The Morning Run

Perspiration, wheezing, ancient tennis shoes, and my ipod shuffle. These are my companions five mornings a week on my run around the neighborhood. Let me tell you, it isn't pretty. I congratulate myself on being presentable if I wipe away the mascara raccoon circles under my eyes and pull my hair into a rats nest of a ponytail. After lugging my bones around the block, I come to the part of my run that I like to call "the beast." It is a hill that sometimes makes me want to turn around and run the other way. By the time I reach the summit I feel like I need an oxygen mask like the climbers on Mt. Everest.

It is also usually about this time, I see another woman out for her morning constitutional. But wait. Why is she wearing a fuzzy pink athletic suit, matching sun glasses and jewelry? Her hair is perfectly arranged and shellacked in place with hairspray. She isn't accompanied by sweat, or huffing and puffing. In fact, she is barely moving and her only companion is a chihuahua in a matching outfit whose name is probably "Prince." What is this woman doing out so early under the pretense of exercising? She obviously isn't here to burn calories and fight that leftover baby bulge like me. It is a total mystery, and very annoying when I am about to keel over and looking like I just woke from the dead. Rance and I have two theories. Either they are trying to catch the eye of rich lawyers commuting to work, or they are aliens from Mars trying to blend in and observe our planet. (That would explain why their skin is stretched so tightly across their faces it is impossible to ascertain their real age) Whatever the reason, this army of model-like pseudo joggers are as unnatural as my ten-year-old polyester jogging pants.