When I was much younger and much lighter I was a great endurance runner. Of all the sports one is introduced to at school, running was the only one I was any good at. Subsequent years of smoking and terrible living changed all that. It was quite the shock, when for no other reason than to try it, I went for a short run and learned the terrible state of my health. This was the sort of distance that in my running days was a warm up--not even half the distance and I was heaving, my lungs felt scraped by slivers of steel, I tasted blood.
From this point forward in my life, there was a growing sense of my own mortality; a creeping fear that I could not continue on this way. I would like to tell you that this realization caused a profound change in my perspective and way of living, but as any psychologist will tell you, there is no such thing as a breakthrough. Real change comes through plodding, slow, determination, and can take years. And so it is with this knowledge that Anita and I have made the commitment to walk 30 minutes a day. Just 30 minutes. Nothing more, nothing less. Small steps.
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