Running moms
Danielle Kittrell used to hate running, now she says she is obsessed with it.
It took her husband’s coaching to change her mind.
But running is more fun when you have people to run with, so Kittrell started coaching new runners the way her husband coached her.
“It’s all mental,” she said about running. “It’s hard at first but if you keep pushing yourself and you won’t regret it.”
She posts the time and place of each run on the Facebook page she manages, “Run Like You Mom It.” The Facebook page is a closed group, but Kittrell said she adds almost anyone who is interested enough can request membership. While many of the nearly 100 members are mothers, not all of them are. They range in age, as well as parental status, she said.
They usually run around 5 p.m. and often on the trails near the Bentonville Bark Park, just off the north end of Walton Boulevard. As the group evolved, not all the runners came from Bella Vista, so the Bentonville Park is more central. Sometimes they run at Lake Bella Vista. Kittrell looks for routes that are fairly flat, she said.
“We started with a slow pace and I told them it was fine to stop. We usually take a break half way,” she said. Sometimes she arrives at the starting point early, so she can get in a few miles at a faster pace and then slow down to run with the beginners.
“I talk the whole time. I’m very talkative and I can talk at the pace I run with them,” she said.
Although the Facebook group is much larger, lately there are about 11 regular runners who participate, she said. That number went down during the holidays, but Kittrell isn’t worried.
She’ll keep running and sooner or later they will be back, she said. Alyssa Sizemore has been running with Kittrell for about a year.
“Having someone out there who helps you and motivates you and pushes you, makes it easier,” she said. When she has the breath, she talks to her fellow runners.
“We talk about everyday life. It’s our me time,” she said.
Many of the runners are
also members of another Facebook group Kittrell manages.
She calls it her “Mommy” group. It’s a judgment-free zone where moms can discuss their lives and their children.
Both Sizemore and Kittrell have preschoolers.
The children aren’t usually there during the runs, Kittrell said. They meet in the evening when their husbands are available to keep the children. They tried a few morning runs with jogging strollers, but that didn’t work out very well.
“It was painful,” Sizemore said. “It’s a lot harder than some people make it
look.” Kittrell agreed.
“It’s hard,” she said. Just pushing the stroller while running is difficult and the kids don’t always cooperate. On week days, if she runs when her husband isn’t home to watch the kids, she runs on a treadmill.
On weekends, Kittrell and some members of the group have been doing the series of races organized by Bentonville’s Parks and Recreation Department.
“I sign up for every one of them,” she said. She encourages the others to sign up, too. Several members of the group have done 5Ks with her, but so far she’s the only one who has
done the half marathon.
“You can’t just wake up one morning and run 10 miles, you gotta prepare,” she said.
She’s seen a big improvement with her beginning runners. They usually run two or three miles on weeknights and build up to that gradually. Kittrell adds a 10- or 12-mile run on weekends.
“If you can do 10 miles, you can do 13,” she said. A half marathon is 13.1 miles.
Kittrell ran the Bentonville half marathon when she was six months pregnant, she said.
Her 4-year-old is already a runner, she said.