About five months ago, people started walking in front of my car. During the winter holiday break, I finally prevailed upon my husband to buy a second car. The reasons why I felt we needed a second car are numerous (and, I think, compelling), but my husband's real issue was that we needed to change our gas consumption. This was new. For several years, his reply when I mentioned rising gas prices was "out one pocket, into the other." What he meant was that much of that money would keep coming back to us since a considerable percent of the funding for his program at a DC think tank came from oil companies. Except gas prices kept going higher and his funding from oil companies shrank. I think he also sees the world a little differently since he started biking to and from work a few years ago. Now, when for some reason the car isn't available, his initial response is not to rent a car; it's to see whether the destination is bike-able. But my commute to and from work is not bike-able. So we went shopping for a hybrid. While I had to compromise a bit -- one car was stylish but not very friendly to lending to an older relative and had limited backseat leg room while the other was rather staid but normal-feeling and relatively roomy, the real change almost immediately was the noise level. It's noticeable to me while driving since I'm almost always listening to music or a book on tape (okay, on my iPod). And it's certainly noticeable to those around me, but in the sense that they don't notice me. So people walk in front of my car. All the time. Now, here's the thing. I'm not the only hybrid out there, certainly not in my lefty DC suburb. This is Prius heaven, for pete's sake. So how come pedestrians haven't adjusted? And how do we teach people that listening for a car is not sufficient? I haven't figured that one out yet, but I'm worried. I won't let me teenager drive the hybrid, mostly because it's new but also because I don't want him to panic when someone steps in front of him. We all need to change our behavior, but clearly this is going to take people getting hit because they didn't notice a hybrid car pulling out next to them.

Kurt kicked my butt

and now it really hurts!

Jon and I started taking spinning classes in late December, along about the time of the first big DC blizzard. Jon did it because he had heard spinning was a good workout, and he had been looking to up his exercise level. I did it because I needed a new cross-training routine, and this was something we could do together.

We very quickly realized that some teachers are better (read: more demanding but also more organized) than others, and, somewhere along the way, I found Kurt. Kurt is clearly trains for road races and just adapts his outdoor routines to an indoor spinning environment. Once I got used to his class -- and he usually only teaches once a week at my local gym -- it was frankly hard to deal with other spinning classes. He varies his class depending on which system he wants us to focus on: a class is only hills or only sprints or whatever.

His hill class is killer, and last Saturday (when he was subbing for the regular Saturday instructor) he introduced a particularly grueling version of the hill class. I managed to get my run in the next day anyway, but I was hurting. So imagine how I felt this morning when I dragged my tired body into the gym at 5:45 am to discover that he wanted us to repeat the class from Saturday. In spite of my groan -- which Kurt found amusing -- we went ahead with that plan. I'll spare you the details of the workout, but it ends with the London Philharmonic's version of Led Zepplin's "Kashmir," all 8 minutes of it, which he plays loudly while we try to maintain our pace to a steeper and steeper hill and finally ending in a sprint at what Kurt calls "headwall resistance." I thought I was going to throw up, but I managed to stumble out of class and home.

And now I'm hurting. I skipped my weight training, but I'll drag myself out to run tomorrow with my dog. And I won't be listening to Led Zepplin for a while.

Running faster than I thought

After years (read: decades) of doing just about any exercise that didn't involve lots of impact for my knees and ankles, I have discovered that I love running. Not only do I love running, but running has made all those old knee and ankle quirks and pains go away, at least for the most part.

But my relatively short runs of 2-3 miles done 4-5 times a week was getting to be boring. So I signed up to train for a 10k road race. Yesterday was the first meeting of this training group, and, while there was very little actual running involved, I found it inspiring. Mostly, our couch just went through the basics of our training schedule and her expectations. (I tend to think of these things as the "reviewing the syllabus" kinds of lectures.) Then we each had to run a mile while she timed us. And I ran an 8 minute mile! I'm ridiculously pleased with myself. I wasn't even running flat out. Frankly, I could have done better.

I usually think of myself as a 10-12 minute/mile runner, but I'm usually figuring out how long it took me to run 3 miles of somewhat hilly terrain. This was just our time going around a relatively even track. Still, for me, it's inspiring. I was wondering how I was going to manage doing this program, and now my confidence level is just fine, thank you very much. If only I can manage to get through my cross-training day tomorrow. I'd really rather go for a run....

September is the REAL start of the year

I accepted a full-time job today -- my first full-time job in more than 15 years. I've done my time in grad school (didn't finish) and I've been a reluctant stay-at-home mom (connected to the not finishing grad school). In the last few years, I've worked part-time, but this will be a whole new adventure. I'll be teaching middle school math full-time for two and half months. I think I only took the job because of the nifty end date. It's my own little experiment. Will my family pitch in and make this possible? Can I be organized enough to keep everyone fed and in clean clothes while still teaching 5 classes?

The best part of the deal is that this doesn't start until October, so I have some time to prepare everyone. I also have time to work on my running before I start a serious training program. But here's the thing: everything at my house really starts in September. My husband doesn't work for the government, but his job in DC really ratchets up in September when Congress comes back into session. My kids head off to school next week, and my volunteer work will all start up again. And don't even get me started on sports and other after-school activities.

So put me down as someone who doesn't care about January 1. Now, September 1 -- there's a date that matters. If only I had some resolutions....