Remember that famous Lyndon Johnson quote about Gerald Ford? The one about Ford not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time?

No truer description of my own clumsiness has ever been written.

It's not that I continually fall over myself or anything, but simple things that involve co-ordination such as learning to dance are beyond me. I once was at a party with a man who bragged that there wasn't anyone he couldn't teach to dance and after two hours of trying to teach me, he finally admitted that he had met his Waterloo.

Which brings us to running.

Okay, now in theory running is a simple thing. One foot after another, right?

Well, sort of. I mean, it is that simple if you're going to do it as you did when you were a kid, running on the balls of your feet, your arms going any which where. That works when you're a kid because you're not trying to cover great distances and, well, you're fresh and new, your body can take a fair bit of pounding.

Then one day you wake up and you're older than dirt. Like me.

Running as you ran when you were a kid would leave you the human equivalent of a twisted hunk of burning metal, with screwed up knees and a damaged back. So you have to teach yourself proper running form.

Forget running on the balls of your feet. Your mantra has to be heel - toe - heel - toe - heel - toe. After all, it's those expensive running shoes with their space age foam padding in the heels that should absorb the shock of your foot hitting the ground, not your knees.

Lean forward slightly but remember to keep looking ahead. If you're looking at your feet you can cut off part of your oxygen, believe it or not.

You pump your arms, but you don't let them cross in front of your body because that makes your shoulders swivel too much and you can hurt your back that way.

Keep your fingers slightly curled but don't let your hands form fists or you'll cut off circulation and create all sorts of cute problems

Oh, and while you're remembering all that? Don't forget to keep track of the times you're running because if you're going to build up stamina, you have to run in consistent intervals. Run eight minutes, walk one minute; the next week push that up to nine minutes ... and so on.

Gee, wonder why Ms. Can't Chew Gum and Walk at the Same Time hated running, eh?

Keeping that sort of stuff straight is probably a piece of cake for an athlete, but for a woman who has never mastered something as simple as a box step, it's meant months of practice, me forcing my body to memorize the right way to do this. Mind numbing repetition, discomfort, fatigue, boredom. Oh man, the boredom.

I know. Bet I've completely sold you on this running business, eh? I'm sure you're asking yourself, "MARN, WHERE DO I SIGN UP?"

Through gritted teeth I told myself I would keep at this until the fall. If I couldn't find any joy in it at that point, I would hang up those stupidly expensive silver shoes which look as if they should have super powers, but are sadly, sadly lacking in that department.

Well, a while back I was talking to my friend Jeanie who is training for a marathon and she said a marathoner told her that if you can run 12 miles then you can run the full 25 miles of a marathon. I have no idea if that's true or not, but I'll take it on faith.

This morning I got thinking that if I can run to the end of my road without a pause, then if the marathon theory holds true I should be able to run all the way back.

My original goal when I took up running was to be able to run two miles without stopping. If I ran all the way to the end of the road and all the way back to the corner past Michelle's house, then I'd meet my goal.

So today I ran to the end of the road and instead of stopping I just looped and started running back. And right about the Mitson house (as if any of my three loyal readers know where the Mitson house is) I realized that I was going to be able to do it.

I cannot tell you how I knew that, but suddenly everything just felt right. It's as if at that moment all the mechanics of running that I've been working on endlessly finally made sense to my dimwitted body. I didn't have to think about any of it any more.

This would be the part where we cue that Vangelis theme from the movie Chariots of Fire.

OH BE QUIET. I am completely aware of how hokey that is and if I catch whoever it was that was just snickering ...

For a good half mile I got to savour complete and utter freedom. It's not that I was setting any land speed records, or that I wasn't sweating, but it just felt as if I could keep it up forever. I felt strong. Up ahead I saw the corner in the road past Michelle's driveway, my two mile goal, and I felt so good that I decided that when I got there I wouldn't take a walking interval back towards my house.

Nope, no walking. Walking is for sissies. I was Marn, Warrior Princess. I would just loop when I got there and keep running, all the way back to my driveway.

This would be the part where the Chariots of Fire theme ends abruptly, to be replaced by the sound of a needle being dragged mercilessly across a vinyl record.

See, I found that when I changed my motion, when I began the turn, my body fell out of whatever wonderful groove it had found. The verb "fell" really doesn't do justice to what happened. The groove and I suddenly were living in alternative realities. The groove decided that we shouldn't be exclusive any more and that it wanted to see other people. The groove had left the building.

I wanted to keep running, oh how I wanted to keep running, but my body had other ideas. Those ideas mostly revolved around the concept of walking. Walking slowly. Oh, and sweating. Sweating was big on the agenda. I drank what water was left in my sippy bottle and when I got home chugged down another.

You know, all my life I have envied the creative people, those blessed with the gift of music, art or dance. I feel especially wistful when I watch dancers ... the strength of them, the amazing way they know their bodies, the way they own the space around them.

Today, for the first time ever, I got a small taste of how wonderful that must feel. And then I almost broke my neck performing the simple act of walking upstairs while trying to avoid stepping on my incredibly ancient, half blind and totally deaf cat, Zoe, who walks where she wants and trusts that the rest of us will watch out for her.

Trust a cat to thrust you back into reality, eh?

--Marn

P.S. -- Queerscribe is back and as if *that* wasn't enough homoliciousness, so is Donny.

Mileage on the Marnometer: 360.25 miles (579.8 kilometers)
Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers