Even turtles reach their destination eventually…

Every December, I promised myself I wouldn’t eat too much over the holidays. Every January, I admitted to being a lair, a big fat liar.

The usual diet and exercise routines had lost their appeal years ago. Last year, my sister offered to whip me into shape with something I never tried, running.

My sister, ten years my junior, started participating in local races and wanted to drag me down the road with her. Maybe in a rickshaw, but propelled by my own two feet, ha! She promised we’d start out slow with a 5K race and then participate in a 10K by fall.

I wondered what the K stood for. Kook, as in you’d have to be crazy to put this ass in spandex compression shorts and then in the public eye. Kamikaze? Me run a race? If I tripped, who knew how many people I’d take with me?

“The K stands for kilometer.” She said.

A kilometer equaled 1,000 meters. That sounded really freaking far.

“By the 10K in October, you’ll be healthier and in great shape. The race winds around a dam. In the morning, mist rises off the water. The trees are in their beautiful fall colors.”

And I’d be on my back, panting at the sky. “I rake leaves in the fall to keep my abs rock hard in case Sports Illustrated needs me for their swimsuit issue. Why would I want to run around a dam?”

My sister burned a 1,000 calories laughing. She owed me.

“At the end of the race, the runners are rewarded with warm cinnamon rolls.”

Running, an adventure with cinnamon rolls, I saw the logic there. Raking leaves irritated my rotator cuff. Run for food seemed a better option. “How do I train for a 5K?” I asked.

“You run,” said my sadistic smartass sister.

Run, except it was winter out there, cold, snow, and ice. My body craved another fat layer and hibernation. Running in the cold after shoveling snow would’ve given me a heart attack.

I was forced to find the treadmill. We had one somewhere. My husband used it once. I distinctly remembered camouflaging it to fit the décor.

After I found a place to hide the summer clothes, moved the furniture, pounded a nail to hang a painting, and patched the wall because I missed the nail, repainted, and hung the painting, training should’ve been as easy as pudding in a cup, open and eat. But I had to curb my eating too as per Major Sadistic Smartass.

The first week of training I tripped over the treadmill and sprained my wrist. I missed a week of work. Training wasn’t too bad so far.

When the doctor released me, (trust me, I needed both hands for balance) I turned on the treadmill.

After a week my sister checked in. “How’s it going?”

“Great, but I’m not a rabbit. I’m not winning any races.”

“You know the treadmill has a speed adjustment button, right?”

That made a difference. Forget death on asphalt. I was doomed to meet my maker on a motorized belt. I bought frozen peas that week, a lot of peas, for swelling.

Why was I killing myself? Oh yeah, to improve my health, live longer, and for warm cinnamon rolls. Freaking nuts, I could live with jellyfish abs.

In October, I settled on a dam walk. Turtles eventually reached their destination, and still got cinnamon rolls.

This year, I had one word for whipping myself into shape…Spanx that glorified spandex belly sucker. Better yet, lace me up with a bone corset. When I died, my family could sell my deformed skeleton to a carnival sideshow.