The formative moment in my running career is a failure to pace and subsequently puke after a grade school event it took me many years to live down. While I can run, I am no runner. Still, I aim for a modicum of fitness and when my daughters’ school hosted a 5K as a fundraiser, I signed us all up. Here’s what the experience taught me.

• Forcing children to run is never really a good idea
• Keeping said children up late the night before to stuff their faces with refined sugar at a s’mores fest . . . you tell me
• Children will still show us pathetically fit adults up – despite the last two points
• You can go farther in a slow jog, but not as far as you would think
• Even the slow-motion jog – one step up from power walking – can become excruciating after awhile
• I must apologize to all old women of whom I’ve ever made fun for power walking
• There are many muscles in the pelvic girdle
• They will all hurt individually if you decide to pound the pavement
• The physical therapist who put you back together after birthing your third child was a genius
• You should have continued doing her exercises
• The young and fleet of foot will lap you before you’ve completed even one revolution
• Walking 5K is not as wimpy as you initially thought
• Breezing past the officials at the checkpoint fools no one; they know you walk as soon as you reach the cover of those trees
• You will hit your stride just in time to finish

Ironically, this year is probably the last I was in shape.  Photo by Jennifer Butler Basile