About Exercise

Post 87:

            So I took up exercising today for the five-hundredth time. Is there anything more demoralizing than the very beginning when you’re trying to get back in shape? Probably, but for the sake of this post, no, there isn’t.

            My body has gone through various permutations through the years. By that, I mean slightly fit to completely hopeless. I’ve never been fat—on the other hand, never been Captain Abs either.

            If you’re super young you’ll have no clue what I’m on about here. You can drink a twelver and get up and go run a marathon. Not that you should. But for the rest of us…

            First you got the guys lifting weights over in the corner, grunting as impossible tonnage is moved through the air by impossible muscles. Then there’s the super chicks that have workout clothes that are more expensive than my best suit. They have this steely deterministic look on their face which frankly, scares me.

            Then there’s me. What a mess. I ran two miles, snails pace mind you. Bad knees, bad joints, bad lungs. Bad. If there is a Father Time, he’s there at the gym, creeping around somewhere, laughing his head off. Can’t blame him. I pulled a hammie the other day trying not to slip on the ice. Turns out there wasn’t even ice. I thought there was ice, and my preemptive move to avoid the hypothetical ice caused an overexertion of whatever’s going on in the back of my leg.

            So what’s the point? It’s exercise, and that’s inherently good. That’s what they say, and though it pains me in both body and spirit, I have to agree. It’s an exercise in exercise, if that makes sense. There’s all kinds of crap that we don’t want to do, but we do it anyway. It’s kind of a moral quest, the way I see it. If you see it as a way to look at yourself and be all impressed and whatnot, good for you, but that’s kind of stupid. Don’t be a bigger ass in front of Father Time than you have to be.

            I’m running on empty. See you after.