AGGIE ENGINEERING

It's a soft sunny summer evening in suburban Spring, and couples are sitting in chairs in open garages watching the world go by. I jog by one of these houses and a man nods at me.

"That's a pretty good idea you got there."

"Works pretty good!" I say. I jog on down the street, around the corner, then another corner, and yet another. A blonde woman in a sundress is unloading a pack of children from a minivan. She notices me coming and stops a moment.

"That's a nice piece of engineering you have there!" she says with a smile.

"It works pretty good." I say.

"Looks like it. That's a good idea!"

"Thanks! I like it."

Such a simple solution for a complicated problem. Who knew a leather dog leash would prove to be the thin line between procrastination and proactivity?

When I am in the "exercise zone", I always feel very frustrated with people who make excuses for why exercise doesn't fit into their life. I found myself in the position where I was making the same kind of excuses over the past year.

As a former girl jock, I always exercised because I wanted to. As a side benefit, it may have improved my appearance and given me inner and outer strength, but it was always motivated by the desire for activity and enjoyment. Exercise was something I wanted to do, not something I had to do. I haven't ever seen exercise as something imperative to my health until just this past year.

During my first pregnancy, I gained forty pounds, and due to life situation and a battle with depression, it took me three years to gain the inner fortitude to shed the baby weight. It took about a year of hitting the gym and counting calories, so I didn't want to let that hard work go. I had finally got to a weight lower than when I met my husband and was in a good place physically when I got pregnant again. This time I was determined to keep the weight gain to a minimum and get back to pre-baby shape as soon as possible afterwards. I exercised up until the last month of my pregnancy and began an exercise program a month after my baby was born.

It was going great the first six months or so. I worked nights and my husband worked mornings, so I had time to go spend two hours at the gym or run with the dogs most days of the week. I spent most of my children's waking hours with them, so I had no guilt about leaving for "My Time" spent exercising. I was halfway to my goal of reaching my pre-baby weight.

About a year and a half ago, I switched jobs, and now I have a one hour commute through rush hour traffic both ways. I spent eleven hours of my day five days a week away from home while somebody else is raising my kids. It is a great job and I don't regret the opportunity, but I have to accept some losses. From the time I get home until bedtime, I have four hours to spend with my children. I am not about to spend one or two of those hours in "My Time". That is way too much guilt for me to deal with. Our time together is always much too short and punctuated with homework, dinner, playtime, baths, and bedtime stories.

Between this guilt, the end of breastfeeding, and hitting the over 30 metabolism slowdown, I was beginning to feel the effects. Then my husband switched jobs and suddenly he was frequently working out of town or late hours, and getting out of the house for exercise became a remote possibility. We got rid of our gym membership because we just weren't going anymore. The dogs became lawn ornaments and had dim memories of what leashes were for. Suddenly, my clothes were getting tight, and only a quarter of my wardrobe was actually wearable.

This was becoming a problem. Through it all, I became increasingly concerned about my heart and the state of my health. I realized I was becoming one of those people I could never understand. I was making excuses for why I couldn't fit exercise in.

I tried to start dancing at night again (don't laugh, I swear this was responsible for at least twenty pounds I lost when my husband was in Iraq), but the stereo was broken and I am probably the only girl in the twenty first century without an Ipod. I tried running alternate sprints, jogging and walking from mailbox to mailbox while my children played outside, but the toddler wanted to join me and, well, he toddled. He either cried about being left behind or fell down and got ow-wies. I tried jumping rope but after having two kids...this just doesn't work (right, Rachael?).

Then I started thinking. I might not have gotten an engineering degree, but I did go to A&M. I should be able to come up with a system for running with my kids, hands-free. The toddler has no patience for the stroller anymore. That's out. He does love to ride in his red wagon, though. Who can run while pulling a red wagon with one hand, though? Of course, you could say, why run, just walk with it. This goes back to the argument Dr Boynton and I used to have about whether or not you burn the same number of calories walking the same distance as you do running. I still say no. It is fun, but it takes me twice as long and I swear it does nothing for me. I need to get my heart rate higher than that.

I experimented a few times before I got it just right. Drop the loop end of the leather dog leash through the handle of the wagon, run the clip end through the loop, then pull this tight across the waist until the end of the handle rests snug up against the lower back, then fasten the clip to the closest length of leash and there you are, hands-free. This way I can use my arms and keep my body aligned the way I need to to get a good strong push while I run. The older child can ride his bike alongside us.

I started doing this a few months ago when my husband was out of town, and it made me feel empowered. It made me feel like I was strong enough to get up and stop making excuses, that I could find a way to exert power over my own body, my own life. It made me feel free again. Now I am in the zone, trying to beat my best times on the courses I set through my neighborhood long ago, when the dogs and I used to run during my lunchtimes.

I might be tied up, but I am no longer tied down. "Yeah!" my little one says when I ask if he wants to ride in the wagon. "Whee!" he yells when I go fast. Together, we go into the suburban night. Together, we are free.

Whee!