Running

I think that in order to distract myself from some of my goals that have hit a little slow-down right now in my life I am going to create another goal. I am going to become a runner.

O.K. This is really hard for me to admit, but honesty has always been my policy, and I’m not going start running to improve my cardiovascular so and so. I am going to do it because lately I have been very afraid of the legs of people my age.

Everywhere I look are legs that really don’t belong in shorts, there they are. The combination of the of cellulite and spider veins like some kind of intricate world map for all the world to see.

Below the knee my legs still have it. I think it was from the tap dancing for our high school musicals at good old O’Gorman High School, but I’ve got a pretty good calf muscle going on there. Up above the knee things are starting to scare me a bit. This year I have switched over to the “walking short,” otherwise known as the “covering up the unsightly portion of your leg short.” These are referred to by the teen set, who would never wear them, as the Bermuda Short. They hover somewhere around the knee, or cover them up sometimes if you are vertically challenged, like me.

In the extra closet down the hall are the shorter shorts. The cute and youthful shorts. The goal shorts. And before the summer is over I am going to look good in a pair of those.
Here is how I am going to do it: I am going to do it using mailboxes.

Out here in suburban Ohio, where I live, the mailboxes are at the curb. They are up on wooden posts placed about 120 feet apart. Ohio is a great place for out of shape mailmen and women because they never have to get out of the little white trucks. They just drive along the curb line and shove in the mail.

But I digress. The great thing about the mailboxes is that they set little goals for me as I jog along. I already know from reading an article in Better Homes and Gardens about how to take 10 years off your legs that the walk/jog method of exercise is preferred for out-of-shape mothers trying to become runners. They recommend mixing walking with little spurts of jogging until you build up your endurance. So as I am huffing along I just look up ahead and say to myself:

“Just a little longer, flabby. Just push it to the ugly plastic mailbox with the purple flowers painted on the side.”

Today I jogged for seven mailboxes. Then my legs started to itch like crazy for some unknown reason and I had to walk the rest of the way home. Tomorrow my goal is the mailbox that is being eaten by a poisonous vine. That seems like a good place to end.