Reason to Pant

One of the things I like to do since having kids is try to stay somewhat in shape.  Just a shade more specific than "vaguely recognizable as a human" shape, which is what I was going for before I had kids.

I really don't like to run unless there's a fleeing ice cream truck involved, but I do it anyway because (1) it's free, (2) it requires virtually no equipment, (3) it is accessible almost anywhere and in almost any condition, and (4) it gets me out of diaper changing duty for 30 minutes to an hour.  

I would forgo (1)-(3), if I could just get (4).  I've tried baths.  Does not work.  

The Couch to 5K program fits the bill for someone who is a beginning runner or an inconsistent runner, like me. You will routinely catch me in Week 1 of the program, having advanced and regressed alternately over the course of several months. I graduated to the Bridge to 10K program once in the last three years, so it doesn't feel completely futile.  I have found that paying a $35 entry fee coupled with some meaty humble-bragging to anyone who will listen that I entered a 10K serves as great motivation to persevere in a training program that I would otherwise scrap for an Always Sunny in Philadelphia marathon.


So, if I can coax myself out of bed before my husband leaves for work, I will run for exercise that morning.

Then, riding on the high of having achieved something any grade school kid accomplishes every day at recess, I will cap off the day with a little body weight floor exercise while watching Downton Abbey.  I'll do some girl push-ups, some triceps dips, some lunges, some squats, a few seconds of a solid plank. Then I will do this floor routine from an old Jane Fonda video that I memorized during that coming of age transition between 8th grade and high school. It consists of outside leg lifts, inside leg lifts, back leg lifts, crunches, a snappy attitude and a hidden agenda.

I do all this while my husband eats chips, reclines in the rocker, and critiques my form.