Nature's Little Surprises

"Nature loves her little surprises....don't you know it's a waste of your day caught up in endless solutions that have no meaning, just a hunch based on jumping conclusions...living a life of illusion..." - (Joe Walsh, 1981)

On my non-running day this last week, Suzanne and I were invited to a Zumba class by a friend (a former member of my training group, and my dentist) and his girlfriend. When the invitation came I believe I had a good idea what to expect.


In case you spent the last decade in a place where there are no gyms playing a single beat of Latin-flavored dance music, Zumba is a mix of Latin-style dance and aerobic moves. If you squint just so and the lighting is right during a sixty-minute session, you might get visions of Billy Blanks and Shakira.


I've done aerobic classes of one kind or another over the past couple of decades, however almost 30 years had passed since I did my last "mae geri keage" in the dojo, so the kickboxing moves were going to be more difficult. I'd seen the info commercials on television, so I worried a little leading into the class session. First, bouncing around on a linoleum floor in a school cafeteria may not be good rehabilitation for achilles tendonosis. Second, my parents did not pass on the "dance" gene, at least not to any popular dance outside of "high school hug-disguised-as-a-slow-dance" dance.

But I did remember my first aerobic instructor's advice if a routine became too complicated:

Keep breathing. Breathing is definitely a good idea, considering the unsavory alternatives. I don't do "smurf" all that well.

Keep moving. Standing still in an exercise class when everyone else is moving eventually leads to unintended collisions. Kickboxing moves, not full-contact kumite, grasshopper.

Keep smiling. If smiling is not possible a grimace looks much like a smile from a distance.

In that order.


But most importantly, I was going to be (probably) the second guy in a class full of women. There are guys who feel comfortable in their presence. There are guys who, by circumstance, spend a great deal of their life in their close proximity. If you're one of those guys whose livelihood (two good examples being the medical and educational disciplines) requires you to be in close proximity, you learn a lot of things.

You learn women are EXACTLY like men. At least when they are in an environment where they are the overwhelming majority, if not the totality. Sure, their work spaces are a little more nicely decorated, scented, and accessorized, otherwise they're alike. While I've never spent time in a ladies' locker room, I can say that women who work in an all-female shop can be very un-ladylike. They are more likely to, to be polite, "let their hair down." I've heard things no man should probably ever know existed. After about six months, I pretty much became one of the girls...estrogen-challenged and testosterone-enhanced, but one of the girls, no less.


After Dr. Quigley's "breathe, move, smile" advice came that of Clint Eastwood, straight out of "Heartbreak Ridge." Sure, that old Marine Corps gunnery sergeant was trying to get in touch with his inner-feminine side (or his ex-wife's), but he valued the ability to 'adapt, overcome, improvise.' As Suzanne moved farther forward into the class and worked at learning the routines, I stayed in the back of the classroom where the traffic was lighter, got a good sweat, and - most importantly - didn't hurt myself or anyone else too much. And, while dance frustrates me, I have to admit I did have a little bit of fun.


Perhaps that's why all-woman health and fitness clubs and women's running groups are popular. The "fairer sex" can feel less hindered or intimidated by us grunting, sweating, metal plate-chucking, lead-by-a half-stride-pace-seeking knuckleheads. Some of them do get better workouts that way. Of course, there are women who completely waste their time socializing or working out at an intensity level just one notch above sitting on the couch.


There are benefits to co-ed training. If you want to get a good weight workout, do it with a chick. There's not going to be a lot of grunting and, if you'll pardon the expression, man-handling the weight. Women more often use proper form and reasonable resistance. They'll get a lot of repetitions in so the muscle is stronger, not necessarily bigger. And there are drawbacks, too. There have been track workouts where my ego had to kick in to keep from getting "chicked" on one or more repeats. I trained with a woman who was so tough, we joked she would only quit a workout when a bone was sticking out of her leg...and only after she realized the bone ws her own.

"Every once in a while," my wife says, "we need to confuse our body by doing something a little different." Here's to the occasional confusion workout. It can be something as simple as changing from the time of the run from evening to morning, the surface from road to treadmill, the situation from running solo to doing a run with a group.

The Invisible Man

Suzanne's on the road again this week, so all is not as well in the Bowen household as I would like. Rubin is even more the spoiled brat when she's out. In spite of a walk yesterday morning after my swim workout, and another walk in the afternoon after my 40-minute, 5-mile (well, 5.1 miles in 38 minutes and small change, if you really need to know...) run in 90-degree conditions...he still wanted to go outside, over and over again. Well, it's not the going outside (into the back yard) he wanted, but more biscuits. After a while it became a battle of wills: I'd go to the back door to let him back in the house, and he'd stand there not wanting to come in. All right, stooopid dog. Stand out there and roast. See if I care. Make me explain to your mother when she returns why your carcass is in the veterinary clinic.

I don't sleep well when she's out...and not for the obvious reasons. Once you've developed a pattern and established a certain level of comfort, any sort of change kind of throws your system for a loop. So I was probably a little disoriented at 9:30-something when Jason, the husband of my "zeeba neighba" friend Laura, called. He finally got back into country after a year doing "gee-what" (the Navy is notorious for turning acronyms into words!) things. So, his plan was to take his week off and come get the stuff Laura put in the office, pack it in a U-Haul and get it all set up (eventually!) in Clarksville, Tennessee. Obviously the draw of money for a pharmacist was the primary reason to go there, because Laura says there's not much else to offer.
This sort of stuff doesn't happen too much here. It's more like that in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, which at one time had some of the most dangerous street crossings in the U.S. I recall fondly my efforts to cross the intersection of Kennedy Boulevard and Ashley (or Tampa) Street, usually in running attire, and often on days when traffic was at its worst. Since it was only half a mile from the U.Tampa campus to the offices where my girlfriend (at that time of life) worked, it was always a good chance to get together for lunch two or three times a week. I never saw anyone get hit at one of those two intersections, but there were a couple of close calls, let me tell you.

Why does summer have to happen to us? Not certain. But I'm fortunate my thermometer and air conditioning unit at home is operational. The on-line resume system for the government certainly isn't. I have resumes submitted all over the government's human resources system, yet when it came time to consider for a program analyst position in the office next door to mine my name was not in the list of qualified applicants.

Huh?
Exactly the same thing my friend Sam said to the HR person here, which she said supposedly to the HR person in Norfolk. So, now the government HR folks and my granddaughter have something in common; neither one know of me.
Aarrgghh.

Standing on the scales last Saturday, I found I weighed about seven pounds heavier than I did during/after the triathlon. Again, I guess it means no more Mickey D runs on the way into the office after swim practice. Back to bagels and hummus from Mike's (Cafe' Espresso), without the brownie chaser.
Of course, the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, continues to make dietary decision-making difficult. I walked in to see sailors selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts, five dollars for a box of 12. Sure, no problem, let's load folks down with fat and sugar, then watch them crash and burn later in the afternoon...or have heart attacks after twenty years of the stuff.
And I do like the stuff. I haven't had one in a very, very long time. The only problem is that Krispy Kreme doughnuts are like potato chips: It is almost a certainty that you will not be limited to devouring a single doughnut.