Thank you, Mr. Hare

Last night as I was falling asleep, I imagined myself waking up first thing and running. I almost felt so energetic about the idea that I believed I could have gotten out of bed and gone running right then. Well...not really. But it sounded good. So I drift off into a deep sleep filled with thoughts of running and floating across the pavement like a weightless nymph.

Alarm goes off, reality sets in...No. I don't want to get up. I'm tired. It has been a long week. I have a leg cramp. No. Not going to do it. No. No. No.

Well, let me eat first. I eat. And sit with my cat. She looks at me and says, "Let's cuddle." I say, "Oh what a good idea. Let's do it." So I cuddle the cat. Then I think, "OK, Tasha. Enough is enough. Get up and at least walk." So I go in the bedroom and I see a pile of clothes on the bed. They need to be folded. Reality sets in when I come across my jogging bra. OK. OK. I really need to go.

I head to the gym, dragging my feet through the door that was so kindly opened for me by a nice-looking man. Overly cheerful girl at the front desk greets me, "Have a great workout!" Yeah. Yeah. I head upstairs, pick a treadmill far away from other people and start walking. It's warm up time. Right as I'm about to up the speed, door holder from five minutes earlier hops on the treadmill next to me. I get nervous with people right next to me, especially when there were plenty other spaces to choose from. Then a girl gets on the other side of me. They both immediately start running. I look at the guy's treadmill. 7.5 MPH. Fine. To save myself from complete embarassment, I start running too. And right when I want to quit, I look over at both sides of me. They're still going. Fine. I'll still go too. After nearly 10 minutes, guy to my left stops. Gets off and walks away. After another minute, I slow to a fast-paced walk. The girl on my other side stops as well and walks away.

I keep going. Alternating running and walking as much as I can. I look around. No sign of Fast-runner male and Fast-runner female. I'm still going. Forty minutes after man sprints on treadmill, I'm still going. So thank you, Mr. Hare. Slow and steady really can win the race.