Friday, December 21, 2007

"Running" errands

One thing I've learned about exercise and trying to stay in shape is that you have to find a way to burn calories in ordinary times of day. So today after school, Gray and I took Amber (our beagle) to the dog run. As Amber did, well, a lot of things other than run (she's obviously not trying to burn calories), I found myself running around with Gray and jumping to stay warm, but really, just burning calories instead of standing there still.
Then we went to the library to return a few movies- I pulled up to the front just to drop the movies in the dropbox. I jogged from the car, went out of my way to jump over a large snowpile, then bounced up the library steps two at a time, dropped off the movies, and jogged back to the car. I had no sense of urgency- pulling up to the front is ok- it's not like it's a fire lane or anything.
As I'm jogging back to the car, I see another woman come jogging from the side of the library- she was so obviously doing exactly the same calories-grabbing I was doing. Based on her body, she does it better and more often! For a split second we shared the same wavelength. We exchanged a quick half-smile and got into our cars to drive away. It gave me pause though- I'd never really thought of it as "running" errands, but perhaps if I did, I'd inch closer to my goals. And probably get a lot more errands done.

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