Some of the Many Adventures of Working Out With a Toddler

Sometimes it goes smoother than planned like this day, sometimes it's hilarious like this day(<--watch the video of my 2-year-old working out with Jillian), sometimes it doesn't work out like this day, and sometimes it feels like a three-ring circus act, which is what I'm going to write about today.

This post is mostly so I can look back and laugh at my stubbornness to get a workout in with a toddler. 

My three-ringed circus act of a workout happened last Friday, but with the busyness of Christmas festivities, I'm just getting around to writing about it now. 

After taking an easy day on Thursday, I woke up Friday morning excited and motivated to get a good run in. I opened B's door and said, "Do you want to eat your breakfast in the stroller today because we're going for a run!" B said as clear as day, "No. I don't wanna go run. I wanna stay home." Sometimes I persuade him to go anyway, but today I could tell by the way he said it that he really meant it. 

Onto plan #2. "How about we go to the the track then?" He was all for that because he had so much fun the last time we went to the track. However, I knew he was probably expecting other kids to be there, but everyone was out of town for Christmas. In hopes to keep him entertained without a buddy, I called up a friend and asked if we could borrow a tricycle. We got bundled up, grabbed snacks and activities, and drove to my friend's house to pick up the tricycle. The first track we went to was closed, so we drove to another track. We unloaded the bike and the stroller and all the other stuff we brought with us and headed out to the track. It was freezing and muddy and we lasted about one minute before we were loading everything right back into the car. At this point I was thinking, "This is ridiculous. We just spent at least 30 minutes to get to this point, and we were only here for one minute."

I wasn't about to give up yet. Today was one of those days that I really wanted to get a good workout in no matter how many hoops I had to jump through to get it. 

Onto Plan #3. How about I bring the tricycle to the apartment gym with me and let B ride that around in there while I run on the treadmill? It was worth a shot, so that's where we headed next as I jealously watched a few runners run by as we drove back home. I was dressed way too warm to run indoors since I had dressed to run outside in 40 degree weather, but I didn't want to waste more time changing, so I decided a little extra sweat wouldn't kill me. We unloaded again and brought everything into the gym. There's two treadmills in there, and they were both taken. Come on! It wasn't exactly a lucky day for me. All I wanted was to get a run in. There's never anyone in the gym at 10AM because they're all at work by that time. I decided I was going to have to settle for the elliptical. It was better than nothing. B lasted about 10 minutes this time. 

You can all think I'm crazy if you want, but I still wasn't going to give up on getting a workout in that day. 

Onto plan #4. Time to pull out all the bribes. "Hey, B, lets go for a run in the jogging stroller and you can have these nerds, and play with daddy's ipod, and when we're done we'll get a cookie!" I somehow managed to coax him into the jogging stroller and make it through 5 miles. They were pretty slow miles, and I had to stop quite a few times because B was being extra needy and whiney, but I finally got my workout in. :) I was satisfied.  

Afterwards we stopped by the apartment office to get B a cookie, but they had candy canes instead, so he got nice and sticky with one of those. Then we went straight to the Chick-Fil-A playground so B could have a turn to run around. He ran around that play-place for at least 1.5 hours. I got my turn, and he got his turn. Happy ending all around. :)

My extremely cute, but sometimes difficult workout buddy.

That concludes the story of one of my many adventures of having a toddler for a workout buddy. I know I'll look back on this post someday and laugh. It was even slightly comical to me as it was happening mostly because of how ridiculously stubborn I was being to get that workout in. If there's one thing I've learned in my life it's that persistence is the key to getting what you want! I wanted to run, and it took me 4 tries, but I eventually got my run in!