Day.....173 or so

Well, after the "Concerned Citizen" incident, I never ran again. Seriously. I decided to focus my efforts in a different direction, something I KNOW I'm good at... I got pregnant twenty days later. As I'm sure you can imagine, between parenting a four year-old, starting a Critical Care Fellowship, running a household (in the wifely way), and the horror of first trimester fatigue, blogging has been put on the back burner. I think I am going to come back though. I mean honestly, there is plenty to blog about during pregnancy. Spranking, puking, bloating... More to come.

Day 2: Concerned Citizens

So, I've recovered (mostly) from the Puking-On-The-Treadmill-In-Front-Of-The-Hot-Moms incident, and two days later, I decide to try again. This time, I think, I'll stay in a safer place: my own neighborhood. I mean, Westerville is FAMOUS for its' bike paths, so I head down my road to hop on the trail. I do my whole 15 minutes of hell, I mean, intervals on the path, and as I'm "merging" back into the neighborhood, a circa-1989 Buick LeSabre pulls over next to me. "Great," I think, "One of my old neighbors who knows I am a nurse is going to ask me some question about her constipation or her aching knee replacement." I was wrong. It was a kindly older gentlemen who, at the sight of me, must have been very concerned about my immediate safety as he asked "Is everything alright? Do you need a ride somewhere?"

I wiped the extraneous snot from the entire area around my nose that seems to flow like Niagra when I run (and not just from crying), removed (just) one earbud, straightened my shoulders, and replied proudly "Oh no, I'm just heading home after a run." He look suprised, skeptical even, but nodded, gave me one last look, and drove away. Ouch.

Well, at least I went.

Day 1: You Might Be a Penguin If...

So, I've decided to try my hand at running. Several reasons come to mind: It's cheap, it's time-efficient, it's an excellent(love-handle/beergut-burning)workout- plus it's cool: everybody does it! I've always been envious of my family members (the Thompsons, specifically) on vacation coming in from their 0700 run, sweaty and satisfied, excited to eat their bran cereal and berries (already showered and hair blown dry) at nine o'clock in the morning, just as I'm rising from my stupor and blindly reaching around for a cup of coffee and some cheesy eggs. How do people just go out and run, just like that? They must have a magical, vampire-esque genetic makeup that enables them to effortlessly trot through 5k's and pop out of bed so early in the morning- yeah, yeah, that's why it's so easy for them!

So, after I mentioned my interest in running to my mother-in-law, the marathonologist, she let me borrow a book called "The Courage to Start" by John "The Penguin" Bingham. She knows me so well. I already liked the fact that his nickname described a fat, thigh-rubbing-together-type-of-fat, waddling, mostly sedentary creature who does a lot of eating and sleeping. Then, as I started to read, he said I just had to get out of the driveway! Yeah baby! ..... So then I drove my Jetta all the way to Urban Active (a.k.a. Gym of the Freakishly Thin Minivan Drivers with Three Kids Under Age Five) (and smoked on the way, naturally), climbed the two, read it TWO, flights of stairs up to the darkened, comfortable, safe, theatre room, and hopped on a treadmill. As I run-walked my way through that grueling first ten minutes, I began to feel pretty good about myself. "Penguin, ha!" I scoffed to myself, "this isn't even that hard! I'm a freaking gazelle!" I reached for a swig of my environmentally conscious SIGG metal water bottle and as I gulped, I felt something solid go down my throat. Now, I'm not a freaker-outer, not by a long shot: I'm a mother, wife, and a nurse at an urban hospital. But what I imagined to be a dead fly had just slid down my throat, and that was cause for some major gaggage. And by gaggage, I mean that I projectile vomited all over the treadmill. All over. A lot. And as it was mid-morning on a weekday, the room was packed with all Barbi-, I mean mothers of school-age children.

If you can't tell, I'm also a passive person. If things don't go my way, they have a mysterious way of "not working out." Not that it's MY fault of course... But I'm just too busy taking advantage of every special moment with Ava to POSSIBLY waste any of that precious time running! Therefore, the projectile-vomiting incident was good cause to give up. I mean, obviously running is not for me! I'm going home to have Girl Scout Cookie therapy.