A quiet weekend

This weekend my exercise was fairly low key. I went for a walk with my sister, Janet, on Saturday morning, then headed off with my sister, Trish, this morning to walk the dog and to watch one of my nephews play football. This afternoon, I realised that my niece and nephew were looking for something to do while they were visiting so I suggested that we go for a walk around Kororoit Creek. The creek is quite a lot of fun for kids, with a couple of playgrounds, stepping stones, rocks to climb, ducks to feed, and trees to hide amongst, so they were happy to come along with me.

Laura was running on ahead while Michael was busy describing, in excruciating detail, the pedometer his dad had given him recently. While listening to Michael explain the seven different functions of his whizz-bang pedometer I was watching Laura, who was having a great time running and skipping ahead of us. It reminded me of something I'd read in my Chi Running book, about how much fun kids have when they run. They don't worry about what they are wearing or whether or not they have the right shoes on. They just run.

Just as Michael established that, along with all its other functions, the pedometer did count steps, I saw Laura running down one of the hills. I had this incredible feeling of envy as it looked like she was having such a good time. Suddenly I realised that it didn't matter that I was wearing my jeans; the only thing stopping me from joining her was me. I asked Michael if he'd like to run down the hill too. The two of us immediately took after her, and the tone for the walk was set. I challenged them to run across the bridge and up the hill. Off we went. We mixed up running and walking with heading off the path down to the creek and clambering over rocks.

I was absolutely stoked. It was probably only twelve months earlier that I was just starting to run, and I remember puffing and panting when I ran a short distance with some of my nephews. I also remember the kids playing up amongst a group of rocks that make great forts, while I jogged determinedly around them, building up some distance. Today, I was having a ball, running around like I was a big kid too. We passed a few people who looked a little bemused to see an adult tearing up the hill from the creek or running back down again.

I did the last part of the run with Laura staying well behind us, yelling out "I don't know either of you" and Michael running on ahead trying to make sure that the aeroplane didn't take his head off. Yes, I was the aeroplane.