My New Best Friend

I wake up in the morning to this face:

Okay, I really wake up next to my husband, but this puppy is on the other side of me. And I am having a problem going from my lovely elliptical, to this:

Actually, where I run looks absolutely nothing like this. If it did I might be more inspired to run outdoors. But quite frankly, I’m not.

Problem is, the motion on the elliptical is really nothing like actual running. Which is ironically, why I bought it.

I refer you to the canned ham post. I swear to gawd the entire thing is the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Just call me Grace. Not so good on a bike, either.

I never got my drivers license until I graduated from college. Living on and island off NYC it was never necessary. Although, come to think of it, it would have come in handy summers in suburban New Jersey. But whatever.

Since I did not have a license, and hence no car, I rode my bike everywhere. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year at the U of M, I worked three jobs in Summit, NJ. Waitressing, scooping ice cream and subbing as a lifeguard at the town pool. It was on my way to this last job that my back began it’s lifelong task of annoying the ever living you-know-what out of me.

I was riding my bike down the hill toward the pool. This lady in a car, late for a job interview, wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing and turned left in front of me. I hit the back of her car and slid off her trunk. My bike was trashed. I was extremely fortunate not to be seriously hurt. Lucky for me she was on her way to an interview at Overlook Hospital. How convenient. I hitched a ride, was checked out A-Okay in the ER and headed on my merry way.

The next day I woke up and could not move. I rolled out of bed like a huge roll of carpet, landed on my stomach and 20 years of back problems began.

After being told most of my adult life that my weight was the largest contributing factor in my back problems I got in great shape, lost 35 pounds and was exercising every day. Boot camp, weight training, aerobics, you name it.

And, it was in this most fantabulous shape of my life that one afternoon I bent over to pick up a piece of paper from the ground. I didn’t stand up straight for almost 4 days. Okay, I admit, I was bending over to pick up a coupon. Serves me right for trying to save $1.o0 on a box of Special K.

I walked at a 90-degree angle for 4 days before it was determined that I had a bulging disk in my lower back. As a result of trauma. Hmm, and I thought my back problems were caused just because I was fat.

Moving on.

Being terrifically gun shy and not wanting to do anything to re-aggravate my back, we bought an elliptical machine. For it’s no impact. Which I love. Because it’s nothing like running. Which I don’t.

Fast-forward 6 years, and I have had only minor annoyances with my back since that fateful coupon-picking-up incident. And my doctor gave me the go-ahead at my annual physical.

But aside from attending the Merrimack Valley Striders clinics, I have yet to run outside. Needing to get past this jar-my-back-phobia pretty darn quick. It is fall in New England.

Which means snow is just around the corner. I think it’s now or never.