Morning Walk

I've recently resolved--truly--to start running regularly. I have let half of this year go by in a glory of culinary bacon exploits, but have done little in the way of working out, averaging only a couple of workouts a week. And bacon, being strictly a temporary blessing of mortality, is really only good if I am around to enjoy it.

Bacon-wrapped grilled cheese, there is only one you. Unless I make another.

So this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I went back to the gym. I have some sort of shoulder problem--as of now it's undiagnosed officially, but I think it's my rotator cuff--so I have only been walking instead of weightlifting. A big reason I haven't been working out regularly this spring is that with the nice weather I don't want to go to the gym if I'm not going to lift--but going on a walk with the kids is to walk at kid speed. I finally sucked it up and admitted that a walk on an indoor track was worth a million outdoor walks that didn't happen, in terms of exercise.

But here's the thing: I give Mike a hard time about buying expensive sporting equipment and not using it. (To be fair, he usually does, but there are times when I have not felt he's gotten our money's worth from something.) But earlier this winter, I was shoe shopping and told Mike I'd like to get into running--especially with all the trails and paths on the island. I don't know that I'll ever do a marathon or anything, but I'd like to run around this island of ours. He convinced me to buy a pair of nice trail-running shoes that were quite a bit more expensive than the pair of sneakers I was looking at.

I've owned those shoes for six months now. As of last week, I'd run in them once. So Thursday evening, after the kids went to bed and I'd eaten a dinner of hot dogs, cake, and ice cream (Finn's birthday--getting the pictures up to post later), I ran (kind of) a mile. It was torturous, but I knew it'd get less so. Then Friday morning I ran again--maybe a mile and a half--which is definitely the longest I've ever run. (Hey, I was a sprinter, okay.) This morning I am sore, and thankful for the first time EVER that I live in a one-story house.

I did manage to hobble down the steps of the porch to take Elvis on a walk. I even walked at a decent pace. I did the loop of Degregoire Park, right by our property. The far end of that loop goes along a scrambley cliff-side. When I reached that end I couldn't help but stop. The tide was right up high, so I could only scramble down a couple of feet or so, but I found a good rock to sit on and pick the rocks out of my shoes and watch a lobster boat churn past, close enough to wave to the lobsterman working the gears on back. It made me curse leaving my phone at home--I wanted a picture to share the moment with you all. But I quickly rescinded the thought. I sat another minute, then Elvis and I climbed back up to the road and kept going. 

You see, no picture, not even one of Mike's, will really get it through to the viewers what he is experiencing unless they've experienced it themselves. I love to look at photos, I love to share my own, but this was a morning that no photo could do justice. No photo would share the scent of the lilacs I passed on my way down or the shore roses I literally stopped and smelled on my way back. No photo would share the perfect temperature or the salty breeze. No photo would share the companionship I feel with my parents, my Grammy Alexa, or every other Mainer I see enjoying the Maine State Pastime on a morning like this. Even Elvis was perfect--he walked off-leash most of the way, and we race the last stretch before the Sand Point Road, which can be "busy." That's why I want to run. It's my gateway sport to so much more; more smells and sights and sounds and feelings than I get from the gym, and in less time than I get walking.

This is one of Mike's. And just like that shot of the back-wrapped grilled cheese, you have no idea what the experience was like unless you've repelled to the bottom of a cliff and climbed back out yourself. Don't you want that?!

So raise your bowls of bacon and say it with me: here's to being a little more adventurous and a little more like Mike.