Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Join Me in the WAG Movement!

When I turned 30, I ran 3 miles with my friend Becky; I remembered feeling a sense of pride because, while I often ran at the time, I rarely ran more than 2 miles.  When I turned 40, my 5-year-old daughter and I tuned into a Jane Fonda video.  Having a great time huffing and puffing while it lasted, the glow dimmed after a couple of weeks with the advent of a strained muscle.  Turning 50 wasn’t marked by any particular physical training—unless you can call keeping my head above water exercise.  And now that I’m 60, I’ve returned to the starting point of running.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any big goal in mind, like that of my amazing friends as they ride their bikes across country.  I’ll just be glad to pass the half-mile point.

What I’ve come to realize is that I have to fight back.  My biggest enemy isn’t overindulgence or sloth; it’s more insidious than that.  It’s gravity. While this doesn’t appear in any scientific journals, I’m here to tell you that gravity works better than it used to.  It keeps me in bed longer, it pulls me to the couch, and it seems to work its magic on heretofore believed to be fixed-in-place body parts.

So I’ve decided to start a movement:  I’ll call it WAG (Women  Against Gravity).  It doesn’t matter if your body wags your tail or, like an anxious, energetic pup, your tail wags your body.  Join me in the delusion that if we get moving, we can beat this thing.

5 comments:

  1. I'm in! I forwarded this post to a couple of my friends with whom I walk with on a fairly consistent basis. They will definitely have an appreciation for your WAG movement. : )

    Bonnie, friend, you make me smile!

    WAGging with you...

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  2. I've been in this "movement" for awhile. Unfortunately, our bodies protest more than our spirits sometimes. My bladder and my knees won't allow running. I just heard a new report about "boomers" thinking we are never going to age and that there is a whole field in medicine ready to fix the damage we do to our bodies. But we just keep going! I'm a walker, Would love to dance but after blackmailing my hubby into taking ballroom dance classes a few years ago, I found out that he is not only tone deaf, but rythm deaf as well. That was so fun.

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  3. Traci, you're too young for a true appreciation of WAG, but I'll let you join as an honorary member.

    Bette, I periodically get out my Thriller album and dance away--no partner needed.

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  4. I'm in! Love the idea of the WAG movement. Great post as a motivator!

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  5. Thanks! I love the idea that I'm motivating unknown friends!

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