Twice the Fun! 12 Times the Weight!

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50 miles for the week. Two weekend runs of 15 miles each.

If you've been hearing as much as I have lately about being carbon neutral, but didn't think it was possible in your current schedule, read on!

With my better half out of town for the day, I needed to figure out how to juggle watching the kids, getting them to ballet practice, and fitting in a 15 mile run (preferably during sunlight hours). Pumping up the knobby studded tires of our double BOB jogging stroller, we loaded 'er down with everything a family of three might need for trip to at least the first three dynasties of the Great Wall. I'm not kidding here: 4 water bottles, 200 goldfish crackers, 2 tubs of applesauce, a fleece blanket, 2 nylon windbreakers, 2 fleece jackets, a dry erase board, a coloring book and 12 colored pencils (all carefully selected in hues of pink, purple, blue, and red), 3 plastic horses, an ipod and stereo, a ballet outfit, cell phone, gps, leftover french toast, and a wallet. I mean, really, Jedd Clampit didn't have as much when he moved to Beverly.

The kids are 40 pounds each, the stroller 20, the gear at least 300 more, it's a wonder the thing even rolled. You know you've had a different kind of workout when the skin of your palms stings from trying to steer Santa's sleigh, if every deer had been a roadkill and the rails were on gravel.

We made it to ballet just in time for me to stand at the parent observation window in my nylon short shorts, amidst doting parents with their Starbucks thermoses and sleepy eyes that hadn't already taken in 4.86 miles of fresh morning desert air. As I took my window position at the parent lineup, it seemed as though the others were making just a little more room for me than anyone else. Maybe that was just my imagination. Me and my sweaty hat hair's imagination that is.

After all of future Black Swans received their sticker for hopping over a paper flower six times in a row, it was time to head back out onto the canal path. Don't think this six hour outing was a jail sentence for these passengers. Anytime they spoke up, I stopped the stroller to find out what they needed. One time, it was because they both wanted to get out and run. Great! Less weight for me! Amazingly, they both ran about 1/2 mile. Another time, Maia wanted to get out and find a stick. This, she creatively used to drag a 12-mile long line in the dirt as we rolled along. Hansen and Gretel could've eaten their bread AND found their way home if Maia had given them her giant stick. Then Clara wanted one. Her finding skills weren't quite so successful and she ended up returning from her hunt with 25 tiny clamshells, which I promised we would later wash and paint (anything to get in the stroller again).

Though she now had shells, she was still stickless and to halt the crying and fighting over the extremely high demand for stick given the limited supply in the stroller (next time, pack more sticks), I stopped the parade again and retrieved an UberStick for Clara. It had branches coming off of it in all directions, was about 5 feet long and possibly could've made some neat acrobatics out of the oncoming bicyclists if well placed in a passing tire. Maia saw this as too much and instantly said, "Hey Clara, let's trade." "Don't fall for it Clara!" I shouted between deep breaths as I had just gotten up to cruising speed of 6 miles per hour. "Yeah, that's a great idea," naive younger sis Clara responded.

At this point, we were making something like the tracks of an overloaded airplane, trying for liftoff, with dragging wingtips. But we never seemed to get airborne, what with the required stops for seashells and all-important sticks.

An hour and a half later we arrived at the Phoenix Zoo and loaded up on some kettle corn. Thank goodness the cashier found a stash of small brown paper bags; you don't want to see two preschoolers try and share a single jumbo bag of kettle corn. Not unless there's a ring, a ref and some money riding on it.

The zoo was crowded and we jogged around the masses as we peeked at most of the animals on display. The hit of the day was the koalas, which we learned are so docile because by eating only Eucalyptus leaves, they don't get much energy, similar to a daddy who only gets to eat two slices of french toast before having to push the truck from Sanford and Son to the top of Mt. Sinai.

As is typical, we didn't get out of the zoo before both girls had taken off their shoes and socks and played in the muddy stream. Just where does that muddy water in the middle of the zoo come from? Oh, and they insisted on riding the carousel. I didn't understand it. Would you get out of the car after a 5-hour road trip just to get into a golf cart? I guess if it was a really cool golf cart, I would.

Sunday I went solo, covering 16 miles. I didn't even stop for clamshells.