I am not a natural runner. So this training for the Dirty Girl Mud Run in May — a teensy 5K — is a daunting new endeavor. Knowing that my oldestdearestbestest friend, Jackie, is training at the same time down in our native Philly for the same event makes each lurching-and-huffing-and-puffing run much more appealing, especially in this freezing cold weather. I picture her rolling her eyes at the Official Runner Creatures she’s crossing paths with, and I laugh out loud.

I can see this is going to become an annual tradition. She’s already got the hotel (with fitness center and hot tub) booked for us.

Originally, we’d planned to do this as a “Just Us” event. But then we realized there was no way our four girls would want to miss out on their mothers sloshing through mud and climbing cargo nets in running shoes and tutus.

Yes, tutus. We know how to live, people.

So this time around, for our first-ever race together, the families will be in tow, including my mom, who can’t wait to be the photojournalist for the day.

The girls, who know that I’m far more of a hiker and dog-trotter than a runner, think the whole idea is hilarious. I don’t think they believe I’m going to go through with it. After all, this is their mother, the one chasing them around the house with wipes and sponges and Purell. Mud pits?

“I’d kind of like to go with you,” S said the other day, as I was lacing my shoes to go for a run-lurch. “To see this for myself.”

“Right now?” I said, thrilled for the company.

“Um, not now,” she said, looking at me like I was a raving lunatic. “It’s COLD.”

I did manage to drag my mom out for a short run. Well, she walked while I did little sprinty things, forward and back, forward and back, always returning to her, as I have my whole life. Mothers and daughters, well…that’s what we do, if we are lucky. The entire time we were outside, she alternated between worrying aloud that we might die of pneumonia before getting back to her apartment, and humming the theme from “Rocky.”

My mother is certain that my asthma will kill me, if pneumonia doesn’t get me first. My lungs are a little wheezy, it’s true, but I’ve got my inhaler. I’m thinking of painting a racing stripe on it, with a Sharpie.

I am not fast. Stamina is not my strong point, either. I will never be one of those darling perky gazelle creatures, taking their pulses as they sprint down the local country roads. But I press on. Basically, I have a sports bra, a decent pair of running shoes, and a friend I believe in and who believes in me.

I don’t mind being the underdog. If we pull this off, Jackie and I, in May, it will set a great example for our girls (and our mamas). I didn’t see this New Year’s resolution coming. It sort of slipped in, under the wire. But I like it. I like it very much indeed.

Has an unexpected New Year’s resolution found its way to you this year? How are you surprising yourself so far in 2012?