Pacemaker

Last week I started a little couch-to-5k project.

I hesitate to mention it, you know, since I'm much nearer the "couch" than the "5k."

All my life I've been a dancer, a writer, a horsewoman, a thinker.

And although I play well with others I am not exactly a team sports kinda girl.

So it was with great surprise that I realized I love both the field and track portions of a track-and-field event.

I think I really love the solitude of running... even in my current walk-run-walk-run stage.

And it's not just because my early partners, 

my sweet husband and my super-fit oldest child, 

outran me within 90 seconds of our inaugural workout.

Come to find out, I just (big surprise) like being alone for 20 or 40 minutes.

One can think on a run.

Whodathunk?

(Molly is behind bars because we have a new bottle baby, a lamb, 

and the dogs are not to be trusted with small bouncy creatures.)

Anywhat I have new running shoes and a new attitude.

I run for mental health.

I like the running better in the woods,

where the fir needles and moss cushion paths

and my thoughts are rambling

but loud enough to hear over 

my breathing.

As a horsewoman

it feels a little like that moment when you transition 

from walk to trot to

canter.

It's breathless and slightly uncomfortable, hard to catch your balance, and then rhythm takes over.

So I go into the woods without my camera.

And I come out not a faster person but a person with a better pace.

I run when Salvador's asleep and the girls are
deep into history or language arts -- my favorite subjects and theirs --

and I can't believe I look forward to this exercise.

Do you run?

Do you stretch yourself in some other unexpected way?

(Do you illustrate your blog, your life, with seemingly unrelated photos? Me too.)