Saturday, February 10, 2007

“One dropped habit alters your destiny. What do you grumble about most often? If you can give it up for the next three days, your life will change – incrementally at first, and then remarkably.” - a fortune from Angie's blog.

Becoming a runner and dropping the sedentary life has done this for me. It's touched every part of my life. I get less grumpy, have more energy, better health, and on and on.

Today I took a carload of teenage girls to Goodwill. It wasn't a donation, but half price saturday. So, my daughter and her friends shopped. And I ran. I ran from the parking lot down Guadalupe Road (noisy) to Kiwanis Park. North past the adult soccer players, past the tennis courts, past the softball fields (where we lost our game last night) and around the lake. It was lunch time and the temperature was around 70*. I got to see people playing games, feeding ducks, riding rental bicycle type contraptions, paddling on the lake and picnicing. I kept running for 5 miles in a bit over 1 hour. I felt great.

As I was going down one hill, there was a lady in a wheelchair going up. One slow step at a time. I had passed her twice before on level land. This time I made a comment about the hill to her and offered my services to get her up it. She said she was fine, so I continued on. Now there was a lady sitting on a bench that overheard me and she said she wished she had a wheel chair. I thought it was strange, but before I passed her, she continued on that if she did it would be nice to have a guy like me offer assistance. I laughed and kept on running. Two things to note here. One, I think she was hittin' on me. Two, I run real slow to have a conversation with two people and not get out of range from either.

After my run I got to see some clients of mine that I haven't seen in 2-3 years. Andre and Elmarie live in Florida, but bought a place here for their daughter, while she goes to ASU. Their daughter just got back from Asia. She was paid to play golf with executives the entire time. She's a pretty good golfer. Now, that's a job I'd like to have.

Softball report: We finally lost. 9-8. We had the winning run on in the last inning, but ran out of hits. So, now we have 2 wins and 1 loss and two weeks off to rest.

8 comments:

J~Mom said...

Great job, Pat! I hope the girls found some great bargains at Goodwill, that sounds like fun!

Michelle said...

Hi, Pat.

I found your blog through J~Mom, and have been reading for a couple weeks. I am just now being brave enough to leave message. LOL!

Just want to say your story journey is quite inspirational. It's only been a few months since I started running again, and it's nice to read about others who are done with being sedentary and getting out there to run. Congrats to you!!

Anonymous said...

glad the quote is inspiring to you!

Unknown said...

Nice run, Pat. Was the woman flirting with you cute? You handsome devil.

Black Knight said...

Nice run, it sounds like you made it in a relaxing place.....full of women! You must defend the desert, you cannot have such distractions: the enemy is smart, underhand and wicked!

MNFirefly said...

Nice run, Pat. I bet you were flattered about the comment that the other woman said to you.

Spark Driver said...

It sounds like she was hitting on you. Isn't running great!

Phil said...

You sexy devil. You've got ladies hitting on you in the park! Now that never happens to me.

Great run Pat.