I Really Haven't Arrived

I really have made a lot of progress especially since May in becoming a little more like the younger me, though not as in shape and not as thin. I really am pretty happy with this. A lot of people think I look better and younger and shorter (I still don't understand how I could look shorter). This week Marcella took an "after" picture for the gym. That was awkward. I feel like I have so far to go. I know I haven't "arrived." All I can say is that part of the reason that the "before" picture was so awful is because I am not photogenic. I don't know where to put my hands and I can't smile without someone saying something funny. "Ok. Are you ready? Say Cheese," did nothing but put a stupid look on my face. Between that and being bloated, I'm not sure that it will be usable as inspiration to "normal" people. (Hey guys, Marcela thinks I'm normal. hehehe...) If she had of said that while she was taking my picture she might have gotten a "normal" smile out of me, maybe even a chuckle. It's nice to have someone fooled. :) I am one of Marcela's first success stories. That is hard to believe. She really is a good trainer. (I haven't had one before, but she made me believe. She says I made her believe, too.) All this is pretty awesome...and awkward. We made plans to try and jog together...I thought for a whole day that I was ready for that. I was REALLY excited.

Now, from reading these blogs so far, what would be the last thing that you would do if you were me, if you were excited about not feeling quite as old as you have been feeling?...............Give up?...............?
Take my middle schooler jogging with me. No, I didn't...surely, I'm not that stupid....Haven't I told you before that I am the stupidest smart person you probably know? I am. I took her on what was going to be a 3.2 mi (5K) jog. I told her it was a jog. I even bought her some appropriate jogging shoes. We decided to jog in our neighborhood because I was stupid enough to be worried about her stamina on the killer trail. She was like an irish setter again. She was so excited. When we got to the curb, she took off...almost flew, for five steps. She looked beck at me (20 ft back) and said, "Hey, Mom. I thought you said we were going to run." I panted (because I was jogging), "No, I said we were "jogging." I can't "run" any more." At first, she made fun of me by sort of skipping, then race walking, and then sort of dance jogging. (She says that wasn't dancing.) Then she started noticing how loudly I was breathing. She said, "Why are you breathing like that?" I no longer was at the point where speaking was much of an option so I gasped, "Tell ya later." She looked at me sadly like an Irish Setter on a leash that isn't trained and is being forced to walk when all she wants to do is run her fool head off. We kept this up for 1.6 miles. (I didn't know she had that kind of stamina.) Finally, I said go ahead and run on ahead. We'll quit at 2.4 miles...take the last lap as fast as you want. She said, "Really?" Her eyes lit up as she took off, no longer leashed to her old pathetic mother barely jogging around. Now she really reminded me of an unleashed Irish Setter tearing around in a huge back yard. It wasn't long before she was completely out of sight. I continued to lumber along, when I got to the house, she jumped out of the tree that she had climbed to wait on me after she had gone into the house to get a drink and to wait for her heart to quit beating fast (her words, not mine). I apologized for jogging so slow and told her it was ok if she didn't want to jog with me again. She said, "That's ok, Mom. I need to learn to run slow sometimes. It was kind of hard to run that slow." Ahhhhh, the innocence of babes, she has no idea how belittling she was. Middle schoolers, gotta love them. :)
I am now thinking that perhaps it's going to take another year to be able to join a public 5K without suffering complete humiliation. The good news is that Chrissie is already ready for a cross country team. I really didn't know it would be that easy for her to run 2.5 miles. Go Chrissie!!!!