On Sixty: " An Object in Motion Tends to Stay in Motion."

Since last writing, I've turned Sixty. I've been working on a book and swore that I would take every last minute that I have to write to work on that and not allow the distraction of my blog to derail that. But, alas, I just miss writing little ditties on my blog! I miss writing for twenty minutes and being done with it, not trying to imagine when, if ever, a book will be done.

I like completion.

So, I'll catch up on news since turning Sixty in late August.

The coolest news is this:

Around my birthday, Lee mentions the need to find a new obsession. (Of course this is not to replace his obsession with MOI!) This is to replace his obsession with golf. He's heard about the 30th anniversary of the LA Marathon in April 2015 and (yep, seems pretty far away) but as it ends in Santa Monica at the Pier, one of those places that rings his bells, he thought he'd train for it. Now, Lee is 62, so he'll be 64 when this happens.

A few days later, right after my 60th birthday, Lee and I were having morning coffee. He's up early to go pay golf. I was telling Lee about Isabelle's training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon - taking place next weekend, Oct 6. She is running it with her brother, Zan. Izzy has never been a runner. She's played soccer, but not really trained to run. So she took it up this past spring with a very proscribed training program and has been an animal with it!  A few weeks ago she sent her training calendar and it looked like this.

Izzy's Training Calendar

So, I"m describing this to Lee. I tell him about a program Izzy mentioned to me called COUCH TO  5K. He immediately goes to his computer to look it up, and without a beat says, "Let's do it. I'll give up golf today if you'll start this with me."

Now, I'm not even awake. It takes me one full and very strong cappuccino to wake up. And then it take whatever time caffeine requires to enter the brain. So I say, "Honey, consider me in. I'm doing the COUCH part. Now leave me alone."

"No, Alecia, let's do it. Let's start today. It would be great to do this together. I'll wait."

Somehow I just said, why not? I've never run in my life, but I thought about him wanting to run again, Izzy running, my client Brigit who has run for thirty years and encouraged me to take it up. She's the one to paraphrase that great law of physics, above.

I was in the mood for something new in my life so I just said, Ok.

Now, what to wear? Well, all I had were these flimsy little walking shoes, a pair of very Edina looking knee length khaki shorts and a Lucia's t-shirt. That was my first day running outfit. It was really bad.

Lee downloaded the program and off we went to Loring Park to take our first run. Walk 5 minutes, run 2 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 2 minutes, walk three minutes or something like that. The problem, and a sad one, is that the homeless in Loring Park are just waking up at 7:00 in the morning and I felt a little weird out for a jog among the homeless. I mean I was going home to have toasted french bread and apricot jam and it just seemed weird.

So, I bought running clothes the next day because I couldn't be seen running in the khakis again. And we've been running the program ever since. We just finished Week 5.

My fabulous flying shoes.

The coolest thing of all is that we finish at Week 9 - the week we are in Paris! So, we are running a 5 K in Paris one way or another. Even if it is our own little race.