Progress...finally!

I have been craving exercise for several years now. I have made sporadic attempts to work some in to my daily routine, but the problem has been...time. There never seems to be any.

For a while, I was attending a gym of sorts. I liked the Contours workout a lot -- but the really obnoxious weight loss message screamed in my face the entire time I was there. I hated that! And Rod and Jack started to feel really neglected after six months of my working out for an hour after work, three days a week. We don't get that much time together as it is and that extra hour was a lot. So, I quit.

And just as I was getting into a walking routine each summer, fall and cold would set in and I'd give up. *sigh*

My mother has been walking for 45 minutes every morning for something like 30 years. I have known that -- but until recently I wasn't aware of just how much that habit has done for her. When she came to visit last year, I saw her ahead of us at the airport and tried hard to catch up. I was amazed as I chased her across the airport that there was just no way I could catch her until she stopped! (And I don't think of myself as especially out of shape -- I leave many of my friends 'in the dust" when we walk together.)

This year when she came to visit, I was again impressed with Mom's non-stop energy and I was determined to start a routine that I could continue so *I* can have that level of vitality 20 years from now.

When Mom left, I took a good look at my life and figured out that my best bet for walking was to take time at work. For the last several weeks, I have been walking at lunchtime. My employer, conveniently, has a half-mile track laid out in the parking lots, so I am able to get in a good long walk safely.

Now a part of the problem with sticking to a walking routine has always been boredom...walking alone is boring unless I am walking to a destination and there are things to see as I walk. Walking with someone means that when they poop out, I lose a lot of my own incentive.

Another ongoing frustration has been my inability to find time to read. I *love* to read! But there simply hasn't been time since Jack was born. (It doesn't help that Rod sees me picking up a book as a sign of desperate boredom, and being a gallant soul, he always comes to my rescue and comes to chat with me as soon as I pick up a book. Once i give up and put the book down, we wanders off, his job here done.

So...I have been walking this nice flat track every day and reading! Hurrah!! I have finished two books and am starting on a third -- my densest reading rate since Jack was born! And I am up to a little over 10 miles per week for several weeks now...

Happily, there is an "indoor track", so I can probably transfer my walking circuit indoors when the weather is rainy or cold -- though that's a quarter mile and there3 will be more foot traffic of people coming and going for meetings so reading won't be as easy...

I really hope I can stick with it this time -- and I think that getting a chance to read may be just the incentive I was looking for! ;)