I needed guilt, and obligation, and shame, and poking, and pushing, and commitment.   Sometimes that’s what it takes.  It takes a village…  for me to get a workout.  No really, I’m not a superwoman exercise queen.  Living well is a community effort and these days I’m really making use of it.

Over the last two years I’ve occasionally considered going to the 7am Running Intervals track workout that my boss coaches.  Every time the alarm would go off my instant reaction was “sleep is more important” and back to sleep I’d go.  Every time.  So this week I asked her to make me go.  I was hoping she’d pick me up, but as that wasn’t possible she said “I’m going to write you up if you don’t go!”  I imagined a poor employee review.  I imagined everyone at work disappointed in me.  For two days I prepared myself to go – skipping was not going to be an option.

Best boss-friend ever.

I did it!  I got up, I went!  I ran three 1 mile repeats!  It was a beautiful morning.   I just really needed all the pushing to make it happen.

It also helps to be pushing someone else.  I’ve been nagging my sister-friend to get in shape. We wrote a training plan last week and I was on her all week to stick to it.   It includes a workout together every Friday.  This means I’ll get a workout too.

Needing to be a good big sister means actually being a good role model.  It was much harder to skip workouts last week while asking how hers were going.   We got to the end of our training week and had salted watermelon as a prize, and coffee, and thrift store shopping.  It was a good week.  It just took implementing a serious buddy system into my training.  A big thank you to these awesome women!  Now to just keep it up…