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December 4, 2005

What has running done for me?

If I had a picture of the whole room last night at our shower it would be worth a thousand words in answering that question. I never had the experience of running on a cross-country team (and I certainly never felt a part of the teams I participated on in high school - those experiences were probably the exact opposite of what a team is like ideally) but somehow I've been so incredibly lucky to stumble upon my own version of that kind of camaraderie later in life. There are varying degrees of seriousness about running among the group - some don't even run anymore - but that's the tie that binds this group together. It's a group that has become more of our "life" team than a running one, but we can pretty much talk "shop" with any of them and they can hang.

And OF COURSE we got a jogger last night! We still don't have a only-thing-required-by-law car seat, but we have something even more important. The hostesses of the shower last night pitched in to get us one. The shower itself was a "display shower," which I'd never heard of before, but is pretty common at large showers, I think, where a gift-opening ceremony would take forever and bore people to tears. They had reserved a room at one of Austin's larger and better-known Mexican restaurants, and it was more like one enormous happy hour than a traditional baby shower. It really was perfect.

It's scary to have the shower over with, though. Now we just have to do the actual deed. Eek.

And yes the belly belt worked! I'm back out there. I've been starting a little later than the regular workday girls start and run-walking in the opposite direction until I come across them and then we can finish up together. Yesterday I did a "long run" of about 5 miles with my dad. We stopped for water, a few walk breaks and a potty break, and I felt great. It's so nice to be so low-key; when I see old friends on the trail I actually stop and chat rather than just high-five as we pass.

Yay belly belt!

Posted by jenandmats at December 4, 2005 2:52 PM