A new workout word

I AM A CLICHE.

It’s true.  While I don’t start up a new workout routine for the New Year, it’s only because I want to buck the trend.  No, me, I start it in the spring.  Quel surprise, the urge to exercise usually comes around my birthday.  You know, that time when a woman has to reflect on the fact that another year has passed, she’s found at least a dozen grey hairs, the lines under her eyes seem like chasms, and gravity has won a few more rounds.   When she wonders, yet again, if she’d find her soul mate if only she could just lose those few…well, let’s be honest here…more than few pounds.

This is when work and events and stress making cooking and eating healthy harder (not that they were a walk in the park before).  It’s when all the dark, gloomy clothing of the winter feels frumpy and boring (instead of chic and flattering).  It’s when the college students start to wear their cowboy boots and gym shorts combos, flaunting that they somehow didn’t gain a pound over the winter, and also managed to keep their perfect golden tans.  It’s when all my super-athlete coworkers and family members start running 1/2 marathons and other such tomfoolery.

This is when, if I still lived up North, I could have another few months to put off worrying about how soon everyone will be wearing tank tops and I’ll be fretting over my flabby arms and farmers tan.  And don’t even mention bathing suits.  Worrying about looking good in a bathing suit is for women who don’t shop where I do.  Finding a bathing suit that doesn’t embarrass me is more my style.

Still, this time of year can’t help but bring hope.  Daylight Savings has been and gone and left a bunch of sleep deprived humans behind, humans who nonetheless welcome more daylight into the evening hours.  Plus, this is when the weather gets nice, when walks with the dog can last longer.  Last year, it was around this time that I started swimming.  I’m still swimming, but it’s harder to convince myself to do it twice a week.

Tonight, as I pondered my exercise for the evening, I had one option – walk the dog around the ‘hood.  Yawn.  So I decided to spice things up and do a circuit around the subdivision with a new twist; I would jog the downhills and walk the uphills.  As a rule, I dislike running, but downhill I can usually handle. 

It worked pretty well, but I don’t think my dog appreciated the pace; she kept wanting to stop, sniff and pee and seemed a little miffed that I was moving faster than normal.  Thanks to the streetlights I could see my shadow…hey, speaking of shadows…does anyone else wish we could have the body that our shadows do?  Mine is lean, with inward curving upper thighs and a long neck.  That would be neat.

Anyway, I occupied myself on this journey with yanking my dog along, fighting a Genius mix on my IPhone that clearly didn’t understand what I was going for, and trying to find a name for this new kind of walk/run.

And then in came to me.

Henceforth, this kind of exercise will be called a “rulk.”  Run+walk.  RULK.

I kind of love it.

Looking forward to rulking again tomorrow.