Cold, wet, rainy, and gloomy are excellent adjectives to describe today. A better way to describe it is a 19th-Century period piece made into a film depicting the streets of London and its blustery underbelly. OK, so that might be a bit over the top, but it wasn’t a pretty day. Perhaps depressing and wintery are apt descriptive words. I digress.
Considering the weather, Melissa and I went to the gym to perform our 15th 5K of the year. Although the gym is generally pleasant, and not too crowded, there are always some entertaining moments for the curious and casual observer.
For example, today we had to jog and maneuver our way around a guy I referred to as Dolph or Drago, owing in part to his resemblance to actor Dolph Lundgren portraying Drago, the Russian boxer who killed Apollo Creed and fought Rocky in the 1980s. Our ‘Dolph’ was this large, lumbering character who walked only halfway around the track, cutting through the middle and disrupting our cadence to go around him. Annoying but harmless.
There were two ladies, obviously and comically, mother and daughter. I won’t give you a physical description of them, because it would be unflattering for them and for me to do so, but I’m afraid that the apple didn’t make it far enough away from the tree to allow any diversity in that gene pool.
Then there’s the gaggle of random people who invent their own exercises. I love them the most. They’re very entertaining with their contorted stretches and their modified exercises have no enhancing effect on their physical health. But they do them as if their imaginary personal trainers demand it. There was one guy at the YMCA who used to create all kinds of interesting stretches for himself. The more interesting part of him was that he purposely donned one of those stretchy terrycloth headband and wristband sets right out of the 1980s. He was a sight to behold. He also had a rather energetic Roman Chair method that I couldn’t watch without laughing–lots of body bouncing and leg slinging.
OK, so I digressed again. But seriously, if it weren’t for the entertaining part of going to these places, it would make exercising excruciatingly boring…and possibly excruciating in the literal sense.
Melissa and I did our walk two, jog one ‘pattern’ for today’s 5K, which made the time go by much faster than walking by itself does. I think tomorrow that we are mall bound. The mall sometimes offers visual entertainment opportunities, but not with any regularity that the gym delivers. If we see something interesting, you can read about it here.
Keep stretching. Keep walking. Keep your head up. Keep your heal and toe walking style. And keep your eyes and ears open for awesome people watching opportunities.
#5KaDay2017
5K a Day 2017 