Jogging!

A very, very long time ago, I ran a 25K - the Fifth Third Riverbank Run. Tim and I ran it together - fell in love training for it. We never would have done it had it not been for our dear friend Erica suggesting we train - and so (as one thing led to another) she has often joked that we owe her our firstborn. I think we're both content with our own firstborns and so Zora and Samara will stay with their rightful mommies and daddies - but I digress.

Anyway - Tim's knee was never the same after that 25K - and so jogging slipped out of our lives. I returned to my exercise of choice: Tae Bo. I have nearly worn out my Billy tapes and a 3' x 4' square of carpet in our living room jumping around, sweatin' it out. I've tried to get back into Tae Bo since Samara's birth, but - except for a blessed period of about 6 weeks when she was content to sit on the floor and play with toys - she will not tolerate 30 minutes of mommy huffing and puffing in front of the TV, let alone 60 minutes.

And so - I've been walking. On the mornings that I don't go in to work, I put Samara in a back carrier and we walk two miles - the same two miles I walked every day of the last 2-3 months of my pregnancy with her. I prefer the back carrier to the stroller because my arms are free and because I know I must be getting more of a workout because I'm carrying 20 more lbs.

Now, if you walk like my sister walks (she's training for a 3 day, 60 mile walk - Go Teeps!), the nwalking is a good work out. And I do think that I stayed sufficiently healthy when I walked 2 miles a day while pregnant. But walking is doing absolutely nothing for me as far as regaining ANY muscle tone is concerned.

And so - I've returned to jogging. I cannot believe that at one point in my life I could jog several miles without stopping. Now, I strap Samara into her very nice jogging stroller and take off - glad the bulk of the stroller is hiding the horrific jiggling of muscle-less legs... and yet, glad for the jiggle - because - like my sister says - if it's not jiggling, it's not going to go away.

The last five days I've jiggle-jogged 1.5 miles out of my 2 mile route. I think Samara is learning to like it. She puts her head back and laughs at the trees as they 'fly' by at a 10 minute mile pace instead of a 12 minute mile pace. :-) She wears a pumpkin stocking cap to keep her ears from getting cold and I wear maternity shorts (yes - maternity shorts - because they're the most comfortable) in hopes that this jiggle-jogging will help me bury them in a box in my basement...

Oh! And because I can't seem to post without a picture, check out my sister and her husband's newest addition to the family!


'Gideon' Keizer will join their household on Labor Day weekend!