Walking the Great Pond Flats
It has been a struggle for me during the 3 1/2 plus years that Michael and I have been together to maintain a regular workout schedule. When we first met and sort of started being “a couple”, I had recently resurrected my love/hate relationship with running in the early hours. Peter and I would meet at the Buccaneer and run the golf course in the dark. It was beautiful watching the sunrise over the hills and many times the full moon would be setting as well.
Michael began to join us after a short while, and we started training for local running races and triathlons. Michael had wanted to get his bicycle back on the road, and our dear friend, Michelle gave me her old bike since she was training more seriously and doing bigger triathlons. We trained, ran, biked and swam on a somewhat regular basis. I guess I had a lot of energy with the positive transitions happening in my life. We did some small running races and relays in small triathlons. It was fun and I felt good and healthy.
When I started feeling more serious about this new relationship (with Michael), I stopped being so anal about my workouts. People would ask me why I wasn’t doing those early morning runs anymore, and I would say, “I have someone nice to stay in bed with” 
. It’s still really great to have someone nice to snuggle with on these cold winter mornings. But now I feel like there’s way too much of me snuggling.
The “deck project” has finally begun and the “final window replacement project” will follow shortly thereafter. I am really feeling the need to embark on a “fit body” project. So we have started walking again. It doesn’t thrill me to walk on the main South Shore road with all the traffic, but the other day, as we were starting out, my brilliant husband said, “Why don’t we try this little dirt road down to the salt pond?” I said, “Because it’s all the way down there and we’d need to turn back before we even got there”. But he said that there was a road we had just walked past that went down that way and we should explore it. I hadn’t even noticed it because I was always so intent on watching where I was walking and stepping out of the way of oncoming vehicles.
We turned around and a few yards back, there it was. The little road he was talking about. We started down it toward the water and it was lovely! There were wild pinkish-purple morning glories alongside the path leading to the Great Pond. There were giant footprints left by the Senepol cattle and smaller ones left by deer, dogs and birds.
It was wonderful to do that first thing yesterday morning, and we did it again before dinner tonight. Next time, though, we’ll take binoculars. There are so many different species of birds that hang out by the pond. We are incredibly happy that Mr. Paul Golden will not be able to build his casino/convention center/golf course/”resort” on this unspoiled gem in our neighborhood.
Tags: St. Croix
January 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
Peter ran? Cigarette smoking Peter? Do tell.
I struggle daily with fitness. I have to trick myself more and more to get into the gym.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:01 am
Yes, Peter and I would meet at 5:45am. I’d ask him how he could run as a smoker and he’d answer that it helped him get to his next cigarette faster.
After a while, we were faster than he was. Then he quit running supposedly because of his knees.
We are more fortunate than you up there in the arctic area. We have summer year-round so there’s always yard work to do.
Every now and then I get pissed at lazy Americans who need to park as close as possible to get to the store or mall, for example, but they spend all that money on gym memberships. We don’t have a clothes dryer. It takes more calories to hang the laundry on the line. I love it!
My mother had to have all the modern household conveniences, but she was always dieting. Warped!