I'm in my mid-forties, which pains me to admit because I've never fully recovered from turning 30. I don't care what people say. The 40s are NOT the new 20s. Several years ago I blogged under the name Tater Mama (Tater Tales), and I wrote about being 40 here.
My husband and I have been married for 20 years and we have two sons who are 8 and 5. When I'm not trying to keep those two from killing each other, I'm a 2nd grade teacher in a suburban school outside of Memphis. At one time we had four labrador retrievers but are now left with the one and only Duke, a 9-year-old yellow lab who has earned the privilege of doing absolutely nothing, which is exactly the way he likes it. We should all be so lucky.
Back in my 20s --- oh, those sweet 20s --- I was a big walker, especially in the summers when I was out of school. Then one summer I decided that walking was taking too much of my precious napping time, so one day I just started running. By the end of the week I was running almost 3 miles at a stretch.
I am fabulous! I thought. I was meant to run! I told myself. I am going to run TWICE a day! I proclaimed.
And then, on day eight, I woke up bright and early for another I-AM-THE-BEST-THING-TO-EVER-HIT-THE-PAVEMENT run. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, stood up, took one step, and fell to the floor
As it turns out, I was not as fabulous as I thought and had a hateful case of shin splints to add to the proof.
Marian: 0. Pavement: 1.
Well, I guess I showed running just what I was made of. I never ran again. Heck, it was a couple of weeks before I could stand to walk a couple of miles in one stretch. And ever since then, running has been dead to me.
Okay...maybe not dead. I didn't run again, but it's always been in the back of my mind as something I'd like to do. I want to be a runner. I want to run a 5K, a 10K, and a half-marathon. But, unlike Forest Gump, I haven't been able to bring myself to just start running again, thanks to the memory of those shin splints.
One of the teachers at our school is an avid runner, and she recently became a certified running coach. I caught her in the hall one day and asked if she had any clients yet and told her that I'd be interested in having her work with me if she had time. As it turns out, since she's never coached anyone before and is a little nervous about it, she said she was thinking of getting a faculty running group together in which she'd coach. For FREE.
I think over 20 people have signed up so far, and we'll start when we get back to school the first week of January. There are members with all abilities -- those who haven't been doing any kind of exercise for years to those who have run marathons in the past but have gotten out of the running habit. At our first meeting, our coach will hand each of us a personalized running plan, and those who can meet a couple of times after school each week will run/walk/crawl together, and then it's up to us to do the rest on our own.
I am nervous. I am intimidated. I am not sure I'll make it past the first few weeks. I'm afraid I'll fail. But I'm also excited and anxious to get started. I like the fact that I'll be accountable to someone else.
I started this blog simply as a journal for myself. I don't know that anyone will ever stumble across it, and that's okay. I could easily use a notebook to accomplish the same goal, but I know myself pretty well and would very likely use the first few pages to document this little journey and then after a week or two use the paper to make grocery lists and write reminders to my husband.
So there you have it. I am a wife, mother, teacher, and would-be runner.
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