This morning I was at the right place at the right time. I got to witness a one friend encouraging another about how best practice self-care. When anxiety is the question, exercise is always the answer.

Not only do I need consistent movement for my mental health, but I enjoy being active. Jay and I love going on vacations where activity helps us explore.

Most of our time in Maui was spent hiking inland towards waterfalls. During our Caribbean cruise, stand-up paddle boarding and kayaking made our list of score excursions. We’re not pursuing workouts, but rather adventures.

Years ago a coworker told me that my darling and I would make an entertaining team on The Amazing Race. This weekend we revisited the idea, and my niece loved it! She commented on how her Uncle Jay would be willing to eat the gross stuff. He’s naturally athletic, she said, then mentioned that I work at being fit.

She’s right, this isn’t something that comes naturally to me. I have exercise induced asthma, and many an allergy season I question why my lungs hate me. Yet somehow through the grace of God and my hard work I have a wall full of race medals.

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Those accomplishments are important to me, and I don’t want to lose that aspect of my life. My run friends have all drifted towards another hobby, or else are busy with their children’s hobbies. I can’t, however, give up on this piece of me just because I don’t have company.

Earlier in the year, I noticed the Knoxville Track Club’s Hal Canfield 1 Miler has been moved up to June. Instead of the typical Labor Day date, they are holding the race on the summer solstice – June 21st. The location of the race has also been moved to one of my favorite neighborhoods featured in the Knoxville Marathon.

This morning, after the reminder about the importance of exercise, I sought out the race details to see just how far behind I am in training. After all, to run a mile isn’t motivation enough for me. I can do that at any point. I want to train to run fast. Or at least fast for me.

Turns out, the race is 7 weeks away. The training plan I found calls for 8 weeks of training, but I’ve not missed enough to totally give up on the idea.

Of course after taking the whole month of April off, I wasn’t prepared to run outside today at lunch. My iPod and my Garmin were both at home, but I did have the necessary apparel for a run.

Rather than my new-normal routine of heading to the library with my laptop, I hit the treadmill at the gym. Using my earbuds, I watched an episode of Parks & Recreation on Netflix. So that’s my 2 mile easy run out of the way this week. I rounded out the run with a slow cool down walk (while playing on social media) until I finished up a full 30 minutes of movement.

Making exercise the lunchtime priority will require a bit more creativity on my part for writing, but then again, that’s a blog for another day.