I’m not sure I can handle much more “celebrity” treatment. I’m going to be spoiled!

Columbus Monthly Magazine is running a story about walking, and I was interviewed a couple weeks ago. Apparently they have talked to several people associated with walking and walking groups in Columbus. Today I met with a photographer from the magazine for a photo shoot. All weekend I had stressed about what I would wear since my new shirts without a typo are not here yet. (They are ready, I couldn’t pick them up on Friday.) Believe it or not, I don’t have very many different things that I wear walking and nothing I would call an “outfit.” I have one pair of non-spandex shorts, a couple pairs of spandex shorts (one seriously faded) and a couple pairs of pants in various cold-weather weights. As you can imagine, I have TONS of race shirts, and a couple WALK! Magazine shirts. Deciding which shirt looked best with which shorts was hard – I’ve been photographed in races before, but not like this. Oh, and I have brand new bright yellow Brooks shoes. They go with nothing!

Anyway, the photographer and I met in a nice park and he had me walk toward him a few times. Finally he told me I should smile because I was supposed to be “happy” while walking. I was just being a serious walker trying to look like I knew how to racewalk. I wonder if I am the first person he has had to tell to be “happy.”

He also took several shots of just my feet and legs. I find this funny because I don’t wear capri pants just so that I don’t emphasize the least attractive part of my body – my shins and ankles. (In high school, I worked at a restaurant where I stood for 8-hour shifts and this left me with huge blue veins on my pale white shins.) After the “action” shots he took a few posed ones – me stretching, leaning against a park sign, standing in the grass… My head was tilted this way and that. It was difficult to imagine how tilting my head to the left and lifting my chin would look when it felt so odd.

I don’t know how models do it. It is very hard to put a genuine smile on your face when you are worried about veins in your legs, planting your heel, keeping your knee straight and hoping your arms are not moving out too far from your body. Though I am not a real racewalker yet, I hope it looks like I was trying to racewalk.

Oh yeah, I also hope I look “happy.”

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