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[/caption] I don’t like running. While I always claim to be “lightning fast,” I’m not particularly good at running. I might have a few decent sprints in me, or maybe one good 400, but after that I’m average at best. I’ve been working on running for the last year, and I’m now less embarrassed about my lack of skill, and I can usually beat Crystal in races as long as she doesn’t know we’re racing until I get near the finish line. “Mike wins again (and sleeps on the couch)!” With Winnipeg’s horrid winters, I don’t have much chance to run outside. I don’t like running and I detest winter, so you can see how that works. Still, an incident yesterday gave me some hope that I’m improving my fitness. At about noon, I was doing the dishes when some ran over my blue recycling box in the back lane. “Ran over” isn’t the right phrase. She basically wedged it between the bumper and the ground and took off down the lane. I could hear the grinding from upstairs, but she couldn’t hear it from inside her car. Interesting. I wasted a few seconds screaming out the window, then took off when I realized it was futile. I was down a flight of stairs, out the front door and through the back gate in a second. According to Crystal, who observed me as I sprinted across the driveway, no one has ever moved that fast in skateboard shoes over iced terrain in downtown Winnipeg. No one. And I was still accelerating. I caught the woman halfway down the block as she was trying to put the blue box into her trunk. She claimed she was going to “return it.” I question that given she clearly had no idea when it had actually become wedged under her car and therefore no location to which she should return it. Long story short: I still don’t like running, but working on it saved my blue box. Fitness lesson learned.