My Recent Fitness Exploits

These photos include a deer on river bank, ducks i was never able to get close enough to get a good photo of, a tree which was willing to stand still (the local "rope swing"), Catman pretending to be "the King", and Moonbeam ready for an adventure.




After working a couple of days at the hospital, I was ready to embark on some type of athletic endeavor. As you may be aware, I am recently pretending to be a runner. For the first time in my life, someone was willing to run with me. This was an exciting new break through because I am "friend challenged", I live deep in the mountains, and I am afraid of running by myself. Since I haven't run (a straight mile) since high school (18 years ago), its been a good challenge. I am running with a 22 year old who was in athletics when she was in high school (not as many years ago). We started last week. I cancelled once because I got called to work. She cancelled once because of several inches of snow. Today was our second run together.
I have been preparing for these runs quite diligently. First of all, I dress like a runner. I wear 3 running bras, a running shirt, running legging leotard type things and a sweat shirt. I decided that the too big running shorts I got at a second hand store looked weird, so I put on some clearance wal mart stained up running pants that I usually wear when I clean the bathroom. I also dawned running shoes that I was not able to sell on eBay. Again, I consumed granola for breakfast (something I'm pretty sure runners eat). My next big move was to add "running" to my list of interests on my blog profile description. When I went grocery shopping I bought a copy of "Women's Running Magazine". I'm pretty sure that these things will some how mysteriously make me into a runner of sorts.
I thought I might hurl after the first mile of running with my friend, Mist. I didn't want to let on though. If I'm going to be a runner I have to fake their "no pain no gain" mentality. I ferverently wished one of the few cars that drove by would be someone who wanted to stop and visit with us. Much to my disappointment and anguish, they all just drove by and waved. Mist says that soon we will try running 2 miles without stopping to walk. I smiled and said "sure", trying to act nonchalant. Miss Belly Fat is panicking. She would put her foot down, but she doesn't have one.
Yesterday, after I got off of working 2 12 hour night shifts, the house was a disaster. I felt tempted to feel sorry for myself. Instead I took Moonbeam on a hike to a nearby lake. As I was sitting there, two men came down and stood on either side of me to fish. I was holding really still and they couldn't tell I was there. I feared one of them would decide to urinate so I decided to announce myself after I carefully stopped nursing. Then I took the kayak out on the river by myself for a couple of miles. It felt good to expend some energy after being cooped up.