Not Again!

All right, readers. Do you remember back in the fall, when I had some sort of identity crisis and wanted to do crafty things? That feeling never really left. In fact, I just borrowed my mother-in-law's sewing machine and am hoping a friend of mine (the same one who bailed me out with my craft project, actually) will give me a few lessons this summer.

If that were the end of the story, then it would just be old news.

But it's not.

Today, I found myself wondering if maybe I should start running this summer. Cue the scary organ music.

In order for you to fully grasp how weird this is, you have to understand that when I was in high school, I made it a habit of telling people that running was "against my religion." When I got to BYU and could no longer use that excuse, I switched to explaining that I felt that running was an unnatural act ("unless it's to the bathroom or away from bears"). I HATE running. Hate, hate, hate it. My friend Carla tried to get me to run with her, and after a block of gasping for air, I told her that I was done and I wasn't trying it again. She keeps trying to convince me that we should run a marathon together some day, and I always laugh and tell her that maybe when hell freezes over. But probably not even then.

I like most other forms of exercise. I will do aerobics, jazzercize, kick boxing, step aerobics, yoga. I have done ballet, standard ballroom, Latin ballroom, karate and capoeira. I biked my entire mission. And honestly, when I'm not surrounded by my under-four-feet crowd, I even walk pretty fast. I just. don't. run.

But recently, the "yoga" class here at church has turned into a circuit workout class. This means that our instructor, Vangie, has us do 30 seconds of various things-- jumping jacks, weight-lifting, sit-ups, and any other evil, strenuous thing she can think up. And since you only have to do each thing for a short amount of time, the goal is to keep pushing yourself just that little bit longer and you get a really great workout from it all. Of course, Vangie cheats. She claims "30 seconds" but it's always longer than that. Usually we've been jogging in place for a full minute before she gives us our 15 second warning. And when she counts down from 5, she's really counting how many more times you can do each task. It has nothing to do with seconds. I think. I can never actually see the clock...

But it works. The first time I did this workout, I just about died, and I was sore for the next week. (It probably didn't help that I showed up expecting yoga and was wearing flipflops. As devoted as I am to my flipflops, tennis shoes definitely work better for jumping jacks...) But I realized this week that I'm getting better at it! When Vangie makes us do bicycle sit-ups, I can now do it for the full time! (At least, on the first rotation I can.) The same goes for the jumping jacks and the jogging in place. I may be breathing pretty heavy by the end, but I'm still breathing!

And I got to thinking, if I can improve this much so quickly, maybe I should be doing more. Maybe if I began running like the circuit training-- jog a bit, walk a bit, jog some more-- and built up my strength...

I might just have it in me after all. In any case, I at least want to try it and find out.




Who am I any more?