Join us again in the What Would Another Mother Runner Do corner. This time, the topic is playing hooky in order to run a Ragnar relay.

From another mother runner, who chooses to remain anonymous for reasons that will become clear:

I’m currently headed to Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to run the Reach the Beach Relay. I haven’t told anyone (other than my husband) because I called in sick to work to get the day off. Since a good chunk of my work involves social media I know any posts I write about doing relay race will pop up on colleagues’ feeds. I’ve gone so far as to take twitter off of my phone so that I’m not tempted.

It’s really interesting to be getting ready for a race, and you can’t talk about before, during, or after with your virtual pals. Ten or 15 years ago that would be totally normal. Now it’s like, ‘am I even RUNNING this race?!’

It’s a funny situation but made us think: Would we straight-up tell our boss the truth or, like this BAMR, call in sick and run on the down-low?

SBS says: I’m a rule follower, so this dilemma has me conflicted. I think laying low on social is DEFINITELY the right move professionally, but I might have used a vacation or personal day instead of calling in sick. (As one woman pointed out when I told her situation, “How would she explain walking like a baby giraffe in high heels when she returns to work after the relay?!?”) As for the almost Buddhist meditation on, “If I don’t talk re: the training/race on social, does it really exist?” I think I’d actually relish the lack of “pressure” to perform. There’s something very appealing to me about keeping the training + racing as their own little gemstone for me, and me alone, to polish.

Dimity says: This is a tough one. Really depends on the number of vacation days you have and the relationship between you and your boss. The goodie-goodie in me says tell the boss and take the day off, but I realize there’s probably a reason why she didn’t do that.

So I would’ve just gone naked for the Relay. No phone; only occasional glances at it to make sure all is quiet on the homefront. Having done this for other stretches of time in my life, my guess is that she found it surprisingly refreshing and was able to concentrate on the miles and the laughter as they happened, instead of concentrating on documenting it.

(And afterwards? There’s always dropbox for sharing photos.)

What did this mother do?

Our Mother Runner says: Oh, you bet I ran! And as Ragnars go, of course, there was plenty of The Unexpected so I ended up running even more than I planned to. Hello, 27 miles on legs that haven’t covered more than 8 since early June! Zoinks.

Work-wise, it all turned out fine. On Monday when I returned, my supervisor didn’t pry into the family sick day I had called in. I had asked my teammates not to tag me in social media posts so that kept that noise down. I have one work friend who is a runner so I discreetly shared the info with her and gave her a gander at my 7.5 remaining toenails.

What would you have done? And do you have your own What Would Another Mother Runner Do dilemma?