As I live vicariously through my kids, I have come to enjoy talking them into doing things that stretch the limits of their known capability's. Today for example, I was able to convince my 14yr old son to run with his old man (that would be me) in an organized 5 mile run in Fredericksburg. Convincing him to run was easier than I had expected. As I have noted somewhere on this Xanga page, football is the sport of the moment. I calmly explained to him that he did not have to race this run just jog along with his old man for company and that jogging 5 miles would help build endurance for the football field. He agreed. We ran. Being the young buck he is, he left me behind somewhere around the 4.5 mile mark. I was happy to see him go. I don't believe he could stand to see his old man suffer any longer. Anyway his time was around 45:22 and my time was around 46:25.

     I chose to start running again to try and lose some of this weight hanging around my midsection (spare tire syndrome). I initially lost 10 pounds (and kept it off I might add) and haven't lost a pound since. However, I can officially run 5 miles in a little less than 47 minutes. I chose running because you don't see many overweight runners out there. I say officially since running on the treadmill and timing yourself just doesn't seem to match what happens on the street. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the YMCA in my area in order to add aerobics to my weekly routine. I will also be adding a little weightlifting into that routine.

     Since I quit smoking over 2 years ago, I wanted to work on my lung capacity and try to speed up the clean up process going on in the lungs. For those of you looking to start a workout program google the following Presidents Challenge  I found this to be a fun log for my running and also motivated me to work out a little longer each time. As of June 27th, I have earned the Bronze Award. I am now working towards the Silver Award. Only 25000 points to go.

     Anyway, I titled this as middle age, because I find my state of mind totally different at "middle age" than when I was younger. Case in point. The above run with my son. A younger me, would have passed out running as hard as I could to prevent anyone from breezing by me on the run much less my own son. Now I am just kinda mellowing out.

     I would also like to thank Spazmom40 for stopping by and providing me some laughs. Great sense of humor.

ZMAN