Spring seemed to come out of no where, but it was more than welcome. I never really got the tranquil winter I wished for. We didn't end up with much snow. There was always another gun show, another place to go or thing to do and I never ended up feeling "settled". The snow left as quickly as it came giving us a record early spring. My cross country skis traded for running shoes, I began pounding the pavement haphazardly yelling at my dog every so often as I tried to keep tabs on her.
Part of me rebelled daily against living in the main part of Yaak feeling like my life was on display for everybody to see, but the other part of me forced myself to take advantage of being around people. Many of the days I was home, I worked out with my eccentric neighbor lady in her "girl cave". She lives on a heavenly 40 acres of river in a log house overlooking a long stretch of waters. She has elk, deer and turkeys all over her yard, along with her horses, dogs and cats. She doesn't like to leave her home much, and welcomed having a friend to exercise with. Having almost every exercise dvd known to man, or so it seemed, she always had something new to mix things up with.
Skiing with Elasta Woman and Gracie was fun, but the snow never stayed ideal for long. In truth, putting away my skis was kind of a relief. I flirted with the idea of signing up for a run, but lacked the motivation. Still it egged the back of my mind until I felt rather yolky. Finally, I couldn't hold back any longer and caved, signing up for Bloomsday. Strangely, I found my Bloomie recruits at the local bar, no kidding. I just so happened to end up dropping in on just the right days when somebody remotely my age was there. The first time was at Crafty Kay's Good Bye Party. After that it was at The Saint Patricks Day Party. The conversation would go something like this "I never go here do you? Do you run? You do? Great, lets FB". Before long, we had a good little group of runners of whom I was the eldest and likely the shortest. When I met our last recruit - a 20 something blonde - half my age and twice as tall, I really began questioning my sanity. "What the heck are you thinking?" I argued with myself. "I don't know" I argued back. "Maybe the challenge is good for me" "Maybe you are just not all there in the head". Usually the fight ends when I realize that arguing with myself only enforces that last idea. In the end, she proved to be a kick butt runner and a sweet girl I would never in a zillion years keep up with, but I didn't care. It makes me happy just to motivate others, and that is sometimes enough to motivate me.
And so it was that we had developed an informal girls running club. Elasta Woman and Mist joined us as much as they could which made it feel like "the good old days" to me. Tall Blondie of course paces ahead, but I'm good with that. Then there is another girlfriend to add to my stories, she's still 10 years younger than me, but thankfully a little better matched to my pace. I'm going to call her Belle. We have an awful lot in common and that seems to make the miles go by a little faster. She also knows a lot about yoga and those post stretches really make a difference.
The other less than sane activity of which I pioneered is my new Facebook group "April Crunch and Munch" where I elicit a bunch of women to do crunches daily and eat more veggies. Putting that kind of pressure on myself to preform crunches seems to be the only way I can motivate myself to faithfully do them. Again, back to the above argument.
In wrapping things up, I was enjoying a lazy, hot bath after pounding pavement, minding my own business, when Miss Moonbeam busted into the bathroom, stripped off her clothes and shamelessly bounced into the tub poking and prodding my belly. It was then that she made that profound observation "Mama, your belly looks and feels like bread dough so I am pretending to knead it". "Great just great" I thought.
