfortably and enjoy the scenery instead of working for speed (that we can work on in my husband's 5K's we're working on for next weekend!). Pushing the stroller was pretty easy going, but once we started hitting the smaller hills, then working against the lakefront wind, it started to become "work", but enjoyable. Once we hit the 6 mile mark, I was feeling my calves a bit, but we were determined to make it to 8. Toward the 8 mile mark, there was a split in the trail. On one side, there was a pretty decent sized hill and on the other was just flat trail that did a wide curve for a bit more distance. My husband decided he wanted to challenge himself to the hill. I decided it sounds like a great challenge, but to conserve my energy, I thought it best to take the flat side of the trail and just increase my speed (I think making it up to a 7' pace). My husband and I met up at the connecting trail at the end of his hill and curve of my flat trail. He was quite happy with himself for making it up the hill. I was pretty surprised at his energy - he was doing so good.
We turned around at this point and of course, one of the babies was very upset that we had been running this long and happy with ourselves. Whenever I have a crying or unhappy baby while running, it sometimes makes me feel like a neglectful mother to keep running. Obviously I'm running because I enjoy running, but if the baby is not enjoying it - it just seems totally selfish. Of course, I do what I can to try to calm the baby, but the real thing the baby wants is to not be restrained anymore and wants to be out running around and also enjoying this nice day. We had about 10 more minutes to get to the parking lot. I am a regular runner of half marathons, but that is solo/no baby stroller. So, even with what little energy I had, I sped my pace up a bit; leaving my husband behind (which he HATES), but babies first. Surprisingly, everytime I looked back to make sure he was ok, he wasn't too far behind me. I was only running at a 9' (sometimes 8') pace through some of it, but our usual speed together for this run was around an 11' pace. Eventually, we got to the parking lot with minimal screaming and minimal sneers from passerby's. Time to let the babies out to play in the grass in front of the lakeshore and stretch out. A great run and with 8 miles under my husbands belt, I'm hoping he might be able to run my next half marathon with me (this month?).
Also, wouldn't you know it, I was so involved with appeasing the screaming baby that I forgot to turn the GPS watch off and it tracked my time standing around and whatnot for a few minutes. Whoops. :)