I went for a light jog and accidentally ended up in a 15K race, which I discovered when a group of women tried to offer me water. This confirms all my fears about running.

I was jogging along at my usual pace, which is half a beat slower than if I was just walking, and I passed the water station. Soon after that, actual runners started streaming past me, decked out in fancy socks and leggings, their official numbers pinned to their sweat-wicking shirts. I had to get out of there, so I diverted across a bridge, did a loop around a little park, and re-entered the race going against the flow of traffic. The water ladies started laughing at me as I passed them again and waved and, and the official race guy telling people which way to go yelled that I was going the wrong direction. I probably ran faster than usual simply trying to extricate myself from the situation.

I made it back to the car and as I panted there in the drizzly rain, I took stock of what led to this debacle. I am not athletic. I’m actually known for my not running. I have a shirt I call my sitting shirt, because it’s a running shirt that I repurposed exclusively for sitting, because I am a sitter. Imagine the shirt’s surprise when I donned it to jog that morning and it ended up in a 15K. It was probably thinking, Finally! Today’s the day I won’t be covered in popcorn. I am finally achieving my destiny!

How did I get to this place? This race place? I blame my kids.

A little over a year ago, a friend invited me to a Zumba class. I’ve always loved dancing, so I said yes and had a blast learning all the moves. I was out of breath and ridiculously sore the next day, but it didn’t feel like exercise because I was just dancing.

I started going to the class every so often and shaking my booty. If you’re wondering what I look like doing Zumba, just picture a dancing skeleton. A white, bony skeleton flailing its long arms. My viola teacher in fourth grade called me Long Arms because I could hold a full-size viola while all my peers got cute little kid-sized instruments. These pale, very disproportionately long arms swing in all directions to Latin music. I’m pretty decent at learning the moves, but the question is should I? I thought probably I looked like Shakira but then I tried a class at a gym with mirrors everywhere and saw the awkward, skeletal truth. I bring less Shakira and more Monica Geller energy to the class.

Anyway, I loved Zumba so much that I started going twice a week. I stopped breathing so hard. Was this what, like, cardiovascular fitness felt like? I didn’t know. I’d never had that before. Because I started going twice to Zumba, I had to switch yoga classes, and the only one available at the time I needed was a hot power yoga class. The first time I walked into the room I almost turned around and walked back out. Why would anyone do that to themselves? This was a horrible idea. I sweated and slipped all over my mat, and looked out of the corner of my eye as women a decade older than me hit crow pose with their whole bodies balanced on just their forearms. I lowered myself into a squat and pretended to try. Instructors like when you try. I would fake trying and just wait for the pose to be over. I’d breathe while I waited. Instructors like when you breathe.

When the class was over and I was lying on my mat in a pool of my own waste, the instructor brought over a cool towel. I spread it over my sweaty face. It smelled like peppermint and hope. I started going back to the class because of the towel thing at the end. I was like a dog doing tricks for a treat. How many chaturangas do I have to do before I get my cool towel?

Now I was up to a twice a week Zumba, once a week hot power yoga habit. My skeleton arms got strong enough to propel my body into a shaky crow pose. Sometimes when I was busy, I even went to the 5:30 a.m. yoga instead of 9:15 a.m. when the reasonable people go.

Three times a week. I justified it with “oh it’s just dancing,” and “oh it’s just stretching” but I’ll call it what it is. I was—oof, I hate to even say the words—working out. And I liked it. I started to depend on it. I’m middle-aged with teenagers and apparently now I need two things to keep from destroying everyone in a fit of rage—coffee and endorphins.

A few months ago my work schedule kept me from Zumba a couple weeks in a row and I started to worry about where all the anger feelings were going to go. I envisioned throwing plates and the satisfying shatter they’d make and the looks on my horrible children’s faces as I smashed said plates in a blaze of glory. But I like my plates. They’re orange and I’ve had them for 20 years. They’ve served me well and don’t deserve to become props in my performance art.

Instead, I threw on my Zumba shoes, which I realized looked a whole lot like Nike running shoes, and I took off out the front door. I started running.

I hate running, and I reminded myself of that as I plodded down the road. But I hate feelings even more than I hate running, so I kept going, one foot in front of the other, until I landed at the “turtle bridge,” the bridge over our wetlands where the turtle families poke their heads out of the water below and sun themselves. I jogged in place, saying hi to the turtles, telling the tiny turtles that they’d never talk back to their big turtle moms. They would never. I waved bye to the obedient turtles and started running back and it hit me that running wasn’t as hard as I remembered it—GASP—because of all that cardiovascular shit from Zumba. Zumba had made running not so bad.

I started adding in a run whenever I had to miss Zumba. Or if the kids pissed me off extra. It became the backup coping mechanism. And on that fateful Saturday when I ended up in the 15K (which I only ran about 5K of, because I’m not a psychopath), I was doing my backup coping. Instead of breaking plates, I ran. Instead of killing my family with my newly developed power of telekinesis, I ran. Instead of stalking my Zumba instructor, yanking her out of her house, and making her lead a private Saturday morning class, I ran.

I guess what I’m saying is I accidentally started running instead of going with the whole murder thing. Because I like my kids about 75% of the time and for the other 25%, now I exercise. I should thank them. Kids, because you suck, Mommy works out now and probably won’t die at her computer from sheer entropy.

Photo by Lottie Caiella