Sometimes I worry about things. I worry my favorite TV shows will go away (that actually happened last week – not happy about it). I worry that I will miss out on a good joke. I worry that bad health things will happen to me.

That last one can take up some serious brain space, which is why I broke down a month or so ago and joined a gym.

Even though I hardly resemble someone who had an OK career as a college athlete, I have tried to maintain some sort of physical fitness, especially in recent years.

I have mainly restricted those efforts, however, to long walks and the occasional session on an old, somewhat broken exercise bike in the basement.

Anything more strenuous went on the backburner for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have a lot of trouble running because of knee and ankle injuries from my wrestling days. Secondly, I’m lazy.

But I finally overcame that second recently when I saw an offer I could not refuse. I had looked at buying a treadmill or something similar for the house many, many times, but just could not justify the expense. An affordable membership fee made my cheapness (I guess that is a third reason) a moot point.

With that obstacle out of the way, I have managed to conquer the second reason. By looking for natural openings in my daily schedule, I have put in more than 20 workouts since starting this project in early April. I have even done some long outside walks on days when I either can’t go to the gym or feel like a change of pace.

The bonus is that, thanks to the elliptical machines, I can get a more strenuous workout without having to worry about my bad knees and ankles. I have worked my way up to almost three miles at a running pace.

When I shared one of my successful workouts on Facebook – I rarely do this because I don’t want to be “that guy who is always talking about his workout routine” – a college buddy joked that I had probably never run that far before.

I know he was kidding, but I made sure to point out that when I used to wrestle, I regularly ran more than two miles a day. I credit thank kind of background with letting me get back into the flow of things so easily.

Sure, I had tried to get back into shape before, but my creaky joints and my laziness teamed up to foil those plans. Now that I have found something to make it a little easier on my body, I fell back into hold habits much easier than I expected.

Like any normal person, I never really liked running, but I remember the feeling of accomplishment after a good solid workout. I have started to feel that way again. I even considered breaking into a jog while taking a walk through town  one day last week, but I thought about my knees.

The worries about my health haven’t completely subsided, but I definitely feel better about things. In fact, I feel good enough to consider running in a 5K sometime this summer.

That’s when I’ll really worry about my health – my mental health.