John told me years ago that he considered me “The Pied Piper” of exercise. I earned this lovely nickname a long time ago, at the beginning of my teaching career. Early on, I had to move to different schools because elementary classroom teaching positions were scarce. It was so hard to move each time, but I now cherish those years because I met so many amazing teacher friends along the way. I still stay in touch with all of those friends to this day.

While teaching at each school, I  tried to fit exercise into my day, since it was hard to get to the gym regularly. So I gathered my new teacher friends, developed an exercise plan, and my new friends became my “exercise buddies”.

My exercise journey as an adult began after my first daughter was born, which was 30 1/2 years ago. I started “jogging” six weeks after she was born to get the baby weight off. There was no time for the gym, so at that time I would go to my mom’s house and run back and forth in the backyard for ten minutes. Boring right? Because I started so slowly, I never hated it; in fact soon I craved moving because it made me feel good to challenge my body, and it made my feel happy. I know so many people hate exercising, but I believe it is because they do too much too soon. If you can only “comfortably” run a block, then that’s what you do, several times a week, but no farther than one block. Add slowly so jogging never feels awful. Walk when you start feeling uncomfortable, and start jogging again when you feel ready. That’s how I’ve helped many of my  non-runner teacher friends to become “half-marathoners”.

Because fitness is a passion of mine, and because exercising is so much more fun when done with friends, why not talk about how to get moving and stay moving.  Any ideas?  I’ll let you know mine and you can let me know yours!

Carol