Kelly (our resident running stud) and I had the opportunity to make a trip to Nashville this past weekend to check out the inner workings of the Nashville Country Music Marathon and Half Marathon, put on by Elite Racing. We landed in Nashville and went immediately over to the Health and Fitness Expo. Since the race was on a Saturday, Friday afternoon was absolutely crazy with floods of people. The race itself would have a record 30,000+ runners in attendance and trust me, it seemed that there could’ve easily been 20K people at the expo itself when we got there! Whew!

I don’t know how, but the Expo peeps did a great job funneling people through, without a doubt! After the expo, we headed over to watch the Kids Marathon - How inspiring this event was for the future of all kids – Get them kids off the couch and enroll them in a running event ASAP! Those kids were so cute!!! Ahhhhhhhh! I can just throw them all in my pocket and keep ‘em forever! We were told that we can run a little in the marathon itself to check out the ‘Rock N Roll’ feeling of the marathon – We’re looking forward to this – All the remarkable feelings of running a race with none of the stress of performing, BRILLIANT!!!

A special thank you goes out to John Smith from the Competitor Group, Inc for showing us around and Elite Racing – You guys R O C K!

Remember the Toy Fairy Blog? Today I found a kids baseball glove. It was practically new, maybe used once. It was so sad because it was in the gutter in the middle of nowhere - no houses, no yards - I figured it was left on a roof of a car and just eventually flew off and now lost forever. I picked it up and found a home for it snuggled under my arm. I was debating putting flyers all around the neighborhood, but though that would be a waste of paper and some good quality telephone poles. Oh well.

Thinking about the glove brought me immediately back to my childhood in New York; Spending all summer playing ball from when the sun came up until dinner time. Maybe Jacey or Abby will pick it up one of these days and find the same kind of fun in that good ole piece of leather that I did. The only bummer about this glove was that there's no pink on it to make it a lot easier for my girls to find any kind of interest in it.

The Coin Count

No coins, but a glove worth a ton of pennies!

Running Total: 74 cents

Attack of the killer Baby Jogger! It reminds me of stories my mother would tell me about throwing me in the car and driving loops around the block because being in the car just made me fall asleep faster. Every time I throw my girls in this sleep contraption called a Baby Jogger, they fall asleep - completely funny. They go from being completely excited and energized about going on a run to falling into a deep sleep within three or four miles...super funny. In any case, it happened again today - Just thought I would let you know.

BTW, I just learned that we'll be carrying Baby Joggers on the site soon!!!! For all you runners out there that want to drain the energy out of your kids in a single bound - you too will now have the chance! WooOooOOoooOoooo-HoooOOoOoooOoooooo! Three cheers for Baby Joggers!

The Coin Count

Nada today

Running Total: 42 cents

I have two little girls. Jacey is 4 1/2 and Abigail will be the big 3 in May. Today, they argued about who was going to go on a run in the jogger later with Daddy. It wasn't an argument you would normally hear between two people as much as it was a discussion, over playing their new toc-tac-toe game, about who would and wouldn't be going on the run. Later that day, the phrase, 'Who wants to play on the computer?' came out. Jacey is a complete brainiac, therefore Abby won the 'ride in the jogger' victory rather easily.

Today, my youngest daughter Abigail comes to me right after her nap and tells me she wants to go on a run. It was weird because I was thinking just moments before that it was a good time to get out since the girls were sleeping. So I threw on my running gear and went to the garage to get the baby jogger. I pushed the jogger to the front door and there she was waiting for me. She was still in her pajamas, but that's how she rolls, hehh heh 'rolls' get it. She asks if she can bring her hairy blue flower purse and her teddy bear and OF COURSE I said yeah! So off we went. She was totally excited about seeing the moon in the daytime and got to say HI to a couple people on the way. She got in a few 'as loud as possible' songs and played hide-and-seek with me thru the window on the canopy. She's the coolest little girl - When we got back she told me that she loves running in the stroller. It was the most perfect 4-mile run for both of us.