No longer sticking to my guns, unless getting new guns count…

It has been incredibly busy as of late. I’m not talking about a handful of items to check off my list, either. I’m talking about the ‘I feel overwhelmed and need to get up and walk around for five minutes and practice my deep breathing and “Oh, Goodness, I am only one person!”’ type of busy.

Work is geared up, the older child turned 14 (FOURTEEN! WHAT?) this past weekend, swim classes start for Ant this week, J’s been working extra hours, and oh! The house is a wreck—imagine that.

The good news is two-fold, however. First, we’ll be taking some time off for a stay-cation in the near future. We all need the break.

Second, is that I’ve found my groove again when it comes to exercise. No, scratch that. I’ve found a better groove when it comes to my exercise routine. Exercise can elevate my mood like nothing else can. I owe it all to the horse fly. Yeah, you heard that right.

I’ve kept up on exercising—doing my walking, the yoga, the ballet barre, the bike, etc. but I was getting bored. Worse yet, I was not getting the same results as I could once expect. Always cautious not too push it too far; I decided to expand upon the frequency and duration as opposed to the intensity. I have been known to push myself too hard and get hurt. As you can imagine, that wreaks all sorts of havoc on your body and your emotional well-being.

And exacerbates arthritis, it turns out.

So, the first thing to really get a makeover was my walking routine. Now that it is not sub-freezing temperatures, it was time for me to explore and find new walking paths to amuse myself. Which I did, and I found the greatest little walking trail not far from our house. It’s the kind of trail that is remote, filled with wildlife (I’m not just talking about squirrels, birds, or fireflies here—have you ever seen a beaver meander across your walking path? I have!) and the perfect length.

I’ve seen quite a bit of that trail recently.

There are plenty of people, close friends and the husband included, that urge me to run. I’ve never been a runner. I’ve never wanted to be a runner. I’ve always heard that runners have the worst injuries, and to top it all off, I’m just not quite the body type that is conducive to running. You can say that I’ve invested a lot of time and energy in avoiding running, not enjoying running, and scoffing at those who suggest I run.

Until J and I were attacked by horseflies the other night.

J didn’t really want to go walking with me. He had worked all day, and he stands for a good chunk of his work day. Ant had accompanied me twice that week, so he was not interested. There is no way that a teenage boy will be seen anywhere with his mother, if he can help it, so K walking with me was out of the question. I ended up coercing J to come along. In good husband form, J did not truly appreciate my new trail, but he did not complain, until we were attacked by blood-thirsty horse flies.

There was no avoiding them. Almost at the half-way mark, we were committed. We would sprint a short way head of them, and they would quickly catch up. (They fly, you know.) We had only one option to avoid them, and that was to run the last mile home.

Horse flies are what convinced me to run, and the fact that my body did not break into a thousand pieces, and my heart rate creeped up, and I felt pretty darn good afterwards (exercise high) convinced me to try it again. The fact that this trail is secluded and under-used helps, too. I’ve never been mistaken for graceful.

I know; I’m an anti-running hypocrite! I’ve left the small, but committed tribe of anti-runners! People will likely expect me to enter races and drink Gatorade, and eat energy bars and buy running clothes! Ugh!

Can we just keep this to ourselves? I’d prefer not to have my anti-runners card pulled just yet, in the event that I want to change my mind.