TKOG Who’ll race you to the end of the block (providing there’s a hospital there)

This post is about me trying to improve my body but, entre nous, even without trying, women already kind of have the being-sexy thing down to a science. Check out my list of top five all-time sexy female attributes over at SSoLA. (Trigger Warning: accidental, uh, cannibal tangent?)

NTKOG #211: The kind of disgustingly virtuous personal fitness junkie who jolts awake  at 6am, runs approximately half the circumference of the globe, then saunters into work with a soy-protein smoothie, no worse for the wear.

I am: out of shape. As in, I wouldn’t take on Pavarotti in a footrace. And, yes, I am aware he’s dead.

I am not: up for flaunting this fact to the general populace. While I’m certainly one for periodic bursts of virtuous exercise, they tend to take place behind closed doors. Heck, even buying a guest-pass to an all-women’s gym stressed me out!

The Scene: The mean streets of Brighton, Allston and – depending how in-shape I feel – as far as Brookline. Y’know, the streets where other people exist. And watch you. And judge.

For the past two weeks (sssssshh, I don’t I won’t stick with it, but let’s play pretend, shall we?), four mornings a week I’ve been jerking myself out of bed at 6:30 and immediately shackling on those running shoes for a half-hour or so of mad dashing. I’ll always be a Brain, but I’m trying to make more of an effort now to think of my body as a pivotal component of my human experience, instead of a dude who just happens to get invited to all the same parties I do.

Have you guys heard of the Couch-to-5K program? It’s basically interval training for people who, like me, suck at exercise. More importantly, it has a free iPhone app, wherein a posh woman with a slight New Zealand accent coos in your ear: “Now run for two minutes!” “You can walk again in half a minute!” “You can start walking … in ten seconds!”

She always fools me with that last one. Bitch.

For those of you blessed enough to live far, far away from muggy East Coast summers, let me tell you: early-morning jogging and 80-degree, 90%-humidity weather do. not. mix. The first morning of my “training” (ha!), as I launched into the third of what should have been eight easy one-minute runs, I suddenly stopped, gasping. My friggin’ lungs were filling with water! Flaming water! Oh god make it stop.

Forget Couch-To-5K. Maybe there’s some sort of remedial Bed-To-Couch program I could start with?

The part I most feared, though, was being forced to catch eyes with other early-morning dwellers while my sweaty, wheezing self polluted the neighborhood scenery. It’s not nice and it’s not okay, but you know we’ve all had cruel thoughts or even made snide comments about out-of-shape joggers. Obviously it makes no sense, because, dude, they’re obviously trying to help their bodies, but – I don’t know. People can be kind of sucky.

For a couple of mornings, I was desperately paranoid that the worst would come to pass. My seventh-grade crush would pop out behind some shrubbery and jeer: “Uh, maybe you should have tried diet before exercise!” Maybe Jillian Michaels would leap down from the top of a building and punch me in the face. Something awful would happen – I just knew it.

Then, on my third morning, the thing I’d feared the most: as I careened down a residential hill near the end of my work-out, the back of my tank top blooming a gruesome Rorschach of sweat, a middle-aged man working on the truck in his driveway shouted something out to me.

“What?!” I called back, taking out my earbuds, trying to set my jaw into a weak smile.

“I said good for you, honey.” He shouted back. “Hot fucking day. I couldn’t do it.”

Somehow the pain mysteriously seeped out of my tired muscles as I raced the rest of the way home.

The Verdict: Well, after a few mornings of surreptitiously googling “how to run with oxygen tank” at work, I think I’ve very slightly started to get the hang of the thing. A little more mileage, a smidgeon fewer pleas for death. Hell, this time a year from now, I might not even break a sweat trying to peel an orange.

Tagged as: by the time you're reading this i've already exercised today. which is less of a big deal if you don't read it right when it goes up at 7:30. but still., health, jogging, just bought my first pair of running shoes! couldn't afford 'em but i was ripping my feet up before., my seventh grade crush is actually a pilates instructor now so it would be SUPER AWFUL if he ever saw me try to jog (but whatever 'cause we totally hooked up a few times in high school), not to make fat jokes at pavarotti's expense but dude KILLED A HORSE WITH HIS GIRTH and sometimes that just needs to be pointed out, please stop me from eating when i get to horse-slaying size., running, when did we start calling it "running" instead of "jogging"? did people realize jog was a stupid word? or did we as a society just start moving faster?