Hairy Legs and Athletic Socks.....

March has proven to be a fairly challenging month for me, and I have been feeling a little stressed about how well I have been managing or not managing to stay on track with my journey to get healthy. It started with my vacation which while absolutely fantastic, provided a slight pause in my momentum. I had every intention of charging hard upon my return, and then got struck down with the virus which was still lingering and threatening daily to morph into bronchitis. I felt satisfied that I had been managing to still fit in some form of exercise regularly, but I was still concerned that I had been having to dial back on the level of my work-outs and was anxious to get back to my pre-vacation routine.

No Socks!

Yesterday my cough seemed to be better controlled and my energy level was returning, so I decided to get back into the gym. I had been laying low since Saturday's work-out on the elliptical which seemed to trigger my set-back with my cold, but I thought that my body was ready at least for a slow walk. I hopped on the treadmill, and decided right off the bat, that I would still try to make my three mile mark, but I would keep my pace down, so as not to trigger any more problems with my breathing. Unfortunately, I realized pretty quickly, to keep from coughing I had to reduce my pace pretty significantly; it was going to take 51 minutes to hit my three miles at the rate I was going, and I found with the slower pace, my mind was not content to simply tune into the latest rerun of Law and Order. At some point I started looking around at the other folks working out around me, and then happened to glance down at my neighbors feet. He was not wearing any socks!

Stylish Socks

That seemed a bit on the unhygienic side to me, and I kept imagining the odor his shoes emitted when he took them off post work-out. I started glancing around to look at what other people around me were wearing. I was relieved to see that the majority of folks who's lower legs were uncovered for display were indeed wearing something on their feet other than shoes. At this point, I randomly glanced down at my own bare legs and socks. I had actually worn shorts to the gym that day (quite the rarity), only because my laundry pile had swallowed all of my long work-out pants. "Good grief! What was I thinking?" Nearly every person I glanced at had some form of short athletic sock ranging from the very minimal sock which barely protrudes above the rim of the shoe to the sock that extends about an inch up with a nice thick band around the top to absorb any moisture. I, however, in some sort of post work haze had thrown on the first pair of socks I grabbed from my drawer...a pair of my husband's 3/4 length athletic socks. I had neatly folded them over like we did after "Grease" revived the sock hop look, but it was still fairly obvious I was wearing a pair of men's socks. So as I was busily purveying and yes, judging, the socks or lack there of on my neighbors, I was standing out probably even more than the boy with no socks. To make matters worse, as I stared down at my legs, I realized that I had also failed to shave that morning.

My socks!

It dawned on me at precisely that moment, that I had clearly passed into a new phase with my journey. I had stopped worrying about the coordinating motivational outfits and simply started worrying about the work-out. So here I was a little sick with hairy legs and men's socks, but at the end of a three mile work-out on the treadmill. It really didn't matter what socks I had on, or how I appeared, or even how fast I walked, it mattered only that I was still making it to the gym, nearly two months after this all began. March was turning out OK after all.