500 Posts Toward My Book

This is my 500th blog post. I wasn't actually going to mention it, since it probably paints me as a hermit spinster who only leaves the house to run, which I suppose is not too far off the mark (aside from the spinster bit). So I bring it up less as a pat on my own back than as an intro to where my thinking is these days.

I started the blog in '06 and 500 posts later, I've become kind of riveted by the mothering-running phenomenon. Not only is it not uncommon, mother-runners are kind of a force to be reckoned with. We're everywhere. We run, and some of us run kind of fast. Whether we won the NYC marathon yesterday or cried when we saw it on TV (hello, that would be me), runner-mothers are an impressive community.

In August I quit my job to write a book about how running and mothering intersect and how each changes the meaning of the other.



The purpose of the book is to illustrate the ways that running and motherhood transform each other. The book looks at the connections that mother-runners draw between these two aspects of their lives, in terms of their day-to-day experience, identities, and sense of community

For the book, I need to interview as many runner-mothers as I can, and I'm hoping that you'll complete an interview with me to be part of the project. I think the book has a lot of potential to be a supportive and motivational resource for moms who run as a community-in-print.

To participate, you...
need to be a mother with at least one human kid, whether from your own uterus or adopted.

need to identify yourself as a runner or someone who runs (or ran) on a regular basis. Any kind. 5k. 10k. 50k. Half-mary. Marathon mama. Ironmaiden. Recreational. Treadmill. Road. Trail. Once a week. Seven days a week. Etc. You just have to identify as a mother who has run in some kind of habitual way since the arrival of your children to the planet.

Your participation would mean:
* One 90-minute interview about you, your running, your mothering--by phone or in person if you're localish.
* Interviews are confidential, but I'd like to tape record and possibly transcribe them. You'd have the opportunity to read and edit your transcript after the interviews.
* Book will use pseudonyms (if you want), and none of your material will appear on my blog without your written permission
* My writing for this project does not have the same style of my blog. I will not give you a clever nickname and comment on your life, your parenting, or your running. I will not call you The Man, The Elbow, or Sadistic Coach Guy. If you want to read the type of thing I compose when I write portraits of people, I will happily email you a sample. This project is about how you see you as a mother who runs.
* I can't pay you for your participation, other than to express my undying gratitude and send you whatever leftover Sport Beans I can dig out of my gym bag.


If you're still not sure because I do kind of seem crazy and utterly unprofessional at times, visit my professional web site, which contains my background in qualitative research. I've published some stuff, even on real paper, so there is hope that the book will see the light of day on a shelf at your local B&N.

Email me at marathonmama [at] kristinapinto [dot] net to participate. It would be great if you would plug my call for participants to your running friends and blog readers (if you've got a blog), too.

Please?