What am I doing?

I went running today for the first time in years. It was a short two-mile loop but my thighs are already screaming at me. When I walked in the door, dripping with perspiration, and panting like a dog Andrew greeted me with, “You’re back already?”

Yup. Fifteen minutes of agony and I’m back “already.” Thanks for keeping things in perspective, honey.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy running. I do. It’s just that running for the first time hurts. And we probably ran way too fast, looking back. I coerced another young mother in my ward to run with me and we were chatting while we ran—and, yes, I use the term chatting loosely; if anything we were huffing and puffing and wheezing words out—and she said, “Let me know if we need to slow down or walk.”

And I said, “Naw, I’m good if you’re good.”

Then she said, “If anything I think we’ll just keep pushing ourselves to keep up with each other.”

And thus it was that we didn’t seem to slow down the entire time.

I started to get nervous the last few weeks we were in Egypt about what I would do once we’re back in the States. I enjoy the challenge and excitement that living abroad offers—did I mentioned the time I asked a store clerk for shaving cream and ended up being escorted to soup mixes? See how exciting it is?—and was worried that living back in the States would be…well…boring. And as I was walking to my last day of tutoring, I was thinking up ways I could keep life interesting and challenging once we moved back. One of the ideas I thought up was running a marathon. Later I offhandedly mentioned this idea to Andrew, who so far has been taking it much more seriously than I expected him to, mainly because he originally took it more seriously than I took it, myself.

“Do it!” he said, excitedly.

“Haha,” I said.

He’s being most supportive about it, though, dragging me off to shop for running shoes (since I didn’t have any because I’ve been living in flip-flops for the past two years) and a sports bra appropriate for a nursing mommy (actually, we’re still looking for something adequate in that department—suggestions welcome) and forcing me to go talk with my running partner. That was awkward.

Me: Hi, you’re so-and-so, right?

Her: Yeah. And it’s…I can’t remember what your name is.

Me: Nancy. Yeah, no problem. Ummm…I hear you run…or that you’d like to run…or…

Her: Not really.

Me: Oh. Me neither. I mean. I don’t run. But I think I want to start running. I just don’t want to go running by myself because I’m fitfully paranoid of being abducted.

Her: Me, too!

Me: Great. We have something in common. So, I guess it was just a rumour then.

Her: What?

Me: That you want to run.

Her: Oh, I’ll run with you. I don’t really want to run (or exercise at all, for that matter) but I really should.

So that’s how I got all suited up for training for a marathon. At least, I guess that’s what I’m doing. I’ve never really done this before.