Resolved

I made a couple of New Year's resolutions this year, although I nearly forgot to. I went to the Y to exercise on January 2, and it was packed with people exercising. This happens every year right after New Years. I took a look around for an empty machine when it hit me - I'd forgotten to make any resolutions.

I didn't have any resolutions in mind, so I was going to skip them this year. But then a day or two later, a friend of mine recommended an article on how to become an interesting person.

There were 10 suggestions, all good ones. But all the suggestions were focused on the risks you should take, or experiences you should have, to give yourself interesting stories to tell. What was missing was any focus on other people, and I think it was a fairly obvious omission. A good eleventh suggestion would be to ask follow-up questions when other people talk to you about their own experiences. This has the advantage of making you more interesting in two ways. You will learn lots of interesting new stuff from the experiences of these other people. And you will also seem more interesting to them, because people always find you interesting when you take an interest in them. Plus, it's actually really interesting.

I love telling stories, and asking the follow-up question doesn't always come naturally to me. So that became my first resolution - to remember to ask a follow-up question when I'm talking with other people.

The second resolution is to start running. My friend Laura floated the idea of training for a half marathon. To be honest, that sounds like hell to me. I quickly said no. The last time I can remember running any distance at all was my Sophomore year in high school, when the evil gym teacher made us all run a mile around our crummy little track. (In the winter, he made us shovel it.) I don't know if the point was to make us suffer, or to make us know that we could all run a mile. The lesson I took away was that running sucks.

But I'm not getting any younger. I am healthy, and all my joints are still in good working order. And for some reason, I didn't like saying that I couldn't do it. Especially when my reason stems back to something as dopey as hating my evil high school gym teacher. And it doesn't hurt that all my running friends are lean. I've reached that age when weight goes on much more easily than it comes off, and lean is looking particularly attractive to me.

So I got on a treadmill for a power walk, and I decided to run just a tiny little bit, to see how bad it would be. I ran for one minute, which I know is ridiculous. But it was easy, and not terrible, and when I was done, I was willing to try it again sometime.

The next time I ran for two minutes. And the next time for four minutes. And this morning I ran for eight minutes, which is about a half a mile, and it still wasn't awful.

When you reach middle age, it's not as common an experience as it used to be to try something, and to keep getting better at it. It's energizing. It makes me understand why my friends who are training for races always talk about it. I'm almost certain to ask them to tell me more about it now.

I'm aiming for a 5K, which is about three miles. Honestly, a half marathon still sounds like hell to me. But a 5K, even a slow one, is about a 45-minute time commitment. I've spent longer than that on more boring activities. So that's my second resolution. Wish me luck.

And I promise not to talk about it any more, because I want to hear more about you.

;)