Springtime Resolutions: 2012

Looking back over my posts, I realize that last year I skipped this "tradition" I started in 2010. But that's OK. As a teacher colleague of mine used to say, Onward and upward!

A few weeks ago, while walking, I met a woman, probably in her seventies, walking her little dog. I passed her while she was waiting for her dog to mark a clump of weeds, smiled and said hello. Minutes later, she went by and I said, "You passed me up!" Then we started walking together and chatting for a few minutes before I came to where I had parked the car. Turns out she used to be a runner. But she didn't start running until she was "old". Old? Yes, forty.

I am going to turn forty this year. And I haven't really run since...well, I've never been a runner (besides a jogging class I took for one quarter in college). But my springtime resolution for this year is to become a runner.

And I am on my way! I've been walking two or three times a week since Andrew started preschool last September. It has now been six months since I realized I was getting out of breath walking a quarter mile to the park. Nearly six months since my doc told me to lose some weight and lower my cholesterol. I'm down twelve pounds, which might not seem like much of an accomplishment, but considering I lost it all before Thanksgiving, then proceeded through the holidays (which go through Valentine's Day, didn'tchaknow?) without gaining any of it back, I'm feeling pretty positive.

And today. Today! I went for my usual walk, for about an hour and a half, and I ran for thirty-five minutes of it (I walked/ran/walked/ran/walked). I've been slowly working up to this, as I've found myself having a need for speed (which first coincided with Journey's Don't Stop Believing popping up on Pandora...hey, it ROCKS). I can't quite explain it. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Why wasn't I out running in my lazy twenties before I had kids and still had a chance at having flat abs? Why? (Maybe having tunes on my smart phone helps--so much lighter and easier to use than those old Walkmans!)

All I can say is that now, I look forward to it. At first, it was obvious that I would look forward to a long walk on a beautiful trail with great tunes (my Neil Finn Pandora station) all by myself. But now the running? I kept thinking about it last night. I couldn't wait to get to the trail. I couldn't wait to push myself to run just five minutes longer. And I ended up going ten.

Thank you, nice lady on the trail, who has not been far from my thoughts these past weeks. I have been so inspired. I feel like I have much more to say about it all, but Andrew wants lunch. And it is after 2pm.

Welcome again, spring. Thanks for the clouds and bit of drizzle today. I am happily anticipating the glorious Joseph's Coat blossoms you've got tucked away in those little buds (pic above). And I can't wait to hit the trail again...

P.S. I recently started reading dooce again, and came across this today. May explain my melancholy reaction to spring each year.

P.P.S. Resolutions? Yes, there is another. More on that later