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Having finished her stretches, Vanessa grabbed her hair-tie and pulled her long black hair back into a ponytail, and put on her sunglasses. Looking into the mirror, she was happy with the effects of all the running she had been doing lately. Her slim but defined calves drew a nice line from her heels to the bottoms of her pink shorts. They were running shorts so they showed off much of her smooth tan thighs. Her eyes trailed up the full length mirror and now examined her exposed abdomen. She liked what she saw, as just a hint of definition was beginning to peek out from her belly. It wasn't a full six pack, but that was just how she liked it, not too hard, and not too soft. She ran her hands over the skin of her belly and could feel the slight ridges as they were developing. She reminded herself to cut back on her crunches so as keep the feminine look she was going for.
Right above, she looked at her 36C breasts smushed against her chest by the blue and silver sports bra. She had always been happy with the size of her breasts, but she liked them even more as the running had caused them to sag slightly less, making them seem suspended by some invisible bra. From there, she could see her new favorite part of her body, her arms. The skin hugged tightly against her shoulders, biceps, and triceps. Again, they were the perfect size for her, not too big as to make her shoulders seems broader, but clearly defined. Since she started running she had bought numerous tank tops to show off what her girlfriends liked to call "her new guns".
She crossed her arms and rubbed her triceps, warming them up, and enjoying the feel of the skin and musculature. It was smooth and soft, but had a little definition to it. Vanessa had always had a nice body, but running had pushed her body over the top where she now had the kind of body that turned heads. Even her face showed it as the extra weight loss had pulled her face skin taut and highlighted her high cheekbones and her fantastic smile. Giving herself another once over in the mirror, she winked at herself with a self satisfied smile.
As she put in the earbuds to her Ipod, she smiled as she thought about how addictive her new running habit had become. Before she moved to the neighborhood, Vanessa worked out at a gym, doing the elliptical machines or the stairmaster. She rarely ventured onto the treadmill as the thought of any kind of running always reminded when she had thrown up in front of the whole high school PE class after having run two miles. But here she was 16 years later, running a three miles four times a week. As she began her trot onto the sidewalk, she laughed to herself as she remembered how her running addiction began.
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About a year ago, Vanessa moved into the new development on the outskirts of town. All of the houses were brand new and after her promotion at work, she decided that she had had enough of the city and was able to put a down payment on what she hoped would be the house she would retire in. At 33, she was proud that she had been able to buy a house without the assistance of a husband, but she hoped that she would someday be able to share all this space with someone. But for right now, she was happy the way things were and she was especially happy to have so much more room than her cramped apartment.
Most of the people who lived in the development were older, usually married and with children. The neighborhood was quiet, had a great views of the mountains, and she wouldn't have to worry about any noisy neighbors. It was pretty much everything she wanted in a home. The only problem was that it was fairly remote from the civilized world. For work it wasn't a problem since she had worked out a telecommuting schedule with her company and would only need to come in three days of the week. Even still, the newness of the development meant that many of the businesses that she was used to having within walking distance were now a twenty five minute drive, including the gym that she belonged to. This was normally not a problem as she would normally go to the gym on days that she did drive into the office plus once more on the weekend to get her 4 workouts a week in.
But one evening, after a particularly trying day at the office, she decided to skip the gym and just headed home. However, when she got home, she began to feel guilty about not working out. She was trying to lose a little weight at the time and she had promised herself to be strict about keeping up with her workout regime. But the thought of having to drive through the traffic again made her wince.
For a few minutes she debated in her head if there was any way she could justify not working out that night. She was just about to let the "Fuck it, I'm going to have a beer and a frozen pizza tonight" side win out over the "Get in the car and drive back to the gym", when she looked up at her television to see news coverage of the upcoming San Diego Marathon. The reporter was interviewing a 64 year old lady who had run 23 marathons in her lifetime and was getting ready to run her 24th. Even though she had the television on mute, she could hear the old lady chiding her, "Come on Vanessa, I'm 64 years old and I work out every day."
The guilt overwhelmed her and she changed into her workout clothes and was looking for her car keys when an idea hit her. Why didn't she just go for a jog? The developer had the foresight to build running trails in the neighborhood with mile markers and everything. She thought briefly of her embarrassing episode in high school, but then she looked at the clock. It was already 6:30. By the time she she drove out to the city, worked out, came home and showered it would probably already be 9PM. She couldn't stand the thought of losing any more of her precious free time. She looked at the TV screen again and felt the words coming from the elderly lady, "Twenty minutes." It was settled, she would see if she could last for twenty minutes and that would be good enough for tonight.
The trail was very nice. It wound along the perimeter of the neighborhood, past the elementary school, through the park that contained the manmade lake and then back around to her house. On the other side of the lake there were some empty lots where some construction was still going on. She figured some commercial properties were being built to support the neighborhood. Hopefully there'd be a gym.
But on this night Vanessa would not see those lots. She was surprised to find that ten minutes in, she had only made it as far as the elementary school and she was completely winded. Even though the developers had done their homework and made the trail out of cinders which were easy on the knees and angles, her shins burned with pain. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air. She was completely distraught to look up and see that a mile marker that read "0.5 miles". Half a stinking mile is all she had been able to run and she was ready to drop dead. She turned around and began to slow up preparing herself to walk home. But she heard the old woman's voice again, "If you walk, you may as well have just eaten that pizza." "Fuck that lady," Vanessa thought to herself. She sucked in one more giant breath and began jogging home. It took her fifteen minutes to reach her house, but when she got there, she saw that it was only 7:15 and she still had plenty of time to make dinner and watch some television before going to bed. Her shins hurt a little bit and she was out of breath, but after a quick shower, she felt fine.
A month passed before Vanessa would hit the running trail again. It was the same situation: long day at work, fighting traffic to get home, but then still wanting to get a work out in. Since her first pleasant experience, Vanessa had been using the treadmills at the gym more often and was actually eager to see if she could at least get to the school without being completely gassed. She was pleasantly surprised when she reached the school in 9 minutes, and she decided to keep going. She found that she was much more relaxed and the pain in her shins was considerably less than the last time.
She was extremely surprised to see that she had made it to the two mile mark in twenty minutes before being she felt fatigued. She stopped to rest and looked up. She had been so fixated on breathing and running that she didn't realize that she had made it all the way across the lake to the new development. She looked around hoping to see a gym, but instead she only saw a Starbucks, a gas station, and a Rite Aid. It was then that it hit her that she had two miles to cover before she would get home. Satisfied that she had gotten in a good run, she decided that she would just walk back.
As she approached the part of the path near the lake, she also noticed that a new firehouse had gone up since she last drove by. She walked by and she could see a few fireman washing the fire engine in front of the garage. In another part of the parking lot, there was a pickup basketball game going on between six well built men. "Yummy!" she thought to herself. She did not want to be seen loafing by any possible single firefighters, so she picked up her pace and jogged past the fire house. The men seemed to ignore her and the sweat in her eyes made it hard to make out anyone in particular, so she just kept running. A little disappointed that none of the firemen had noticed her, she took one last look back after she passed the building. She noticed a couple of men who had been playing basketball looking at her as she walked by. She smiled to herself and her vanity provided her with a burst of energy that got her home in 20 minutes.
As she lay in bed that night, her mind went over her day. The drive to work and how she almost got in an accident, her meeting with her supervisor to go over the new account that she would be working on, her long commute home and her nice jog. She mused on the fact that even though her body was tired, she felt different than did when she worked out at the gym. She liked that she had overcome her aversion to running and thought that maybe it would be fun to run a 5K even. Hell, she had run about four miles today and she didn't feel like her legs were going to fall off. Then she thought about the firehouse...all those men.