By Nina Alviar

The three of us were walking through the golden sunny hills on Greenough Drive, our babies all within a month’s age of each other and strapped into our matching Baby Bjorns. We walked with gusto, like Mom’s who wanted to see the familiar shape of their derrieres return after the spreading of pregnancy. Truckin’ through stands of trees, becoming breathless on the winding uphill climbs – we were invigorated. Except it was hard for me to “keep on truckin’.” I had to keep stopping to tend to my baby.

I know to this day that the ladies would say that they didn’t mind every time I had to flip Marquez the other way like a pancake in the Bjorn. Or every time they had to wait for me to nurse him while they stared at llamas and while the llamas stared back. Or when I just slung the Bjorn over my shoulder and held Marquez for the last half mile, slowing me down. But I felt terrible holding them up – of course their babies slept the whole time. I wanted to be in a bigger group of exercising moms where maybe there’d be at least one other baby who was a non-stop nursing pancake.

These days, as a runner and a mother, I know that it can be intimidating to join a running class or training group – I might be the slowest, I might have my baby in the jogger and lag behind if he needs me. So with running-mom Eva Dunn-Froebig of Run Wild Missoula, I helped to develop the New Parent Training Class.
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