Dedication

I like to run, okay run – jog – walk whatever. Anyway I like to get outside and move my body. I prefer to do it with someone, I like the company and it actually motivates me to get my butt off the couch. I do really like to run by myself or with my dog, but sometimes that just isn’t enough of a motivation.

I had a running partner and we would try to go 3 days a week and do 5 miles in the morning before work, we were pretty good at it and to make up for any missed days we would schedule a longer Saturday run. I got a point where I didn’t run consistently I went nuts and drove everyone around me nuts (kind of like a dog that desperately needs to go to the park). Then she got pregnant, and then I got a job that started earlier in the morning, then she moved away to another state and then I stopped running.

Sad tragic story isn’t it. Don’t worry it goes on.

At this point I have pretty much stopped running I probably went by myself like once or twice a month. Pitiful. I have however developed a reputation as a runner. I don’t think I could consider myself a runner at this point I mean I wasn’t running. I needed new running shoes, but couldn’t justify the purchase if I wasn’t really putting the miles on them.

I also have a friend who is getting married soon. She likes to talk about how much she needs to work out and eat better and lose weight before the wedding. She doesn’t really do much about it, mainly talks about it while eating a pint of ice cream or hitting up Burgerville (a meal, that Burgerville so helpfully provides with caloric intake – it was a 2000 calorie meal). So she is a lot of talk. This is fine for me since I am too.

Actual 2000 calorie Meal

Then this all changed, we went for a nice walk one Sunday night and decided that all this is changing, we are going to start running. Tomorrow. So I wake up the next morning at 5:45, get dressed and head over to her house at 6. The plan was to do 3 miles. I was supposed to measure this distance in my car the night before. I forgot to set my odometer at the right point shrugged my shoulders and figured running further wouldn’t hurt us.

So day one we go and run the whole thing. Day 2 she wants to time it. I can’t let her bring her iphone to measure the distance, so I time us. And then she thinks that we ran 13 minute miles. At this point I have to come clean, I mean 13 minute miles, you walk that. She was a bit miffed but ran the four miles the rest of the week.

Alright week 2. Not as good as week 1, skip Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning but with a promise we will run Thursday night. So I get dressed in my gear. I’m taking the dog since due to random rainstorms that are generally happening at night he hasn’t been to the park for a few days. It is also a bit rainy not to bad but it is night so I grab my safety vest and one for the dog (yes that right he has a vest – what? Like he should get hit by a car?) and head over to her house.

We head out not raining to badly. And then when we are already at the turn around point the skies open up and gift us with a shower. A cold, thorough and long shower.

I got the point where I was not avoiding puddles, there wasn’t any point my shoes and socks were already wet thru. The dog was mad (he hates the rain). But we kept on, mainly because we had no option. We didn’t stop once to walk and we ran faster than we had any morning without rain. So I guess the rain did something I should probably calculate the additional weight of my wet clothes as an extra to the workout.

Oh and we are almost back to the house when a car drives by and nails a puddle. Thanks, I don’t know if it was possible for me to get anymore wet but I hadn’t been nailed in the face with a wall of water yet.

We get back to her house and her fiancée, is there yeah that’s right he didn’t come and pick us up just laughed about how wet we must be getting. Thanks, dude.

We’re dedicated though we went Friday morning.

Although you want to know the worst thing about taking up running? It wasn’t the rain. Or the fact that the next morning my shoes were still soaking wet and my hair was damp as well. It’s the fact that my friend (the one who eats 2000 calorie meals) announced that since we have started running she’s lost 3 pounds. Me? I’ve lost nothing.