My Legs

   I am fast approaching my very first "runniversary" and it's hard to believe that it's been a whole year since this running adventure began.
   When I learned that my wife, Doralyn, had signed us both up for a 10-week Learn-to-Run course at the local Running Room I was pretty certain that, at the end of the course, running would go right back up on the shelf it had been collecting dust on for the last 30 years or so of my life. I am still amazed that, long after the weekly sessions ended, I still wanted to run and was quite happy to run on my own, without being accountable to a schedule or another group of runners.
   One of the things I was pretty certain about was that I would lose weight. Sure enough, the pounds gradually came off. When I started to run last August I was flirting with 235 and  by the time the fasciitis hit in March I was flirting with 210. Unfortunately I kind of plateaued there due to having to lay way off the running while the heel got better. Eventually, people started looking at me and saying stuff like holy cow, you've lost a ton of weight, haven't you?
   Because I've rollercoasted with weight issues like many of us, I've gotten used to occasionally getting this kind of reaction from people, if things have been going well. One of my friends looked at me about a month ago and said something no-one else ever has, though. He said he thought my legs were getting skinny.
   If there's one part of my body I've never had a problem with, it's my legs. A lifetime of one kind of sports or another has managed to keep them what I always considered to be well-toned and muscular. I've had issues with upper body strength and tummy weight but my legs always seemed to maintain some sort of constant good health. I guess that's why my friend's comment took me a little by surprise.
   In retrospect, though, it's not like body fat picks and chooses where and how to distribute itself. It made some sort of sense, I suppose, that if I'd lost this much weight then likely some of that was from my legs.

It's in there somewhere!

   Since that comment, I've paid a little more attention to my legs, in an investigative (and hopefully not too narcissistic) kind of way. What I've noticed is where certain muscles were in ways more rounded  that now they seemed to have taken on a slightly more angular sort of shape with a touch more definition. The other day, I was leaning over and tying a shoe when I looked down and actually noticed a vein popping out on the inside of my right knee. The light sort of hit it the right way, or something, because I saw it clearly then but have had a hard time finding it since. But the fact remains that I actually saw a vein and I have never seen one there before. Over the years, I've seen all sorts of pictures of well-muscled athletes and one of the things about them that stood out the most for me (no pun intended) were their veins. The fact that I now had a vein (an elusive one at that) popping out kind of tickled me!
   Of course, this might also mean that I'm one run away from a heart attack or something so if you're runner and have experienced this kind of thing please weigh in!
   In the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!