Child Care and Saturday Runs

With the very large group of runners training for the Marine Corps Marathon, there are several people who are trying to find child care solutions. This is of particular interest when both parents are training for the marathon. I think we have six couples with young children in this situation.

A few have asked about ways to take advantage of a group our size and make it possible for both spouses to get out on Saturday morning runs. I have some ideas that I will list below, but honestly do not have the time to try to coordinate anything, so if anyone would like to get involved, please let us know.

1) Play Date: We can contact Play Date (1 mile from the Teeter) and ask if they can open up for us on a few Saturday mornings. We cannot honestly expect this to work every Saturday, because there will be some weekends when there may not be enough kids for us to do it. My suggestion is that we pick 3-4 weekends and see if we can come up with enough kids to make it worth it. October 3rd for example is the last long run before the marathon. This is an important run for everyone, and might be a weekend that is worth using Play Date.

2) Take Turns: We can take turns watching kids. With a group this size people could probably only miss a few long runs if parent all took turns watching the kids. It can be tricky however, because the group of kids could get large, and it might be more then one person could handle. Maybe each couple that is interested could take one Saturday?

3) Mini Groups: It may be easier to just do some mini groups on some weekends. For example, I may have a sitter coming to the house, and we could handle two more kids at the same time. This would obviously be arranged between the parents.

4) Friday/Sunday Runs: A final option, is that some of us can run on an "off" day. This already happens pretty often, and can be tricky if you cannot find someone at your pace, but it can work. If you can't be there on a Saturday, tell people when you are running. You never know who might be able to join you.

Summers are busy, and we know not everyone will be running on every weekend. This makes planning a bit more challenging. We also have this issue of waking up kids earlier than normal on a Saturday. Of course, we also need to meet and have a comfort level with each other. I created this post to give everyone an open forum to discuss options. I know it will not get solved for the entire summer, but it will get the ball rolling.