Posted on

Phoebe Running

Scroll down to see more content

Most of the time I don’t look like a criminal, but there was that one time.

I was taking a DSM-IV interim session class during my undergraduate program. It was 8 hours a day for a week. The bad student in me decided I needed something else to preoccupy my time as I had heard as much about diagnosing mental illness as I could take for one day.

Having 15 minutes to get across town, to Walmart and back, I decided to bust out my speed walk. Parked my car, got to the book aisle, picked out a word search (because we all know those are exhilarating), paid for it, and headed to the exit. As soon as I stepped outside, I started my run back to the car. I was about five strides out when I heard the alarm go off. Apparently the person behind me decided to shoplift to make the running girl look like a criminal.

Recently, I’ve been questioning the social norm of walking. Why walk? I work at a university and I simply think it would be much more beneficial to run places on campus.

Pros:

  • Efficiency
  • Exercise
  • Less minutes in the cold
  • Less minutes in the hot
  • Less minutes in the rain
  • Sexy wind-blown Jennifer Lopez hair
  • Less wasted time
  • Entertainment for people watchers

Cons

  • I might frighten people (they’d get over it)

There’s a professor on campus who walks around barefoot the majority of the time. He’s the shoeless guy…I can be the running woman. So far, campus police hasn’t stopped me, no one has questioned my sanity, and I haven’t even received many strange looks. Mr. Gump did it…surely it will work for me too.

In your own life, what does your journey look like? Are you a walker? Do you thoroughly think things through, make wise decisions based on reasoning, and consider the consequences? Are you a slow jogger? Weigh things out a bit, but definitely don’t overdo it? Or are you a runner…a Phoebe runner? Run as fast as you can while flailing around with the wind in your hair?! Chasing this dream, coming up with that new idea, changing directions, scrapping one goal and pursuing another?

I’d say I’m about 92% a Phoebe runner. Although my husband shows no sign of becoming overwhelmed by my…

  • Let’s build us a tiny house. 
  • Let’s sell every item we have so we can start fresh with only what we need.
  • I’m going to become a blogger. 
  • Can I buy chickens.
  • Back to my doctorate, no…yes…no, maybe?
  • Seminary. Let’s go to seminary.
  • Let’s live on one of our salaries and chunk the rest at debt and pay off our house like 20 years early!
  • I will teach aerobics. No…no.
  • How about I teach online so I don’t have to put work clothes on ever again!

Poor guy…these were just a few of the thoughts from this week!

Let’s just say, on that episode of Friends…Rachel may have looked a bit more sophisticated, but I’d say Phoebe definitely made the run more enjoyable. If you’ve never tried to run like Phoebe, give it a shot. “And you don’t care if people are staring because it’s just for a second and then your GONE!” -Phoebe

Leave a comment