The Ridgefield Press, 2019- The idea came to her, as many good ideas do, when she was waking. Megan Searfoss was in the middle of training for the Lake Placid Ironman triathlon, a test of endurance not for the faint of heart. First you swim for 2.4 miles. Then ride your bicycle up and down hills — heck, mountains there — for 112 miles. And then run a full marathon- 26.2 miles.

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“I woke up with — ‘Run Like A Mother’,” Megan says while reflecting on the start of the 5K race in Ridgefield that now has become a Mother’s Day tradition in Connecticut.

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When she moved from Illinois to Ridgefield, the focus was on helping her daughters — then in second, fourth and ninth grade — adjust to new schools, make friends, get involved in activities. "I looked around and thought, ‘what about me?’” Seafross recalled. She began running on Sunday mornings with a few other women. In 2007, she invited friends to join on Mother’s Day morning and then get coffee after the run.

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“What I wanted to do with the race was help women feel as I do when crossing the finish line,” she said of the satisfaction that comes from pushing yourself. “In this era of hyper-parenting, we lose sight of what’s important to us. “Selfish is not always a bad word.”
 

The first Run Like A Mother race in 2008 was spread by word of mouth. She expected about 50 women — within one week 500 had signed up. The following year a kids’ one-mile run was added, along with a training program for those who wanted to learn how to run or improve their time.

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To read more about Run Like a Mother, click here. 

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