My Team 50.0

The big five-OMG is just around the corner. Friends and family began asking how I wanted to mark the beginning of the next half century almost a year before it was due, so I felt some obligation to not try to ignore this one birthday.

Just before Thanksgiving, I remembered Thing1’s birthday climb a year earlier to the top of Mount Equinox in Manchester, VT and decided that would be a fun activity (I swear I was completely sober). We thought about doing it as a fund-raiser for a charity that helps children with Ulcerative Colitis. As I investigated, though, I realized a mountain climb in April in Vermont could still involve snowshoes in some parts and would certainly exclude family members who can’t climb on a completely dry day. Finally, wanting to make health and family part of ‘my day’, I settled on running a fundraising 5K with Thing1 and Thing2 and extended family.

There was only one problem with the plan.

It means running a 5K.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but, even though I’m roughly the shape of a cream-filled donut (and, at the time of this writing may contain almost as much chocolate), I will not be rolling across the finish line in a wheelbarrow.

Which means running that 5K.

Enter Thing1 with his concerned but not reproachful fitness training approach.

Thing1, you may recall, had his entire colon removed at the end of October and then had everything reconfigured in December. You could say it involved a couple of big operations — so big they kept us in the hospital until our bill for 2018 finished its own 500k. He should, by all rights, be still recovering.

Somehow, however, Thing1 is in better shape than the rest of his family, a fact that made him the de-facto personal trainer for Team Barlow. He takes his duties seriously, mapping out a hiking route each day (lots of hills and huffing and puffing), telling us that by the end of March it will be a running route (lots of dubious looks from his team).

The first day, I had to stop in the middle of the first hill. I had to stop in the middle of the second hill. When I stopped in the middle of the third hill, Thing2 stopped with me.

Thing1 was always just a bit ahead, often at the top swell of the hill, waiting for us. He would make a lousy drill sergeant (he’s too nice), but, as he called, “You can do it,” to me/us for the umpteenth time, I thought for umpteenth time what a great superhero he is (his super power is inspiration).

The next day I didn’t have to stop until the third hill. Thing1 was running ahead and then running back to ‘keep it challenging” (yeah,he said it going up a hill). Thing2 was running ahead and then walking slowly to give me time to catch up.

By the third day, I had started running bits and pieces of the route (I still have to stop for a second on the last hill). Today, we’ll walk/run for the fourth time.

I know the race route will be on one of the flatter roads in Vermont, flat being a relative term here, but we are keeping this route until ‘my day’ at the end of April. We may not be running the entire route by then, but my team will be finishing it together.

It’s a good way to kick off the next half-century.

Just Grow

Just grow

I see him almost everyday on my way to or home from the local country store.  Clutching a newspaper purchased at the same store, running up the low, long hill at the base of our road, I know from his hair color  that this man is very likely older than I am.  But everyday I see him jogging up that hill, his relaxed smile pronounce to the world that he is not old.

He’s not the only “senior” citizen I’ve noticed lately who’s refused to retire to a rocking chair.  Mornings, I see a woman with steel grey hair and steely determination in her eyes running that road.  She keeps the same pace going down hill or up.  

I love these scenes.  I love seeing a Facebook status from a family member who may be retirement age according to some calendar but has chosen to make her own schedule while leading hiking tours in the Rockies.  I loved being part of a race whose highlights included a 92-year-old finishing a 5k for the 32nd time.  It reminds me everyday that I can choose to grow old (something I’ve been thinking about a bit more as the “change” rolls in), or I can choose to keep growing.