“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

A quote by Joseph Addison.

So my husband and I have been talking about me taking my health and fitness seriously. It’s something that has been floating at the back of my mind for a while, but I never get around to actually doing anything about it.

I wish I could say that I stumbled across the quote by Joseph Addison and that’s what got me going (some whole thing about if I’m going to write a reading column then I ought to keep fit as well)… but that’s not what happened.

See, I decided that I was going to start running tomorrow (a Monday), and I was not going to let myself chicken out or give up, or fall out of the habit like before. I promptly edit my alarm to 5 am. Then I spend the precious hours thinking about HOW I was going to do it and googling different programs to try. I’m also worrying about whether I could even find my jogging bra and shorts… I am even tempted right now at 10:40 pm while my husband and child are sleeping next to me, to get up, use my phone as a flashlight and rifle through my drawers for my running clothes. Doing all that would definitely wake them up and I can see a grumpy Jamie mumbling “what the hell are you doing?!” while little boy Fin whinges, half awake.

Right. So I can’t get up right now to look for my running clothes. But how else will I force myself to be accountable to this goal?

Oh wait, didn’t I recently redo my whole site to dedicate to better content and serious commitments to reading and writing? Why not channel that same energy to fitness?

So I am writing here. And of course I must find a quote for the title, to fit with my “thing”. And here is a very fitting quote about reading for the brain and exercise for the body. Perfect.

So here I am. I found a program I want to try: Couch to 5k. I’m starting tomorrow and I’m going to just run with it. I will write another update with how I go. First day impression and first week impressions and so on.

And yes, all of the puns in this piece were intended.