When I started jogging some months ago, and started my slow incremental growth in the amount of time I was jogging, one of my initial mid-range goals was to jog for forty minutes and to do that at least four times a week. This morning I reached that goal for the first time. So I was happy about that.

My next mid-range goals to achieve are to jog for one hour and then at some point to jog for two hours. It might be awhile but I’m confident I’ll reach those goals as well. I suspect that when I am able to reach those goals, then I’ll actually start to lose the extra weight I am carrying around.

The main long-range goal all along is to maintain an exercise habit over a period of years in the future. Winter is some months away, but I’m already thinking about how I’ll go about maintaining a jogging habit during winter-time.

Our friend Josh recently invited us to hang out in Riverside Park with him and his kids.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we thought it would be fun to go over there for a couple of hours.

What I didn’t know is that Josh sets up tightropes to walk on (and allows others to try as well).  It isn’t easy.  Even with a shoulder to lean on while trying to balance, it’s a very tricky business, at least for newbies like myself. The moment you step on it, if you don’t know how to balance, the tightrope starts to shiver under your feet. It’s a little bit scary and I didn’t even come close to figuring it out. But I did manage to take some fun pictures (see below).

One of the things that surprised me is that Josh jumps up onto the tight rope.

How cool is that?

This morning I jogged for 40 minutes. I felt pretty good about that because my initial goal when I first started this exercise thing was to get to a point where I’m jogging 40 minutes a day, four times a week. So achieving a jog that lasted 40 minutes was some kind of personal landmark for me. Let me tell you, it’s been years since the flubber has been in continual motion for that amount of time.

And yes, when I hit that 40 minute mark this morning, I felt like the king of the world. Even though I wasn’t.

Since my initial goal I’ve realized I probably want to change that goal to 60 minutes, four times a week. But still, after hitting that time this morning, it was pretty awesome.

I’m still fat. But I know if I can just keep shuffling along, it will eventually go away.

Also, this morning, a jogger pushing a stroller breezed right by me. I got the point buddy - at some point I’m going to have to pick up the pace a little bit.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been jogging 3 times a week for 25 minutes. My intention/plan was to jog four times a week - but I came up short a few times. So I have to change that this week.

This morning I did manage to bump up my jogging time to 30 minutes. So that will be my new baseline jogging time.