Let's hear it for the Jan Firster's!!

On January 1st of this year, I was driving to pick up a movie while still in my pajama bottoms and Depeche Mode concert shirt, I couldn’t help but count and shake my head at all the folks outside running. I live in a smallish town and, while I may not know everyone, I surely don’t remember seeing these people running before. You can always tell the “Jan Firster’s” as I call them. You know the ones, I’m gonna grab my old pair of running shoes, probably Bo Jackson by Nike, throw on my silky snug shorts, tight enough to scare children, from Cross Country 1991 and get out there and lose 20 pounds.

While I salute them and offer random bits of encouragement as I snicker under my breath, next January 1st I want to get a lawn chair and place it on our main street and cheer as these Jan Firster’s run past. They’ll stare, of course, as they go by huffing. Puffing. With their crimson cheeks and uneven breathing patterns. Wondering, “who is this guy? And why is he staring at me and offering little cups of water?” All the while, in their sweat-banded heads, they are cursing themselves saying, “are you shitting me? Why the F*&@ am I out here? Do I really need to lose weight? I mean I’m bald, married and already went to my 10 year reunion.”

Within a month, the shoes will be thrown back in the closet. The shorts will have torn when they tried to stretch at the first traffic light. Excuses of re-injured high school ankle sprains will have been unleashed. And the hopes of next January first will be tossed aside and replaced by something a little less challenging- like the promise to check out a movie with a loved one and cuddle next to a fire.

God bless you Jan Firster’s. I’m proud of you. So very very proud.