Rituals. We all have our rituals.

If Joel happens to be in the gym when I arrive he always yells, "SUPER M". I solemnly pause and give him that cheesy Roman Centurion salute made famous in all the B movies we both watched as children�make fist of right hand, smack fist into chest above heart with a resounding thud.

"MIGHTY J," I reply.

Oh yes, I am all about the girly gestures.

If it wasn't for Joel I would have thrown in the towel on the training for the 10K run by now. I managed to fumble my way through it last year because I didn't know what would be involved. But now I am a 10K survivor. And now I know that the only way to build the stamina necessary to run 10K is to lean into pain.

Yep, that's what you have to do. You have to push your body to the point where it says, "Sorry, all done" and you have to say, "Just another minute. That's all. Give me that." It's a head game, mind over heart, lungs, muscle and sinew.

Joel is a Clydesdale yearning to be Seabiscuit, just like me. Running does not come easily or naturally to him but he is determined to run. I've watched him lean into the pain, seen his whole body slick with sweat as he grabs for those extra few minutes. He's already running the full 10K distance and is hard at work shaving seconds off his time.

He keeps me on the treadmill. Those moments when the sweat is running so hard it's using my nose as a ski jump, my throat is dry, my side hurts and it feels like I can't breathe I hang on for an extra 30 seconds because I know he's done it, too.

Friday I ran 3.1 miles in a piece for the first time this year. The rule of thumb in running is that if you can run half the distance of a race, then you have enough stamina to run the entire race. 10K is 6.2 miles so as of Friday I have enough stamina to run 10K. As I went through the five minute cooldown after the run, I felt as if I had set down this huge boulder because now I know I can do it.

Not fast, not easily, but I can do it.

My trainer has been doing a little community outreach, trying to bring new notions of fitness to local school kids. She's arranged for a grade seven class to come to our gym three mornings a week this semester for their gym periods.

She's had the kids fill out little questionnaires about their eating and exercise habits, both of which are pretty bad. Only a handful of the kids don't eat at least one fast food meal a day. Some of them eat more. Standard fitness tests showed that only a tiny minority of these kids were fit.

I schedule my running to be over before the gym is flooded with zygotes, ensuring as many treadmills as possible will be open for them. But my gym only has five treadmills, two ellipticals, three stairmasters and two exercise bikes so there are always a few kids milling around waiting to do their cardio warm up.

I'm usually in the stretch room finishing my cool down and doing my runner's stretches as they arrive. Three times now I've had kids come in and have me teach them runner's stretches while they wait for a cardio machine to open up.

Fortunately, the stretch room does not have any sharp surfaces because otherwise I would have impaled myself on them in despair.

Lots of stuff falls apart as you age, but two things I didn't expect to lose were my flexibility and sense of balance, both of which have been eroded by time. I've been working very hard on both for the last year or so and I'm insanely proud of the fact that when I do my hamstring stretch I can get my forehead within an inch or so of my knees now.

(One way to do a hamstring stretch is to sit on floor with legs extended, slowly lean forward with arms extended and ease down, get your forehead as close to your knees as you can. For the love of Pete, DO NOT JERK your body when you do this. Stop when you feel discomfort. If you tear a hamstring through jerking your body down you are more royally screwed than Camilla Parker-Bowles. Ease down slowly until you feel your hamstrings stretch at the back of your legs, hold for twenty seconds and then straighten up. Discomfort is okay, pain is wrong.)

Okay, so like I said, I am annoyingly proud of the fact that I'm pretty close to getting my forehead down to my knees during my hamstring stretch. As I taught each of the kids the stretch, I gave them all these cautions about proper technique and stopping and all.

Of course they immediately flopped over and effortlessly touched their foreheads to their knees and probably could have touched their foreheads to the Freakin' FLOOR because these junk food eating, totally unfit children have all the flexibility of a Raggedy Ann doll.

Balance. Did I mention balance? They swarm over the gym like a troupe of monkeys, practically swinging from one piece of equipment to another.

All of this would turn me into a sad, bitter old woman if it wasn't for the simple fact that I can completely and utterly crush them all in cardio. Technically, I am old enough to be the grandmother of these children but not one of them can jog over a quarter mile.

So yes, I may be only slightly more flexible than your average popsicle, have a sense of balance that is best described with the word "precarious", but if necessary I can quickly outrun a pack of Vermont public school kids.

Don't think I won't be adding that valuable life skill to my resum�, pronto.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 470.27 miles. Triple Duckage. You rack up the miles when ya train for a 10K.