I am home from the pool, 100 minutes in the lap lane. Yesterday, ninety minutes and the day before two hours. There were a couple of runs and some weight-lifting sessions earlier in the week and I know these are the glory days.
As I enter the second year of my seventh decade I show no signs of slowing down although I do more swimming, my gentle joint-friendly routine and less pounding on the pavement. What, you say, make the insanity stop? I can't and you wouldn't either if you saw what I consume. I eat like a starving African and yesterday started with an egg mcmuffin and ended with fried bread nuggets and in between there was a buffet and the scourge that settles upon us every spring, those damn girl scout thin mints. Drinking seven gallons of diet coke a day also contributes to the expanding of my abdomen forcing me to hunt up the really stretchy sweatpants, the ones with the bleach stains from kneeling on freshly scrubbed floors. I blame my overindulgence of comfort food on the fact that it's March frickin' tenth and there are seven more inches of snow coming tonight. I would drown an army of those pesky girl scouts for one hour of sunshine.
I'm not sure how long I can keep this up and there is a residual fear underneath the blanket of endorphins floating through my brain. And it's saying, you're getting old, you're getting weaker, you are now useless. As if to counteract this eventual condition I add minutes to the routine, a kind of insurance that I think I can, I think I can do more. We are all aware of the octogenarians and older farts who continue into advanced age swimming the English Channel, performing in triathlons, hoisting impossibly large barbells. But these people are looked at by the general population with a twinge of nervousness, like Siamese twins they are freaks of nature. I encounter that look every weekend when college students teach swim lessons to little kids in the same pool I do my laps. As I round up my second hour they're waiting for me to collapse, I just know it and some of them are laying bets on it. Just for that, POW! another ten minutes! Groan, I won't be able to get out of a sitting position for the rest of the afternoon.
As I enter the second year of my seventh decade I show no signs of slowing down although I do more swimming, my gentle joint-friendly routine and less pounding on the pavement. What, you say, make the insanity stop? I can't and you wouldn't either if you saw what I consume. I eat like a starving African and yesterday started with an egg mcmuffin and ended with fried bread nuggets and in between there was a buffet and the scourge that settles upon us every spring, those damn girl scout thin mints. Drinking seven gallons of diet coke a day also contributes to the expanding of my abdomen forcing me to hunt up the really stretchy sweatpants, the ones with the bleach stains from kneeling on freshly scrubbed floors. I blame my overindulgence of comfort food on the fact that it's March frickin' tenth and there are seven more inches of snow coming tonight. I would drown an army of those pesky girl scouts for one hour of sunshine.
I'm not sure how long I can keep this up and there is a residual fear underneath the blanket of endorphins floating through my brain. And it's saying, you're getting old, you're getting weaker, you are now useless. As if to counteract this eventual condition I add minutes to the routine, a kind of insurance that I think I can, I think I can do more. We are all aware of the octogenarians and older farts who continue into advanced age swimming the English Channel, performing in triathlons, hoisting impossibly large barbells. But these people are looked at by the general population with a twinge of nervousness, like Siamese twins they are freaks of nature. I encounter that look every weekend when college students teach swim lessons to little kids in the same pool I do my laps. As I round up my second hour they're waiting for me to collapse, I just know it and some of them are laying bets on it. Just for that, POW! another ten minutes! Groan, I won't be able to get out of a sitting position for the rest of the afternoon.
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| Dawn, circa 2052 |
3 comments:
Ah yes. I caught sight of myself in the mirror at my Zumba class the other day. It was not pretty. I used to dance a lot. I have done ballet, tap and modern. I love the hip swivel of Zumba but last week I had sciatica for two days after the class. The excess weight around my middle makes those jazz stretches I do after workout reeeeally uncomfortable...but I still love the endorphins.
(And you have just made me realise that I am in my 60th decade!!! Thanks for nothing...)
Arizona, you're probably going to be seeing this in the news shortly but some third world countries are actually using Zumba classes as torture techniques and the United Nations is very concerned over this growing trend.
I think you should do the English Channel someday. Just saying.
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