On your mark, get set, MOVE!

I’ve said before that I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but this is going to sound like one.

For the last three months, I have been inhabiting a new vocation as a full-time church pastor. I’ve also been a part-time college instructor, teaching on Zoom. My pastoral call is 45 minutes from home (5 minutes shorter than the drive to my former job, but now I can telecommute only one day/week, instead of 2), so I sit in a car at least 90 minutes a day, 4-5 days/week. There’s a fair amount of sitting in a typical church office day, too: sitting in meetings, sitting in classes, sitting and preparing a sermon, sitting and planning worship, sitting and visiting… And Zoom teaching means I’m sitting in front of a computer for two 100-minute classes; and sitting in front of the computer prepping lectures and slides; and sitting in front of the computer grading student papers submitted electronically; and sitting and reading their responses in online discussion forums.

I think you can see where this is going… or (more appropriately) NOT going. My life has become even more sedentary in the last 90 days. I feel like I’m starting to resemble a sea cucumber. And while that’s certainly not a good look, it does even worse things to the insides: there are plenty of scary reasons sitting is called “the new smoking.”

Commence Operation: Move It! I’ve signed up with Ornery Mule Racing for another Freeze Your Ass Off winter mileage challenge. I’m already running behind schedule, but my teaching obligations are now officially over, so I will regain several weekly hours of my life which can be devoted to getting back in shape.

Next fall, I turn 60. (Gasp!) I’ve already got some goals for the months between then and now – including a rehash of the fitness challenge I wrote about in my very first post on this blog. This time, the goal will be to hit 60 in better shape than I hit 50 – and I hit 50 in pretty good shape!

I’ve also started flirting with a truly crazy endurance goal for 2023, when I’ll be in a new age group for road and trail races. I’ve shared the specifics with only two people. One, the spouse, wisely said simply, “I think you can do whatever you put your mind to.” The other was skeptical at best… enough to light the “Oh yeah?…watch me” fuse in my head. (To be clear, my goal is NOT to be competitive in my age group; it’s to be a finisher.)

If I need role models for getting myself moving again, heaven knows I’ve got them. I’ve featured them on this blog for the last few years! (Here’s another great story about Gene Dykes… And a fabulous story about 100-year old Maurine Kornfeld, aka “Mighty Mo.”) And if I need motivation? I mean, besides not wanting to look like a sea cucumber or Jabba the Hut? Well, there’s the keen desire to avoid Alzheimer’s, or another round of cancer.

I can’t say for sure that I’ll blog more often in 2022, but I definitely resolve to move more!