Reflections

I thought living vicariously through my husband would keep me a fit and a happy runner. Oh, I've continued to run so as not to fall totally to the wayside, but for some reason, my plan hasn't worked.

I remember a long run in the summer - a 10-miler - where my knees started hurting again. That was around the same time that I started working full-time. We had recently moved, and with all the changes (and aching knees), I just stopped caring about how far I ran, how fast I ran, how often I ran. I had to readjust my priorities with less free time but the same busy family (and I mean busy).

I admit I haven't done a good job of finding time for running. Excuses abound, but Americans today have more leisure time than ever before. So there is really no good excuse for why I have not found time. Motivation is a different story.

Well, there's nothing like clothes fitting tighter. Nothing like that dreaded visit to a retail dressing room where the mirrors are set up in the cruelest way to show every part of your body that you normally (and thankfully) can't see. And those lights! To sell more, I would think stores would find lights that softened and enhanced rather than pointed out all the glaring evidence of too many cookies and too much stagnation.

Visits like that for me make me want to eat a bunch of fresh out-of-the-oven oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Exactly the wrong thing I should do, right? Right. I know it. We all know it. It's just that cookies are so darn good. And my favorites are oatmeal, so really, it's healthy. Uh-huh. Really.

No more watching David cut full minutes off his PRs. No more hearing his alarm at 5am each day while I curl back under the delicious covers. It's time to push away the Coca-Cola Classic. It's time to count the calories and up the miles. It's time to make use of that monstrosity of a gym I give money to each month. Who's with me? Bueller? Bueller?