ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="en-us"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <title>My Exercise Career</title> <meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="canvas 111, default"> <meta name="Microsoft Border" content="tlb, default"> </head> <body background="Images/cnvbkgnd.jpg" bgcolor="#FFFFCC" text="#000066" link="#663399" vlink="#006699" alink="#339999"> <!--msnavigation--><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <!--mstheme--></font><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="98%" id="AutoNumber2"> <tr> <td width="100%"><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <p align="center"><img border="0" src="Images/Late_Bloomer_Press.jpg" width="174" height="168"></p> <p align="center"><br> <img border="0" src="Images/top.ht2.gif" width="249" height="33"><!--mstheme--></font></td> </tr> </table><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <p align="center">&nbsp; </p> <!--mstheme--></font></td></tr><!--msnavigation--></table><!--msnavigation--><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td valign="top" width="1%"><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <p align="center"> <a href="Contents.htm"> <script language="JavaScript"><!-- MSFPhover = (((navigator.appName == "Netscape") && (parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 3 )) || ((navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer") && (parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 4 ))); function MSFPpreload(img) { var a=new Image(); a.src=img; return a; } // --></script><script language="JavaScript"><!-- if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav1n=MSFPpreload("_derived/up_cmp_canvas110_vbtn.gif"); MSFPnav1h=MSFPpreload("_derived/up_cmp_canvas110_vbtn_a.gif"); } // --></script><a href="Contents.htm" language="JavaScript" onmouseover="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav1'].src=MSFPnav1h.src" onmouseout="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav1'].src=MSFPnav1n.src"><img src="http://web.archive.org/web/20081120122336im_/http://www.latebloomerpress.com/_derived/up_cmp_canvas110_vbtn.gif" width="140" height="60" border="0" alt="Up" name="MSFPnav1"></a></a> </p> <!--mstheme--></font></td><td valign="top" width="24"></td><!--msnavigation--><td valign="top"><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"><!--mstheme--></font><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse" width="600" id="AutoNumber3"> <tr> <td width="100%"><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <p align="center"><b><font face="Courier New" size="5">My Exercise Career</font></b></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Students who suffer from an acute aversion to effort are now privileged to consult <u>The world s best thin books: what to read when your book report is due tomorrow</u> by Joni Richards Bodart. (I realize that book reporters have been on to this ploy for eons, but thanks to Ms. Bodart, it now has some competent direction.)</font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Even though this particular item will never do me any good because a) I haven t been a student in years and years and b) I love to read anyway, I can still feel a degree of kinship with the concept, if not the particular application. Up until 1993, had a teacher assigned a paper on  My Favorite Sport or  How I Exercise , my response would, of necessity, have been simply to hand in several blank sheets of paper. </font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Throughout childhood and adolescence, I could have put all the athletic inclinations I ever had in a locket and worn it around my neck. I liked swimming, but most very young children do, and as I got older my interest waned. When thirteen or so, I was signed up for golf instruction by my parents (group sessions, not individual  way too foolhardy) at our country club. For who knows what reason, I still remember the golf pro s name: Fred Campbell. By this age, I had grasped that golf was a rather sophisticated, adult game, and when the initial lesson was over, I hopefully hauled my bag of borrowed clubs to the first tee. Twenty-six minutes later my golfing career was <i>fini</i>, and back at the clubhouse I settled in with a good book, doing what I did best. </font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In junior and senior high school, I regarded PE and everything connected as a hairshirt. Located under the stadium, the locker rooms, boys and girls , were dank, smelly dungeons that no sane person would have entered, let alone remained in, save under duress. Undressing and then dressing again in the middle of the day struck me as imbecilic in any case, but having to do it where drug-resistant life forms were evolving was downright reckless and something for the authorities to look into.<O:P> </O:P> </font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nonetheless, as a perfunctory nod towards hygiene, we were required to take home our gym suits every Friday for laundering and ironing and were inspected every Monday for same. Failure to comply caused points to be deducted from your grade. Invariably, on Sunday nights, I would be drifting off into the sleep of the just (conscientious students are allowed to do that) when, just before the final descent into peaceful oblivion, I would remember that my outfit, board-stiff with dried perspiration, was still standing up all by itself next to the washing machine. </font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In college, I took riding because I like animals and because it allows the participant to remain seated. As soon as I began to explore the intricacies of walk, trot, canter and gallop, I realized too late the folly of getting one s equine information from watching horses under contract to Disney. These run smoothly as silk, their wondrous legs hardly ever seeming to touch the profane earth while the undisturbed rider may do needlepoint or calligraphy if so inclined. The fearsome reality can be summed up in two words: horses stumble. A whole lot. During my first time out, I don t think I had been atop Applesauce seventeen seconds before he took a partial header into the churned up earth of the ring, and from that moment on my optimism evaporated and was replaced by nightmarish visions of having him do a full header next time and squash me underneath like a Japanese lantern. I wondered if I would lose consciousness before or after the sound of my leg bone snapping like a dry twig. When the next semester rolled around, I signed up for boating and canoeing, the only other sit-down activity offered.</font></span></p> <p><span><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It goes without saying, I suppose, that immediately after graduation my exercise career, puny as it always had been, finally expired altogether and was laid to rest with very little mourning on my part.</font></span><font face="Courier New" size="3"> <span>Never again would I be required to do sit-ups or push-ups, play softball or basketball or volleyball or soccer or learn their rules, or put on skimpy outfits that emphasized how less-than-perfect my figure was. &nbsp;<O:P> </O:P> </span></font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Some are born indolent, some achieve indolence, and some have indolence thrust upon them. For the next decade or two, I mulled over which category I properly belonged to and finally concluded that it mattered not. My fitness program consisted of the blank sheets of paper already referred to, also known as The Great Hiatus. Because I was blessed with superior health, the credit for which went entirely to youth and good genes, my short-lived efforts at fitness would occur only after being periodically frightened off the sofa by reading that lack of exercise causes cancer, or something. I remember a resolution to swim one hundred laps every weekend that sank without a trace. I recall a gym membership that flattened my wallet but not my stomach. Nothing worked out, especially not me.</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In my mid-thirties, I bought a second-hand bicycle from a member of my church for thirty-five dollars, scrubbed off the rusty spots with steel wool, and began periodic forays into the vast natural domain. In addition to my full-time job, I was working on a master s degree at the time, and being cooped up indoors almost constantly got to be more than even I could stand. The bike rides were a wonderful relief, both physically and psychologically. When I wanted a change of scenery from my usual routes, I would heft the bike into my station wagon and drive miles out into the country. Or I would leave the bicycle at home and take my three basset hounds, Clemmie, Zandy and Lulu, for walks in the woods. Eventually the treks got longer, and provided we began early enough we might not return for hours. &nbsp;</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; On Easter Monday, 1993, I took the day off from work and drove to a semi-rural area some seven or eight miles from my house. After locking the car in a safe, unobtrusive spot and putting the extra key in my pocket, I tightened the laces of my brand new Nikes, adjusted the straps of my brand new sports bra and began to run. And run. Up one path and down another. Through the woods this time, along a paved road the next. Now uphill, now level, now down. I ran and ran and discovered, to my utter astonishment, that I liked it. Not displeased with this first effort, I made all kinds of promises to continue while not really believing that I would.</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; But I was wrong. Over the next couple of years, I ran, on average, three to four times a week. At first, my bewildered calf muscles hurt like hell, but in a surprisingly short time they got used to it.</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It would delightful to report that my weight fell twenty pounds, my IQ rose twenty points, and my hair went back to its original color. In a donkey s suitcase. Currently, I do not run as regularly as before, but there is a certain comfort, perhaps false, in knowing that I could reprise my old schedule at any time.</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Noble subjects impart noble lessons, and it is beholden on me to close with a moralistic coda along the lines of  What I Have Learned From Running . I shall not disappoint. &nbsp;</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM RUNNING&nbsp;</font></p> <p> <font face="Courier New" size="3">1.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Unless they are old and arthritic (and in that case will have</font> <font face="Courier New" size="3">far too much sense to leave home in the first place), slow dogs can still run circles around fast people. Concentric circles. Furthermore, they are willing to put their normally sweet dispositions on hold for a bit and rub it in. When I finally approach the homestead red-faced, sweating and gasping for breath, they have long since arrived and are stretched out on the porch, giving every appearance of death. But as soon as I pass, they magically return to life and raise their heads just far enough to shoot me that what-the-hell-kept-you look.</font></p> <p> <font face="Courier New" size="3">2.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Running and real estate do not mix. At first blush, that may appear to be an impossibility; what else is there to run on? But you already know what I mean. When I began, my neck of the woods was precisely that. Sparsely developed, it afforded a network of narrow paths connecting to wider trails that delivered me unto the cosmos and then home again. I knew every bump, dip, turn and treacherous tree root along the way, and we all peacefully co-existed. How green was my valley. Now houses sit on just about everything, and on my nature-loving days I am restricted to one patch of trees sitting nervously in the midst of three ever-encroaching subdivisions.</font>&nbsp;</font></p> <p> <font face="Courier New" size="3">3.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lesson #3 is actually a subset or spin-off of #2. Now that all my favorite courses have been bricked, sodded and swimming-pooled into oblivion, I am obliged to give actual thought and planning to my routes. In the past, whenever I felt my energy level approach zero, plane geometry (which is as advanced as I ever took) would whisper in my ear that the shortest distance between two points is still the well-known straight line, which I then proceeded to follow home. Were I to enforce this equation now, a chorus of irate, suburban chatelains would correct my math for me. Wherever their lawns are concerned, solid geometry reigns. One must never underestimate their sensibilities, couch potatoes though they be. To casual observation they appear semi-comatose, but let a wearied runner, be it three in the morning, try to slink doggo across their petted, manicured, impossibly green, crabgrassless lawns once, just once, and they spring to life with an alacrity that would put the average SWAT team to shame. My name goes into their bad books forever. It isn t worth it. I crawl home the long way, bleeding blisters and all, and try not to overestimate my endurance next time.</font></p> <p> <font face="Courier New" size="3">4.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span> </span>Daniel Boone better watch out. I now know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and proudly point out which is where, even without the sun to guide me. I can spot the tracks of deer, wild turkey, rabbit and raccoon in a trice. Identifying the bleached bones of long-dead road kill presents more of a challenge, but I am working on it. Honeysuckle is ready to be sucked in early May and blackberries to be picked in late June/early July. Blackberries on shaded, lower, interior branches seem to ripen first, but care must be taken. Be on the lookout for snakes. Brer Rabbit isn t the only critter who hangs out there.</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Let the word be heard that even at age 46 it is not too late to change. I am living proof that the most resolute sluggards are not impervious to salvation. <i> Somewhere</i> there is <i>something</i> we can do. And were that were not reward enough in itself, we also get the last laugh on all those defeated gym teachers, doubtful relatives and jeering pets.<br> &nbsp;</font></p> <p><font face="Courier New" size="3"> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font><font face="Courier New" size="4">Edna Horning</font></p> </font><!--mstheme--></font></td> </tr> </table><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"><!--mstheme--></font><!--msnavigation--></td></tr><!--msnavigation--></table><!--msnavigation--><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td><!--mstheme--><font face="Arial, Arial, Helvetica"> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p> <script language="JavaScript"><!-- if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav2n=MSFPpreload("_derived/Home.htm_cmp_canvas110_hbtn.gif"); MSFPnav2h=MSFPpreload("_derived/Home.htm_cmp_canvas110_hbtn_a.gif"); } // --></script><a href="Home.htm" language="JavaScript" onmouseover="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav2'].src=MSFPnav2h.src" onmouseout="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav2'].src=MSFPnav2n.src"><img src="http://web.archive.org/web/20081120122336im_/http://www.latebloomerpress.com/_derived/Home.htm_cmp_canvas110_hbtn.gif" width="140" height="60" border="0" alt="Home" align="middle" name="MSFPnav2"></a></p> <h5><!--mstheme--><font color="#663399">Send mail to <a href="mailto:ehorning@sc.rr.com"> Edna Horning</a> with questions or comments about this web site.<br> Web site hosted and maintained by <a href="http://www.advancedwebpromotions.com/"> Advanced Web Promotions</a><br> Copyright © 2001 Late Bloomer Press<br> Last modified: June 29, 2003<!--mstheme--></font></h5> <!--mstheme--></font></td></tr><!--msnavigation--></table></body></html>