I never ran in my life. I’m now over 40 and I hardly ever worked out. When I was in high school, I would use every excuse under the sun to get out of gym. I never needed to work out because when I graduated, I weighed 98 pounds.

After having two children, the weight caught up with me. I was several pounds overweight and as I got older, I had a hard time losing the weight.

About a year ago, I was 155 pounds and I was feeling sluggish and run-down. I decided it was time to join a gym and get a trainer. I knew that if I had a personal trainer, I would have to go to the gym. (It was a good incentive to go.)

My first trainer, Dom, was 22 years old. I was almost twice his age. He worked me hard. After several months of training, I started to run on the treadmill. I ran my first mile. I was so excited. A year before, I was unable to run a block and now I was running on the treadmill one mile. Within six months, I had lost more than 25 pounds and was going strong.

I decided to take running to a new level and started to run outside. Boy was that hard! After a few blocks, I slowed down and found it difficult to do that mile.

This past summer, I switched trainers. Dom had another job and left our gym. Paul, the training manager, decided to take over. He and Dom had been friends and Paul had originally signed me up. His goal was to get me more athletic so that it would be easier to run. “Now it’s time to build muscle,” he said.

Related articles

• A Runner’s Diary: Aiming for a Half Marathon (blogcritics.org)

I’ve been having this ongoing battle with some of my “workout” buddies.  They all seem to wear gloves when they work out.  They tell me that you can lift heavier weights and get the same results.

So, the other day, I asked my trainer, Paul, what he thought.  Here’s what he said:

“Gloves prevent you from working your forearms correctly and gaining grip strength, which is a major key to overall strength and results.”

Obviously, I don’t wear gloves but I have noticed that I am getting calluses on my hands.  So what’s the solution?  To wear gloves or not to wear gloves?

“You have two minutes set up time,” Greg Hill, the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Coordinator of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) said as the student set up his Powerpoint and gave out the handouts to his presentation.

“Your two minutes are up,” Mr. Hill said authoritatively to the student. “As soon as you start talking, your 12 minutes of presentation will begin.”

I sat in the back and watched as six amazing students from various colleges around the US presented their business plans to entrepreneurs, like myself.  All of us had various backgrounds and education levels and yet, we had the power in our hands, collectively, to help each one of these students grow and thrive.

We were asked to judge these students on four different sets of criteria: the entrepreneur, business fundamentals, lessons learned and growth and future plans.

I sat still in my chair from 2 pm to 5 pm. I didn’t move (well, I did to get some coffee and noshes). I was totally engrossed by their presentations.

The whole thing reminded me of my days with the Long Island Capital Forum and how my group and I organized the entire day for entrepreneurs looking for venture capital or angel investments. I sat through those presentations too.  As interesting as those presentations were, these were even more interesting.

The following students presented: Ray Williams of SkillAddiction, an interactive gaming site; Juliette Brindak of Miss O and Friends, who created an interactive web site, products and more just for tweens; and Julian Marshall of Julian Marshall Multimedia, who makes video and animation for corporate and private clients.

The other three were: Brittany Rose of More than Cheer, LLC, who has a cheer leading school for students; Dinesh Wadhwani of ThinkLite, who has an energy efficient light bulb company and Joseph Davy of EvoApp, who had a contact management system that collaborates with Salesforce to delve even deeper into contact relationships.

After the presentations, EO held a cocktail party.  While we sipped our wine and ate hummus, we waiting patiently to hear the results.  The winner of the New York Regional would meet up with other finalists from around the country in a month or so in Kansas City to compete for the grand prize.

And the winner was: Joseph Davy of EvoApp!

I just have to say that this was such a rewarding day for me.  I really enjoyed the whole experience and look forward to doing it again next year.

Related articles

• “Juliette Brindak, 20, runs a $15 million website for girls” and related posts (personalmoneystore.com)
• Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Named As Featured Event in Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010 (eon.businesswire.com)
• Global Student Entrepreneur Awards Named As Featured Event in Global Entrepreneurship Week 2010 (kauffman.org)

The more I travel, the more I wonder if I should go shopping at the mall or if I should go shopping at the airport.

I’m not kidding.  Years ago, you would have laughed at me for bringing this up but today, airports have amazing stores.

JetBlue has Lacoste, Brighton and dozens of other upscale stores.  USAir at Reagan International Airport has Brooks Brothers and several kiosks with interesting jewelry and accessories.

Every time I go to the airport, I think I wish I had more time to browse the shops, but I’m always rushing through, eager to catch my plane.

I never get to shop at the airport shops. You may tell me to go on my way back. But, when I try, the airport shops are already closed when I fly in.

So, here are my options — the next time I decide to go shopping, should I shop at an airport or a shopping mall?