The first things to go are the legs...


and the butt is at the top of the legs...



And yes, you are looking at an extreme closeup of one of my butt cheeks. (Oh, my God, am I getting age spots and stretch marks on my butt?) And you thought that my photo up my nose was a low point of this blog, didn't you? Actually, I wanted to be at least a little tasteful and avoid the butt crack, so I made the shot from the side. It's kind of a profile of my butt... actually, it's more like the hip, I think.

Don't worry, though, there's a good and non-pornographic reason for me to put up a photo of my butt, or hip... though I wonder what kind of scary, gross, unattractive porn you look at if you consider this photo pornographic.

Anyway, when I go walking or jogging around Pasadena, the land is relatively flat, especially, of course, when I jog around the track at Caltech, which has the added benefit of being measured, rubberized, and very near the locker room with its showers and cold water fountains. However, our home in Glendora is located in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, which means the jogging routes tend to be rather hilly. Not San Francisco hilly, but much more hilly than Pasadena. I worry that, although the Nike+ iPod sensor adequately measures horizontal distances, I'm not sure how aware it is of running up or down hills in order to adjust for calories burned.

The path I take is sort of an irregular rectangle around our neighborhood, and I measured two laps around the route as just over 2.2 miles. Our house is near the middle of the south side of the rectangle. It's near the lowest altitude of the route, which means that, no matter which direction I go, I'm facing an uphill climb early in my jog. Going counter-clockwise, there's a long distance to the first hill, but it's steep once I get there, so I usually go clockwise. The first hill in that direction goes to the same elevation or even higher, actually, but it's more gradual, so I have fooled myself into thinking it's easier. It doesn't look so bad when you drive up that hill, but I found out today that it's a killer. I've named it the Hill of Death. From home to the top of the Hill of Death is about 0.45 miles; from the bottom of the Hill to the top is maybe a quarter of a mile, give or take.

The other hill is the Hill of Death, too, but I usually go downhill on that one.

Anyway, my goal nowadays is to walk to the bottom of the Hill of Death and then jog or even run up it. I usually start running, and then as the incline gets steeper, I start jogging. A couple dozen or more yards from the top, as the grade is at its steepest, I come in sight of a frakking STOP sign that seems to be encouraging me to just give up and die, so I've learned to stare mostly at the ground, hoping that every time I look up the sign is closer so I can stop. There's a right turn after the STOP sign where the route actually continues to go uphill, but for now, my goal is just to make it from the bottom to the STOP sign.

Both times around the route today today -- once after doing a power run on level ground to the top of the second Hill of Death (where I'd face a downhill jog afterward) and the second time after doing a power run up to the top of the first Hill of Death -- I passed by a couple of attractive ladies. These weren't the strong supermodel with the attractive Lexus and the sexy bottle of cold water that I fantasized about yesterday, but they were reasonably attractive. The first was about my age, walking a couple of dogs, and the second was younger, walking by herself. Each time, I briefly thought about Rocky running through the streets of Philadelphia and making that awesome run up to the top of the steps, but instead of making such a show myself, I just gasped and wheezed along in as manly a way as I could. Usually, I give people with dogs a relatively wide berth, but the lady with the dogs saw what I was going through, smiled, and walked wide around me.

As tired as I was around her, though, the second time was worse, because it marked my second power run up to the top of the first Hill of Death, cursing that frakking STOP sign as soon as I got in sight of it. I managed to reach the sign just as I was about to collapse, and I discovered that, while my legs were aching as expected, my butt cheeks were in incredible and unexpected pain as well. I turned the corner and kept walking along the route, holding myself up by pushing against a garden wall on my right. I saw the second, younger girl coming down the walkway toward me, and as I passed, I smiled and wheezed a "Hi."

I reflected at this point that I would gladly have traded the strong supermodel with the attractive Lexus and the sexy bottle of cold water for an ugly old crone with a rusty wheelbarrow and a syringe full of morphine to be injected into each butt cheek. She wouldn't even have to bring me home. Just dump me into the wheelbarrow at the side of the road and let the morphine do its work.

Eventually, I got home, where I had a bowl full of Froot Loops with whole milk (I figured my bones and muscles have been taking a beating) and a bottle of Gatorade. Then I got into a hot bath to wait for the pain in my legs to go away. (My butt is fine now, thanks for asking.) The muscle aches in my knees didn't go away until after I gave up waiting. As I waited in the bath, I remembered that Jimmy Connors once remarked on a conversation with, I think, Bjorn Borg, in which both agreed that the first things to go as one gets older are the legs.

Sounds right to me.

Posted: Sun - January 14, 2007 at 05:21 PM          

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