It\'s not all about running for Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea. It\'s about coming together with like-minded women to exercise bodies and emotions.
Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea from Another Mother Runner bring together running, humor and parenthood. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Tuesday, Oct. 2 was the 10th party for McDowell and Shea, and more than 250 women met at the Washington Woods Community Center in Gaithersburg, Md., to eat, drink and talk running with their mentors. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Hosting Another Mother Runner parties is a great chance to meet like-minded women. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Dimity McDowell checks women into the party. Around 250 women came out on a Wednesday night to meet the authors of "Run Like a Mother" and "Train Like a Mother." (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Empty bottles of wine sit on one of the tables at the party for mother runners. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
In the past five years, McDowell and Shea have done more than solidify a community of mother runners; they've established a brand -- Another Mother Runner -- published two books and fueled a movement of passionate women runners who come together to exercise and find comic relief in balancing parenthood with life. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
While McDowell and Shea have met plenty of their mother runner "fans" at races across the country, the two decided travel and host 12 parties across the country to kick-back with other mother runners. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Around 250 women line up to meet Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea of Another Mother Runner. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
"We can always connect with women," says Shea. "We can be in Austin, Texas or Albany, N.Y., and we all have this common love of running and then find that we have the same sense of humor, we have the same mommy guilt, we have just the same kind of outlook on life. You can strike up conversation with any woman in the room and feel like you could go on a 5 mile run with her and have a good time." (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
Tuesday, Oct. 2 was the 10th party for McDowell and Shea, and more than 250 women met at the Washington Woods Community Center in Gaithersburg, Md., to eat, drink and talk running with their mentors. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
McDowell and Shea announced they are currently working on a third book, due out in spring 2015. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
In the past five years, McDowell and Shea have done more than solidify a community of mother runners; they've established a brand -- Another Mother Runner -- published two books and fueled a movement of passionate women runners who come together to exercise and find comic relief in balancing parenthood with life. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WTOP/Rachel Nania
In the past five years, McDowell and Shea have done more than solidify a community of mother runners; they've established a brand -- Another Mother Runner -- published two books and fueled a movement of passionate women runners who come together to exercise and find comic relief in balancing parenthood with life. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
WASHINGTON – In 2007, Dimity McDowell was pregnant with her second child and needed a goal. She’d been sucked into postpartum depression with her first child and “didn’t want to go there again.”
So she asked her friend, Sarah Bowen Shea, to train with her for the Nike Women’s Marathon. The duo completed the race, wrote about their experience in “Runner’s World” magazine and decided to start a blog for mothers who run.
“We realized there was this huge, great community that hadn’t really been solidified yet,” McDowell says.
In the past five years, McDowell and Shea have done more than solidify a community of mother runners; they’ve established a brand — Another Mother Runner — published two books and fueled a movement of passionate women runners who come together to exercise and find comic relief in balancing parenthood with life.
