What are we trying to do here?

When designing anything, the first step is always to define the problem. For us crazies who love running, this means we want to be able to run even though we have kid(s) to watch and even though they're heavy, or it's windy, or today was supposed to be a recovery day, or training plans don't happen to mention "tempo pace as a family."

But we could technically satisfy that problem by taking the kids to the park and running around a tiny loop within line-of-site, or any other number of creative but less-than-realistic ideas. So let's put some numbers on it. Each of these will get a discussion in a future post.

We need to be able to:

• carry at least 60 lbs (an average four-year-old is approximately 38 lbs).
• maintain at least a 4:30/km pace (7:12/mi).
• go for at least an hour.
• start from a dead stop.
• safely and gracefully self-disable if the situation requires it.
• make going running easier. Running can still be hard, but the act of going out shouldn't be a logistical hazard.

So there we have it; let's solve that problem.